Keg Conditioning

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Roachmeister

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It seems the vast majority of people bottle here, but I took one look at the work involved in bottling and decided to go the keg route. As I read, people talk about letting bottled beer age and seeing some really good results from time to time. What about letting it sit in the keg? Does that work too? I note it says you need less sugar as a primer if you condition in the keg because it is under CO2 pressure anyhow.

Any clues, cues, suggestions, comments? Is there any sort of trick to keg conditioning?
 
Yep, a little less sugar usually gets the job done and then just treat it like one big bottle. Let it sit near room temp for a few weeks and it should carb up nice. Then all you have to do is hook the keg up to serving pressure and let it cool down for a few days (or weeks) and you're good to go.
 
It's kind of too bad you can't really just tap off a bottle or two and keg the rest. Would be interesting to see the difference.

Or I dunno, I guess you could rack some off and do a micro-starter based on a calculation of the amount that would have been needed for the whole... Seems kind of complicated sitting here thinking about it, but the math actually wouldn't be that hard.

hrm.
 
Oh, well, I had no idea there were such things as carb tabs. Thanks!

Oh yeah... They're excellent for the scenario you described.
http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_info.php?products_id=10600
This is the easiest and cheapest way. Before you keg, fill a 6 packs, drop in some carb-tabs, and put the bottles aside like your normally would. Then rack the rest of the beer in to the keg and carb via your preferred method (force or natural).

Or... you can take the "Beer Gun" or counterpressure filler route. Carb your beer in a keg, then bottle with one of these. I've never tried it before, mostly because the other way is so darn simple. Just doesn't seem to be worth the effort. :)
http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_info.php?products_id=10400
 
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