carbonating beer in keg

[Arbe0]

I havent tried this, but I have heard that you can carbonate in a keg using the same way you would in bottles and not using CO2 to carbonate. Let me know if this is a good way to do it.
I think that once long ago I found something that said you use less priming sugar in a keg than in bottles. I looked but cant find that information yet.

 

[BrewerofBeers]

Of course you can do it. Use the same calculations. So same amount of sugar per volume. It's a fine way to do it, but you have to open the keg to put the sugar in. If you can, purge out the oxygen after. And you will generate a bit more yeast. Also it can take longer. But it saves on CO2 and is a more traditional method. You will still need pressure to dispense the beer or it will go flat.

I like this calculator:
https://www.brewersfriend.com/beer-priming-calculator/

 

[mac_1103]

I think that once long ago I found something that said you use less priming sugar in a keg than in bottles.

This is all over the internet. It is also wrong.

you have to open the keg to put the sugar in

Not necessarily. You can use a syringe attached to a QD or a PET bottle with a carbonation cap and a jumper.

 

[BrewerofBeers]

You can use a syringe attached to a QD or a PET bottle with a carbonation cap and a jumper.

Great idea.

 

[Arbe0]

I did find a carbonation tool on Beer Smith (not sure if everyone an see this URL..... BeerSmith 3 Online) that addressed Carbonating in a Keg. So if I put the Volume of C02 at 2.4 with temperature at 68 f and 5 gallons it shows to carbonate in a keg the pressure should be 28.4 Psi and if I naturally carbonate it shows I should use 2.13 oz of corn sugar. But if I am bottle carbonating it shows I should us 4.26 oz of corn sugar. Looks like if natural carbonating in a keg it is about half the sugar. I normally fill my keg with C02 before racking beer into a keg from the fermenter. So the process would be to set up my fermenter with a sanitized siphon, of course everything (like we all know) will be sanitized after the boil. The keg (sanitized) will have the priming sugar inside and have C02 in it. when the fermenter is ready to siphon, I will open the keg and start racking beer into the keg. Not really afraid of oxygen as this is how I do it all the time with good results. I will leave the keg at room temperature for 2 weeks or more if it needs more time to carbonate, then put it in the kegerator with a little C02 pulling the pressure release valve a few times to get as much air out as I can. I can either serve out of the keg or bottle. In that I am doing a 11% Belgian Dark Strong I plan to bottle as soon as the carbonation is right and leave it for a year. But as we all know I would need to inspect (drink) a few bottles before the year is up.

 

[day_trippr]

I've never used the BS carbonation tool but just took a look at it and it seems...wrong.
I don't get why the keg primer is like half the bottle primer. Is it a head space thing?

Cheers!

 

[Arbe0]

Of course you can do it. Use the same calculations. So same amount of sugar per volume. It's a fine way to do it, but you have to open the keg to put the sugar in. If you can, purge out the oxygen after. And you will generate a bit more yeast. Also it can take longer. But it saves on CO2 and is a more traditional method. You will still need pressure to dispense the beer or it will go flat.

I like this calculator:
https://www.brewersfriend.com/beer-priming-calculator/

I have used Brewers Friend and like the priming calculator but I didn't see anything of natural priming in a keg.

I've never used the BS carbonation tool but just took a look at it and it seems...wrong.
I don't get why the keg primer is like half the bottle primer. Is it a head space thing?

View attachment 824797

Cheers!

I have never naturally carbonated in a keg so I don't really know. have you had good results using the same priming sugar as bottling?

 

[Arbe0]

Of course you can do it. Use the same calculations. So same amount of sugar per volume. It's a fine way to do it, but you have to open the keg to put the sugar in. If you can, purge out the oxygen after. And you will generate a bit more yeast. Also it can take longer. But it saves on CO2 and is a more traditional method. You will still need pressure to dispense the beer or it will go flat.

I like this calculator:
https://www.brewersfriend.com/beer-priming-calculator/

I have used Brewers Friend and like the priming calculator but I didn't see anything of natural priming in a keg.

