Priming a partially filled keg

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GUZ808

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Hello I am trying to keg a batch of american amber with priming sugar.
My problem is I don't have a full 5 gallons of beer to prime.
So my problem, I have 4 gallons of beer and want to prime my 5 gallon keg with sugar. I know I will have some head space in the keg, so do I add more of less priming sugar because of that?
 
Bump......Bump

Does anyone have a clue if I should add a little more priming sugar or less?
Or will using the same amount be fine?
 
GUZ808 said:
Bump......Bump

Does anyone have a clue if I should add a little more priming sugar or less?
Or will using the same amount be fine?
Click to expand...

Fuc& it add more you can always bleed it off-
 
Add a lil more since there is more air (headspace) that needs to be pressurized. How much, I don't think I can help ya there.
 
kpr121 said:
Add a lil more since there is more air (headspace) that needs to be pressurized. How much, I don't think I can help ya there.
Click to expand...

Come in- the math is easy.

Crunching the numbers I came up with 4.54572158oz and if it seems over carbonated than bleed off the extra gassssss
 
You definitely need to purge the O2 out of the keg. And you're going to need to fill the keg with some pressure to seal it (20+psi). I don't know how much sugar you need. Check out this thread. I'll quote what seems like sound advice:

Yooper said:
The easiest way is to prime as usual, ... then fill the keg.... Headspace isn't an issue at all- you can put the co2 on the keg, and purge the headspace several times to displace any air with co2.

And it will carbonate quite a bit in the keg, after priming, but you can also force carb to correct any lack of carbonation. It might even have more carbonation than you desire. Usually you use 1/2 the amount of priming sugar for a full keg, so I'm not sure how much you'd use for a keg that's only half full. If it's a little overcarbed, that's easy to fix just by releasing the pressure a few times.
Click to expand...

So, you can prime with 1/2 as much sugar as you otherwise would have, and force carb if it comes up short. Or you can use the originally called for amount and purge if it's over-carbed. Since you want to carb it with the priming sugar, I'd go with the original amount and purge if necessary.
 
I found a priming calculator on Northern brew website. I'll go with what it says. If its over for some reason I'll just purge it out.
I finally got my CO2 tank in so I can put my priming sugar and beer in the keg, hit it with 20 PSI and then let it sit for a month or so.(I don't need the beer now)

Thanks for the replies guys
 

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