Hello from Michigan.

I've been thinking about brewing my own beer for 15 years now but never pulled the trigger until now. The brewbug bit me again a few months ago and I found this site. :rockin:

After lurking for a while I ordered the brewing starter kit with glass carboy and a Bavarian Wheat recipe kit from midwest. Going to brew my first time this weekend as soon as I get a wort chiller made. After reading a few great threads on how to do it I decided it was just way easier to make a chiller than to fool around with ice in the sink.

I also plan to keg instead of bottle. I've had a kegerator(full size fridge converted) for years so it was a no brainer. Just needed the ball lock keg and connectors which Midwest had as well.

For those of you that Keg: I'm still a little unclear on how to carb in the keg.
1) I've read that if you use the priming sugar included in the kits that you don't need to use the full amount in the keg?
2)I also understand that I can skip the priming sugar and just hook up the co2 and use pressure and shaking to carb the beer?
3)Do I still need to use the bottling bucket if I'm filling the keg without priming sugar? Or can I just siphon strait from the secondary fermentor into the keg?

I plan to fill a few bottles(just to see what its like) and put the rest in the keg for this first batch, so I will be using the priming sugar and bottling bucket.

Wish me luck.

Good choice to start! You'll wish you did 14 years ago. Also, good call to keg instead of bottle. The packaging process will take you 20 minutes instead of a few hours or so (for me the first two batches took 2 hours to bottle).

I don't use priming sugar and siphon the beer from the secondary straight into the keg. You'll find different ways to carbonate the beer if you search. Some impatient people turn the pressure up to 30-40 psi and shake the hell out of the keg. Indeed this will carb it faster but you run the risk of over-carbing also. I usually set a regular Ale at 14 psi and leave it for a few weeks. The yeast will settle to the bottom so plan on dumping your first pint or so and you're good from there. You can add the priming sugar and leave the keg somewhere at room temp but there really isn't the need to. Less clean up going from secondary into the keg.

If you fill a few bottles, I would dump a bit of either sugar or boiled and cooled sugar water into each bottle, fill, cap and put them in a fairly warm place for a couple weeks. I've never done this and I would suggest being careful because bottle-bombs suck. You can also counter-pressure fill the bottles from the keg after the beer is carb'd. There are a couple easy ways that searching will find. I don't have a beer gun yet so I turn the keg pressure to zero, stick the bottle-wand into the black "cobra tap", insert that into the bottle and fill slowly from the bottom up. Put the cap on, flip the bottle so it foams (pushing the oxygen out) and cap on the foam. It's not ideal but it's great for bringing some home brew to friends houses or for a weekend trip.

Oh, and GOOD LUCK!

Oh man the MI members have been growing like crazy lately! Welcome aboard!

As for the kegging:
1) I don't know, I've never primed in my kegs.

2) Yes, this is the method I use except I forego the shaking part. Shaking makes it more difficult to determine the level of carbonation in the beer. Some guys have good luck with it though. I usually use the set it and forget it method, generally around 12psi for a couple of weeks and the beer is good to go. Use a chart like this to determine which PSI to use based on the desired volumes of CO2 and temperature, http://www.kegerators.com/carbonation-table.php

3)No, siphon straight from your secondary. One of the bigger discussions recently has been the importance (or lack of) of the secondary fermenter. A lot of folks, myself included, leave the beer in the primary for longer periods of time and bottle/keg straight from there.

Hope this helps!

Gridlocked said:

If you fill a few bottles, I would dump a bit of either sugar or boiled and cooled sugar water into each bottle, fill, cap and put them in a fairly warm place for a couple weeks. I've never done this and I would suggest being careful because bottle-bombs suck. You can also counter-pressure fill the bottles from the keg after the beer is carb'd. There are a couple easy ways that searching will find. I don't have a beer gun yet so I turn the keg pressure to zero, stick the bottle-wand into the black "cobra tap", insert that into the bottle and fill slowly from the bottom up. Put the cap on, flip the bottle so it foams (pushing the oxygen out) and cap on the foam. It's not ideal but it's great for bringing some home brew to friends houses or for a weekend trip.

Oh, and GOOD LUCK!

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Thanks for the advice. Maybe I'll just skip the bottling all together for this batch. Definitely don't want any bottle bombs. The ony reason I thought about bottling is because the kit came with the caps and capper so I thought I would try them out. No need for this if I can bottle a few from the keg when needed.

fishkid said:

2) I usually use the set it and forget it method, generally around 12psi for a couple of weeks and the beer is good to go. Use a chart like this to determine which PSI to use based on the desired volumes of CO2 and temperature, http://www.kegerators.com/carbonation-table.php
:

Click to expand...

Thanks, I think this is the way to go for me too.