I did find a carbonation tool on Beer Smith (not sure if everyone an see this URL..... BeerSmith 3 Online) that addressed Carbonating in a Keg. So if I put the Volume of C02 at 2.4 with temperature at 68 f and 5 gallons it shows to carbonate in a keg the pressure should be 28.4 Psi and if I naturally carbonate it shows I should use 2.13 oz of corn sugar. But if I am bottle carbonating it shows I should us 4.26 oz of corn sugar. Looks like if natural carbonating in a keg it is about half the sugar. I normally fill my keg with C02 before racking beer into a keg from the fermenter. So the process would be to set up my fermenter with a sanitized siphon, of course everything (like we all know) will be sanitized after the boil. The keg (sanitized) will have the priming sugar inside and have C02 in it. when the fermenter is ready to siphon, I will open the keg and start racking beer into the keg. Not really afraid of oxygen as this is how I do it all the time with good results. I will leave the keg at room temperature for 2 weeks or more if it needs more time to carbonate, then put it in the kegerator with a little C02 pulling the pressure release valve a few times to get as much air out as I can. I can either serve out of the keg or bottle. In that I am doing a 11% Belgian Dark Strong I plan to bottle as soon as the carbonation is right and leave it for a year. But as we all know I would need to inspect (drink) a few bottles before the year is up.

this may be a good time to us fermening in a keg with a spunding valve.

 

[day_trippr]

I have used Brewers Friend and like the priming calculator but I didn't see anything of natural priming in a keg.

I have never naturally carbonated in a keg so I don't really know. have you had good results using the same priming sugar as bottling?

The last time I used priming sugar was bottling back in 2004, when I had to keg 40 gallons of beer on what turned out to be literally the hottest day of the year here - in freakin' May, ffs! I kept the windows closed and the AC off 'cuz I didn't want "stuff" flying all about that might end up in one of the 400+ bottles and was soaked through from sweat by the 100th bottle.

I got on line and started buying everything for my first keezer that night.
I've never used primer with kegging...

Cheers!

 

[Arbe0]

The last time I used priming sugar was bottling back in 2004, when I had to keg 40 gallons of beer on what turned out to be literally the hottest day of the year here - in freakin' May, ffs! I kept the windows closed and the AC off 'cuz I didn't want "stuff" flying all about that might end up in one of the 400+ bottles and was soaked through from sweat by the 100th bottle.

I got on line and started buying everything for my first keezer that night.
I've never used primer with kegging...

Cheers!

Kegging is the best thing ever. I normally only bottle from the keg for sharing at the club meetings, sharing at Homebrewers night or beer going to a competition.

 

[easttex]

I havent tried this, but I have heard that you can carbonate in a keg using the same way you would in bottles and not using CO2 to carbonate. Let me know if this is a good way to do it.
I think that once long ago I found something that said you use less priming sugar in a keg than in bottles. I looked but cant find that information yet.

Yes, it will work. Just pitch the same amount of sugar as you would for bottling and wait 2-3 weeks. I did this several times during COVID when I lived in an apartment that had no excess cold storage but had beer kegged waiting on a spot in the kegerator.

If it is a big beer or was brewed with a highly flocculant yeast, you may consider making a starter to pitch with the sugar to make sure you have sufficient cell count to carbonate.

Otherwise, keep everything clean and sanitized and don't sweat the minutiae. The yeast will find the excess sugar and make a small amount of ethanol and quite a bit of CO2 for you.

 

[mac_1103]

I've never used the BS carbonation tool but just took a look at it and it seems...wrong.

Because it is.

I don't get why the keg primer is like half the bottle primer. Is it a head space thing?

No it's not. A keg is just a five gallon bottle. Assuming that it's full, the liquid to headspace ratio is almost the same as it is in a 12 oz long neck.

 

[mac_1103]

If it is a big beer or was brewed with a highly flocculant yeast, you may consider making a starter to pitch with the sugar to make sure you have sufficient cell count to carbonate.

Or use ~2 grams of rehydrated CBC-1.

