Using Keg as Secondary for Lager

I am in the process of making my first lager and I am at the point of needing to move it to the secondary and plan on using one of my kegs for this. Question, can I also add priming sugar to the keg so it is carbonated at the end of the secondary phase and ready to hook to the tap and start drinking?

So, I went ahead and added the priming sugar in the keg and put my keg in the garage at 40 degrees. I suppose I will need to bring the keg in to room temp in order for the priming sugar to carbonate the beer. Any opinions?

I just started kegging and lagering as well, but I can at least give you my thoughts. It should carbonate at 40 degrees since you are using lager yeast. Ale yeast won't carbonate at 40* because the yeast goes dormant in the colder temperatures.

OK, disregard that comment. After doing some research, it seems to require room temperature to carbonate. I really need to brush up on my lagering techniques.

Thanks for your thoughts CarsonCE! My plan is to leave it at 35 to 40 degrees for 3 to 4 weeks and then bring it in to room temperature for a few weeks to carbonate. Hopefully it works out. My first kegging experience was not good so hopefully this one goes better.

abonzer said:

I am in the process of making my first lager and I am at the point of needing to move it to the secondary and plan on using one of my kegs for this. Question, can I also add priming sugar to the keg so it is carbonated at the end of the secondary phase and ready to hook to the tap and start drinking?

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There may be some useful information here:

http://thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/562

Jim

abonzer said:

My first kegging experience was not good so hopefully this one goes better.

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What went wrong?

I did not get all the soda/acid residue out of the keg well enough before I dumped my beer. At least that is what I think happened. The beer had a very funny twang to it that I have not had with bottling. Almost undrinkable. Other than that I think everything went ok. I did not try to force carb. I just hooked it up to the gas and let it sit for a few weeks, that is why I want to try to carb it with priming sugar.

CarsonCE said:

OK, disregard that comment. After doing some research, it seems to require room temperature to carbonate. I really need to brush up on my lagering techniques.

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You were technically right, it would just take many months.

I would split apart the lagering and carbonating if I were you, but I also wouldn't naturally carb a lager because then you are re-introducing sediment after lagering to get rid of all of it.

I am not a lager expert, hence this post, but doesn't the yeast strain have more to do with a beer being a lager than sediment in the beer? If you can't naturally carbonate a lager than how do you bottle a lager if you don't have a keg and a beer gun?

abonzer said:

I am not a lager expert, hence this post, but doesn't the yeast strain have more to do with a beer being a lager than sediment in the beer? If you can't naturally carbonate a lager than how do you bottle a lager if you don't have a keg and a beer gun?

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Usually you have to reintroduce yeast, though I have heard of bottle lagering in which it sounds like you wouldn't.

In any case, my above statement should have added "given the choice, I would force carb". So, if you can, you should, though your technique will work also. It is basically the way the bottlers do it, but in a keg.