Carbonation

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How do you Carb.

  • Bottle with sugar

  • Bottle with DME

  • Keg - Forced

  • Keg - Prime DME/Sugar

  • Other


Results are only viewable after voting.

Orfy

For the love of beer!
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Carbonation
How do you do it in the main?

I have kegs and CO2 but I can't see a reason not to prime.
If I had a party coming up and needed beer for a short deadline then I'd force carb.
 
Force CO2 for my keggers, corn sugar for my bottles. I am so not Reinsghbot (or whatever the heck the spelling is).
 
<insert lightbulb over head>

Why don't I naturally carbonate my kegs in queue? They sit there pressurized but flat, waiting to be tossed in the kegger and then I wait 5+ days for them to carb up before I can have a pull! (yes, I'm talking to myself again Orfy).
 
With all the beer that I brew, I don't have room to keg. Bottles it is. And I carb with corn sugar mostly, just because it's much cheaper than DME.
 
when I bottle I like to use Kraeusen. Though it is a motre complicated process I like the consistent results that I get from it. The bottles are usually fully carbonated after 1 week and I can easily change the yeast if I want to. The latter seems to make a difference for wheats.

I once made an experinemt where I compared different priming agents (table sugar, corn sugar, DME, gyle and kraeusen) and couldn't really find a difference in taste.

Due to a limited number of kegs I only use the kegs for my lagers. I transfer from the primary to the secondary/lagering keg when about 2*P fermentable sugars are left and/or add Kraeusen. I then let the fermentation carbonate the beer and vent excessive pressure. I like this method as it gets me the yeast necessary for lagering and once lagering is over the beer is transfered to a serving keg and ready to go.

I'm not sure if the more complicated process makes a difference in the final taste, but at least it works well for me from a technological point of view.

Kai
 
I bottle my big beers and keg the rest except for an occasional real ale. If I'm not in a hurry for a keg, I'll condition otherwise I force carb. I rarely use corn sugar, mostly DME, honey, or BCS.

Wild
 
Just started kegging, but when I bottle I use DME. Even though I recently started kegging I plan on bottling the occasional batch as it is somewhat more satisfying seeing all those bottles sitting in the closet, with the kegs it's a mystery how much actually remains.
 
Current setup is bottling with corn sugar. In the future I may go to kegs, and they'd probably be forced. I really want to put my Oatmeal Stout on Nitro. Bottling always has some advantages, so I don't think I'll ever phase it out completely.
 
zoebisch01 said:
Quick solution, weigh the empty keg on a bathroom scale.

I'll rephrase my statement, with kegs it's harder to determine how much remains. I don't personally want to routinely try to weigh my kegs (and I've heard of the strips that can be used as well).

Good idea though. :mug:
 
I've been just using corn sugar because it's cheap and consistent. I'm really surprised at the lack of votes for DME, though; I would have guessed it was close to 50/50 for bottlers between sugar and DME.
 
Flyin' Lion said:
I'll rephrase my statement, with kegs it's harder to determine how much remains. I don't personally want to routinely try to weigh my kegs (and I've heard of the strips that can be used as well).

Good idea though. :mug:


Ahh gotcha! Yeah, come to think of it if I were in that situation I wouldn't either...:D

There goes the Engineering mindset again bleh. I always seem to try to solve things, just in my nature.

Back to the regularly scheduled program, sorry for the detour folks :fro:
 
As most of my beers are real ales and kegged, I simply don't carb.
But on the rare occasions that I bottle, I use corn sugar except for once when I had run out and I used table sugar. I couldn't taste any difference.

-a.
 
Flyin' Lion said:
Just started kegging, but when I bottle I use DME. Even though I recently started kegging I plan on bottling the occasional batch as it is somewhat more satisfying seeing all those bottles sitting in the closet, with the kegs it's a mystery how much actually remains.

I do have a similar problem since I don't have a keg-o-rator I have to use the picnic tap to pour a beer. Since it's hard to balance a picnic tap (unless you want to boil up ~10ft of hose) I don't like using a keg unless I'm trowing a party and can dial the serving pressure down w/o worrying about loosing to much carbonation.

That's why I still bottle everything that I don't plan to give the lager treatment, which is true for all my ales right now. Even if once I have a keg-o-rator I'll keep bottling wheat beer since I like to be able to have a contolled amount of yeast in each serving.

Kai
 
Flyin' Lion said:
I'll rephrase my statement, with kegs it's harder to determine how much remains. I don't personally want to routinely try to weigh my kegs (and I've heard of the strips that can be used as well).

Good idea though. :mug:

It's not exact, but a quick rocking of the keg is a pretty good indicator for me.
 
I only keg, and I force carbonate because I am so damn impatient. Orfy has me contemplating a primed keg, though. Hmmmm.

For me, kegs are a lot easier - there are times when I wish I had bottles for bringing with me though...
 
MA_Brewer said:
I only keg, and I force carbonate because I am so damn impatient. Orfy has me contemplating a primed keg, though. Hmmmm.

For me, kegs are a lot easier - there are times when I wish I had bottles for bringing with me though...

Give it a go. It's the "real" way:D
Think about it. How did they make beer before they had kegs, co2 and regulators.
 
I did some quick prowling and didn't find an answer... We got a write-up somewhere on keg priming someone can point me to? Wasn't sure if "burping" the keg is needed or just let it go like a bottle. I'd also assume you have to initially pressurize the keg as well and the reason I'd think you may need to burp them?
 
Depends on the style, the temp and the required fizz level.

Any where from 80 to 140 ish.

I use beersmith and it tells me the amount to use or you can use a carb table or guess and adjust to taste.

If you want me to give you an exact amount let me know the style you are aiming for , the temp the keg will sit at and the amount of carbing you like and I'll get the details for you.
 
Yea, Promash has a tool to determine dme/corn sugar for as well when carbing in the keg. Back to my one remaining question in case it floats by, do you have to burp em at all and do you pressurize the keg a bit?
 
orfy said:
Depends on the style, the temp and the required fizz level.

Any where from 80 to 140 ish.

I use beersmith and it tells me the amount to use or you can use a carb table or guess and adjust to taste.

If you want me to give you an exact amount let me know the style you are aiming for , the temp the keg will sit at and the amount of carbing you like and I'll get the details for you.


I can check it out in ProMash I suppose - I'm not THAT lazy (to make you do it for me). Thanks for the help Orfy.
 
desertBrew said:
Yea, Promash has a tool to determine dme/corn sugar for as well when carbing in the keg. Back to my one remaining question in case it floats by, do you have to burp em at all and do you pressurize the keg a bit?

If by burping you mean purging then no. I purge the keg before racking then put the lid on and yes I do give a little pressure just to help the lid seal. The I just let it sit 2 to 3 weeks then put on serving pressure.

A cask breather would be ideal but I don't have one.
 
Burping - yea, should have explained. I wasn't sure if after lightly pressurizing the keg to get it to seal + the keg carbonation pressure got so great that you need to release a little pressure time to time. Sounds like nope, just let it build up. Cask Breather - will have to google that one. Thanks
 
I do them all from time to time, whatever is convenient or needed.

In a hurry? force carb.
don't want to mess with chilling and hooking up tank? DME or sugar in keg
don't have any DME? Sugar
don't have any sugar? DME
want to keg some and bottle some? sugar tablets.
 
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