Keg Conditioning Question

For those of you that "keg condition" (ie, rack to a keg and condition at room temperature before cooling with CO2) do you just purge the headspace and store in a cool dry place or do you actually use priming sugar as in bottling?

If you use priming sugar, I'm assuming you use the same "serving" pressure on the reg? Am I right?

If you are force carbing, then yes, just purge the headspace, and put the keg someplace cool - no sugar needed/desired. When it's ready to drink, just drop it in the cooler with the gas set at serving temp and in about a week it's good to go.

If priming naturally, when you get ready to serve it the serving pressure is the same as the force carbed method.

Jester369 said:

If priming naturally, when you get ready to serve it the serving pressure is the same as the force carbed method.

Click to expand...

wierd there's another thread kinda on the same topic....

I don't think what you've written here is accurate. Unless you have a pressure regulator relief valve on the keg, then the pressure from naturaly conditioning at first will be largley dependent on how much priming sugar you add. The more sugar, the more carbonation.

Once you hook up the CO2 bottle and start dispensing, the pressure will eventually equalize to whatever you set your regulator to.

If you are going to keg condition, I would hook it up to CO2 after transfer just to ensure the seals on the keg are set and not leaking.

Two cases for me:

1. I'm doing a kit that comes with priming sugar. It goes in the keg. Sometimes this is too much, so I always burp a keg before hooking it up.
2. My own recipe. I purge the head space and let it condition.

Both cases, I put a little pressure on to ensure the lid is sealed.

before transferring to the keg, i usually purge the O2 by putting the gas into the OUT hookup before the transfer for a second or two.

when the beer is transferred to keg, i seal her up, and add 28psi to the keg in order to test for leaks, and get a jump on carbonation.

then i let the keg sit to condition at room temp for a week, or two, or three....

after my desired conditioning period, i then put in kegerator and serve cold at 8 to 10 psi.

this works for me, but ymmv.