Alcohol Change; Cabonating vs. Secondary

If you just went straight to the keg from primary and carbonated in the keg instead of secondary fermenting to gain natural carbonation, what is just a guesstimate of the difference that you might get in alcohol level?

Minuscule, 1/4%, 1/2%?

Now for the BIG question; is the secondary step WORTH the extra hassle of cleaning a sec. fermenter and then re kegging (using a corny to secondary) as far as conditioning/flavor gains? Or is the flavor/body gain miniscule?

Trying to figure out if I should count on always doing a sec. as a matter of course, or since having kegging capability, just eliminating this traditional step of beer making?

I CAN, but SHOULD I?

Okay-- stop.

What is commonly referred to as 'Secondary Fermentation' has absolutely nothing to do with carbonation. What you are talking about is natural carbonation. Secondary fermentaion is really just transferring to a new vessel to get off the old yeast cake, largely in an effort to help the beer get more clear.

If you dont' use a secondary fermenter then you STILL need to let the beer ferment for the extra couple weeks. Green beer is green beer--- there are no shortcuts. Beer takes 4-6 weeks to properly finish.

You can decide not to use the secondary vessel but that jsut means you'll either leave the beer in primary for a longer period, or transfer to the keg and let it sit for a couple weeks.

Your right and I do understand the difference, just no caffeine yet today.

Still, I was asking if there is that much appreciable gain in priming for natural carbonation, or if having a CO2 system just obsoletes the whole step.

Wondering if there is still merit in including a priming step, for body/flavor/alcohol increase, or if just keg conditioning/carbonation has made this unnecessary?

IF it doesn't make much difference they why bother, anymore?

There is an measurable amount of alcohol produced by priming. There's another thread recently that explored the math.

Personally I find little taste difference between a keg that has been force carbed and aged properly (note that its still force carbing if you look up to low pressure for a week or 2) and beer that has been primed in the keg (after sucking off the trub).

In my opinion, there's no compelling reason to prime a keg.

And back to the original post. I think it's definitely worth the time to secondary.

Some people find that it is easier to just add some corn sugar to their keg when they rack, and let it condition/carbonate by itself over the next several weeks- this way you don't need to hook it up to a gas line at all until you are ready to dispense. I have thought about trying this, but thus far I have not.