My first try at kegging

So I transferred my Canadian ale to the keg yesterday... I don't yet have a CO2 tank and regulator so I just used portable CO2 injector to seal it up. Similar to this:


I just added corn sugar, but wanted to know if the CO2 injector will add any carbination. When I first sealed it, it blew the pressure relief valve , so I know it put over 130PSI in there, but how much will disolve?

How long will it take the keg to carbonate with just the sugar.

hey,

thanks for asking this question, i am also wondering about using one of those hand held ones for this process.

You are going to want to release much of that pressure. 130 psi is WAY too high, especially since you also primed. Since you used priming sugar putting in 3 or 4 pounds of pressure is all you need to get yourself carbonated.

Really, it's a question of either or. Either you use priming sugar and carbonate naturally OR you skip the priming sugar and force carbonate.

While there are varying opinions (as with anything in Home Brew it seems) there is really no reason not to force carbonate. It is faster, more easily controled and less prone to error than priming.

However one doesn't do both and certainly not at 130 psi.

Those items are really only best used to dispense; typically for taking a keg to go to a party. I have no idea how many of those cartridges in total you'd have to use but since you're carbonating with sugar you had the right idea to use it to just seal the keg. Since you have no gauge to read, this seems as though it would be a difficult call on how long to hold that trigger. IMO, you would use that CO2 trigger just enough to seal the keg and would bleed 3-4 times to get rid of the oxygen on the top. Your going to get carbonation and pressure from the sugar.

Since I use a standard CO2 tank others may have better insight to share since I've never carbonated with sugar with my keg setup.

Yep I was amazed when it blew the relief valve. Thing is I didn't hold it down too long... and still had a lot of CO2 left in the canister.
I think I'll let some of the pressure out and let it carbonate itself. This was my original idea, but got to wondering if it could possible force carbonate it.

My idea was since it was a burst of pressure, and not regulated it could dissipate and carbonate the beer.

I know the first time we force carbonated at my buddies house it absorbed much of the co2 and we had to keep adding some, granted this was regulated pressure. (His tank is outside his fridge so he just hooks it up when it need pressure)

From what I have read the yeast will stop working at about 90 psi so it will not prime.

I would prime and let it carbonate naturally, then as you drink the beer you will need to use CO2 cartridges to dispense as the pressure drops in the keg (since it is a sealed vessel). Using CO2 cartridges or bottles to force carbonate needs to be done with care (preferably using a pressure valve to monitor the pressure in the vessel)

Well curiosity got the best of me so I had to hook up my cobra tap and see what this beer was looking like. Granted it sucked up some sediment, the beer was fairly carbonated. The first bit that came out was a lot of foam, but it is at room temperature.