Saving CO2 by keg priming?

I'm just getting into kegging and I am planning out my process. I'm leaning towards priming the keg and letting it sit for a few more weeks at room temperature and then putting in the kegerator on gas at serving pressure. My thought process is that priming would conserve CO2 and reduce trips to the gas supply shop, which is a chore I wish to minimize (read: its a PITA). Sugar is cheap. Additional conditioning time is also not a bad thing. My question is this...is there an appreciable extension in bottle life by priming the keg?

MyAlement said:

[...]My question is this...is there an appreciable extension in bottle life by priming the keg?

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I'm sure there would be. While dispensing only requires the displacement volume (ie: to dispense 5 gallons of beer consumes 5 gallons or ~ .7 cu ft of CO2), carbonation requires multiple volumes of gas (eg: at 2.5 volumes, 12.5 gallons or ~ 1.7 cu ft of gas would be consumed)...

Cheers!

I prime in the keg and have had good results, one benefit is as soon as you cool the primed keg it is good to drink. The one down side is you get a lot of yeast in the first pint or so, but I just (dare I say?) dump that and pull a fresh pint. Good way to save money and a bit of carb time, IMHOP

Good points in both posts. Thanks for the responses. I'm going to prime my first few kegs and see how it goes. Further experimentation to follow.

I read a write up somewhere that a guy was priming his kegs and got sick of the first pint of "trub" and trimmed his pick up tube by a half inch or so to keep the trub in the keg instead of in his glass kinda a neat solution

JoeyChopps said:

I read a write up somewhere that a guy was priming his kegs and got sick of the first pint of "trub" and trimmed his pick up tube by a half inch or so to keep the trub in the keg instead of in his glass kinda a neat solution

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True you can do this but I figure why go through the trouble, it really isn't a big deal to dump the first pint, not like you have to do it every time.

Agreed I don't think I could bring myself to cut a pickup tube just a neat way some ( with more manliness than me) fix problems I guess

Good thread, I have been thinking of doing this also. I only have room for 2-3 kegs in the fridge but I like to have other beers ready to go when one is empty. This way you could prime your beer in seperate kegs and just switch with the empty as soon as its cold it would be ready to go. Love it!

bambam26 said:

Good thread, I have been thinking of doing this also. I only have room for 2-3 kegs in the fridge but I like to have other beers ready to go when one is empty. This way you could prime your beer in seperate kegs and just switch with the empty as soon as its cold it would be ready to go. Love it!

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Exactly and if you were having a party you could even pre-chill your extra kegs in a trash can of ice and some water. ;-)

I'll be doing a double batch this weekend, a pumpkin ale and an Irish red. Two weeks or so in primary, transfer to kegs, prime and put a 30lb CO2 blanket to seal them up. Another week or two and off to the kegerator. Sounds like a plan.