Natural keg conditioning

I am about to keg my first batch, and I will let it condition naturally. Once I rack the brew into the keg, should I purge the O2 out with CO2? If so, would this be done through the in or out port? Thanks.

Do mean you are carbonating with sugar? I would use the gas in port for the CO2 and vent it a few times through the pressure relief valve.

Shooter said:

Do mean you are carbonating with sugar? I would use the gas in port for the CO2 and vent it a few times through the pressure relief valve.

Click to expand...

Is this neccesary? The problem is I have a brew sitting in a carboy ready for kegging but the CO2 bottles are off getting pressure tested. It'll be 2 weeks before I get them back. I don't want to bottle them because I'm lazy and I don't want to wait 3+ weeks for them to be ready, but alas, I may have to anyway.

I was thinking I could naturally carb it in the keg and then when I get the CO2 tanks back, be ready to go.

I don't know, I'm just frustrated I guess..........

cwaite37 said:

Is this neccesary? The problem is I have a brew sitting in a carboy ready for kegging but the CO2 bottles are off getting pressure tested. It'll be 2 weeks before I get them back. I don't want to bottle them because I'm lazy and I don't want to wait 3+ weeks for them to be ready, but alas, I may have to anyway.

I was thinking I could naturally carb it in the keg and then when I get the CO2 tanks back, be ready to go.

I don't know, I'm just frustrated I guess..........

Click to expand...

No, it's not necessary. It's nice to do- you can check the seals and make sure you don't have any leaks, as well as purge the headspace with the co2, but it's not necessary.

i don't think purging the o2 is as big a deal as making sure everything is sealed up correctly. Think about it, when you bottle you don't purge the 02.

So it's perfectly ok to prep as if bottling using the sugar, and then just rack it into a keg? Do you just close the lid and then let it sit for a week then?

I sugar primed my first keg. I had CO2, so I put the sugar water in the keg, racked from bucket, sanitized lid, put lid on, then hit with 20 psi to the Gas In post to seal the lid good and then purged a couple times.
Be aware that if your lid doesn't form a tight seal when you put it on, the CO2 generated from the priming sugar will leak out. A friend of mine had that happen. Two weeks later and he had flat beer.
On my second keg, I carbed with the tank. It took 30 psi and several lid remove/reinstalls to get the lid to seal up, even with lube on the o-rings. Obviously that lid is tweeked a bit. If I would have used that lid/keg for my sugar prime batch, I doubt it would have held a seal when the sugar/yeast did its work.
So give it a try. If you lid seals good, you'll have carbed beer. If not, hook your bottle up to it and with a couple weeks more, you'll have carbed beer.