My first beer on beergas--need help

I brewed up a NB Irish Draught that I would like to put on beer gas. My question is this. I want to naturally carb this first. What amount of sugar should I use. I was thinking of going at a volume of 2. The calculator I used was for bottles. I read you should use half of the recommended volume of sugar if you are going to keg.

The calculator listed 2.9oz of cane sugar. Should I go with that or half that amount???

Thanks for the help

Bump

As you didn't provide the volume of brew or the intended serving temperature, I will guess at both.

5 gallons in a keg served at 44°F would require 1.9 ounces of corn sugar (by weight!) for 2 volumes of carbonation...

Cheers!

You use the same quantity of sugar regardless of keg vs bottle. The vessel doesn't matter. Calculate out the weight for 2 volumes of co2 and add that to the keg.

The beauty of the keg is you can bleed off pressure if you overcarb. So it's no big deal anyway.

Lost said:

You use the same quantity of sugar regardless of keg vs bottle. The vessel doesn't matter. Calculate out the weight for 2 volumes of co2 and add that to the keg.

The beauty of the keg is you can bleed off pressure if you overcarb. So it's no big deal anyway.

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That's it, I'm throwing away every book on brewing I have as they all got this wrong, and then I'm buying yours. What's the title?

It does matter if you're kegging or bottling how much fermentables you use per volume of brew to hit a target carbonation level at a target serving temp.

But you are right about one thing, that if it's in a keg, you can always fight an overcarbed condition back down. Of course, most people would prefer getting it right to begin with...

Cheers!

jamesjensen1068 said:

I brewed up a NB Irish Draught that I would like to put on beer gas. My question is this. I want to naturally carb this first. What amount of sugar should I use. I was thinking of going at a volume of 2. The calculator I used was for bottles. I read you should use half of the recommended volume of sugar if you are going to keg.

The calculator listed 2.9oz of cane sugar. Should I go with that or half that amount???

Thanks for the help

Click to expand...

what temp are you storing it at?

day_trippr said:

That's it, I'm throwing away every book on brewing I have as they all got this wrong, and then I'm buying yours. What's the title?

It does matter if you're kegging or bottling how much fermentables you use per volume of brew to hit a target carbonation level at a target serving temp.

But you are right about one thing, that if it's in a keg, you can always fight an overcarbed condition back down. Of course, most people would prefer getting it right to begin with...

Cheers!

Click to expand...

My bad, apologies for giving out bad advice.

I've never noticed my beers being over carbed but then again I'm not too picky about carb levels either. my non-temp regulated fridge probably has pretty big temp swings which also messes with carb levels.

So why exactly do kegs require less priming sugar? Less headspace? But wouldn't that be highly variable depending on batch size variations? I don't see the mechanism whereby vessel size or shape would affect carb levels. I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just curious.

I went ahead and primed with 2.5oz of cane sugar. Volume is 5gal and temp will be 38 degrees in the keezer. My concern is I thought you had to lightly carb a beer if you are going to push it with beergas?

Lost said:

My bad, apologies for giving out bad advice.

I've never noticed my beers being over carbed but then again I'm not too picky about carb levels either. my non-temp regulated fridge probably has pretty big temp swings which also messes with carb levels.

So why exactly do kegs require less priming sugar? Less headspace? But wouldn't that be highly variable depending on batch size variations? I don't see the mechanism whereby vessel size or shape would affect carb levels. I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just curious.

Click to expand...

All of the books that covered the topic always attributed it to the difference in head space ratios, with the assumption that a five gallon keg would in fact be carbonated with five gallons of brew within, and a standard bottle would have 12 ounces of brew within.

Now, I do have to say that there have been many concepts universally accepted and published as gospel in my fairly extensive brewing book collection that apparently have since been questioned if not outright refuted (see "yeast autolysis" ) so there is certainly the chance that this could turn out to be yet another case of oft-repeated brewer folklore. But the one "natural carbonation" calculator I tried yesterday definitely followed the "bottle vs keg" paradigm contained in those books.

I don't naturally carbonate my kegs, but if I did I'd consider that eventually the contents are going to be sitting for at least a couple of weeks under serving pressure anyway (12psi here) so I'd likely go with the ~30% less fermentable strategy with the assumption that it would only take a few days under pressure to bring the typical brew up to the ~2.4 volume level.

Dealing with overcarbed kegs is a distraction, I'd rather sneak up to a good level that be fighting back down...

Cheers!

jamesjensen1068 said:

I went ahead and primed with 2.5oz of cane sugar. Volume is 5gal and temp will be 38 degrees in the keezer. My concern is I thought you had to lightly carb a beer if you are going to push it with beergas?

Click to expand...

The temperature of the keezer doesn't matter, as you have to carb the beer at room temperature.

Yooper said:

The temperature of the keezer doesn't matter, as you have to carb the beer at room temperature.

Click to expand...

Serving temperature does matter...

Cheers!

Room temp (my basement) is around 66 degrees.

when you are naturally carbing a keg, you keep it at room temperature for a few weeks so the yeast will be active, and then cool it and let the co2 disolve into the liquid over another week or two.

the only problem with this is that sometimes the lids of corney kegs need a shot of pressure to seal completely. obviously natural CO2 production is slow and if there is a small leak, it will exit there instead of seating the lid.