Kegging with primer Question

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Alfanzo

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Hello everyone. I'm a homebrew noob and was hoping u guys can help me out with concern i have.

So i brewed my first Beer couple of weeks ago. Left it in the primary for a week, then another week in the secondary. Last night i primed it and kegged it, but did not purge the oxygen since i was told by a brewer that the yeast will clean out any oxidation while carbing and that the yeast needs oxygen in the headspace to grow and properly carb the beer.. Today i pulled the pin to see if the keg is holding the gas, which it was not. i hooked up a tank and purged the oxygen and pumped co2 to get a good seal on the keg (stopped leaking from the lid at around 5 psi so i didn't go over 5psi). So my question would be: For my next brew if i go with priming a keg again, do i need to leave oxygen in it to properly carb it? or should i just add co2 to seal the lid? or should i purge it and then seal it? Thanks in Advance, Al.
 
I've never used priming sugar in a keg. Bottles yes, kegs no. I fill the sanitized keg with fresh beer, then purge the headspace two or three times, then hit it with 30 pounds of pressure to pop the seals home.
Because there's no room in the keezer, I've been storing kegs with "new" beer in the wine cellar until there an open tap in the keezer. I have a spare 20 pound co2 tank that I will use to bump up the pressure in the kegs in the wine cellar from time to time.

Good Luck...
 
I'm just getting into kegging ( <--- kegging noob over here), and I haven't primed a keg either, but what I've read is you should purge the keg of oxygen, then hit it with 5 psi just to seal the lid, take it off the gas and you should have naturally carbed beer in 2 weeks or so.

Anyone with more kegging experience care to ring in? I don't want to lead a fellow kegging noob down the wrong path :)
 
Use enough pressure to pop the seals home. CO2 is cheap. More is better. If there's some other issue, you could hit it with 30 pounds of pressure, then bleed it down.

For what it''s worth, the first 30 pounds of CO2 will be quickly absorbed by the beer and the pressure will drop way down all on its own. I don't leave the gas on while these kegs are conditioning.

Good Luck...
 
Whoever told you that the kegs "need" oxygen to prime is wrong. Fermentation is anaerobic, and you want to purge the oxygen out and replace it with co2. Just like if you were bottling- you protect the beer from oxygen, and transfer quietly without splashing as to not aerate the beer. I siphon the beer into the keg, and hit it with co2, and then purge. And do it again, so that the co2 can displace the o2 in the headspace.

You can add priming sugar to carb up your kegs- just use about 2.5 ounces per keg and you'll be all set.
 

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