 

[easttex]

Or use ~2 grams of rehydrated CBC-1.

Agreed. At the time I was kegging those batches CBC-1 had not filtered out to the hobbyist market or I would've used it.

 

[govner1]

I did find a carbonation tool on Beer Smith (not sure if everyone a see this URL..... BeerSmith 3 Online) that addressed Carbonating in a Keg. So if I put the Volume of C02 at 2.4 with temperature at 68 f and 5 gallons it shows to carbonate in a keg the pressure should be 28.4 Psi and if I naturally carbonate it shows I should use 2.13 oz of corn sugar. But if I am bottle carbonating it shows I should us 4.26 oz of corn sugar. Looks like if natural carbonating in a keg it is about half the sugar. I normally fill my keg with C02 before racking beer into a keg from the fermenter. So the process would be to set up my fermenter with a sanitized siphon, of course everything (like we all know) will be sanitized after the boil. The keg (sanitized) will have the priming sugar inside and have C02 in it. when the fermenter is ready to siphon, I will open the keg and start racking beer into the keg. Not really afraid of oxygen as this is how I do it all the time with good results. I will leave the keg at room temperature for 2 weeks or more if it needs more time to carbonate, then put it in the kegerator with a little C02 pulling the pressure release valve a few times to get as much air out as I can. I can either serve out of the keg or bottle. In that I am doing a 11% Belgian Dark Strong I plan to bottle as soon as the carbonation is right and leave it for a year. But as we all know I would need to inspect (drink) a few bottles before the year is up.

I’ve done keg conditioning on numerous occasions with good results. I do use about .75 oz of priming sugar per gallon of beer and leave the keg at room temperature for about ten days. You do need to use a quick burst of co2 to seal the keg at the beginning.

 

[gonpce]

I havent tried this, but I have heard that you can carbonate in a keg using the same way you would in bottles and not using CO2 to carbonate. Let me know if this is a good way to do it.
I think that once long ago I found something that said you use less priming sugar in a keg than in bottles. I looked but cant find that information yet.

I've done this several times with same amount of sugar as for bottles, worked great. No problems

 

[Closet Fermenter]

I have done this several times. I use 5 oz. (by weight) corn sugar for a 5 gallon keg. It works. I agree with govner1 above; it’s not a bad idea to add a little CO₂ to seal the keg at the beginning.

If I may shift to the side a bit; has anyone dabbled with fermenting sugar to produce CO₂ for maintaining serving pressure?

 

[mac_1103]

has anyone dabbled with fermenting sugar to produce CO₂ for maintaining serving pressure?

Nope, but I suspect that sugar doesn't wind up being cheaper than CO2.

 

[doug293cz]

So if I put the Volume of C02 at 2.4 with temperature at 68 f and 5 gallons it shows to carbonate in a keg the pressure should be 28.4 Psi and if I naturally carbonate it shows I should use 2.13 oz of corn sugar. But if I am bottle carbonating it shows I should us 4.26 oz of corn sugar. Looks like if natural carbonating in a keg it is about half the sugar.

Nope, this is wrong, as has been noted by several previous posters.

I've never used the BS carbonation tool but just took a look at it and it seems...wrong.
I don't get why the keg primer is like half the bottle primer. Is it a head space thing?

Nope.

A keg is just a five gallon bottle. Assuming that it's full, the liquid to headspace ratio is almost the same as it is in a 12 oz long neck.

@mac_1103 knows what's going on. Bottles or kegs, the headspace is about 6% of the beer volume. I measured both.

Chemistry is chemistry. It doesn't care about the container. It takes X grams of sugar to create Y grams of CO2, no matter where the fermentation is occurring. A carbonation level can be expressed as mass of CO2 per volume of beer - 1 volume is equivalent to 1.977 g/L or 0.264 oz/gal. So, for five gallons of beer, with the same starting CO2 concentration, you need to add the same amount of sugar to create the same amount of CO2, in order to end up with the same level of carbonation.

Brew on

 

[Arbe0]

I havent tried this, but I have heard that you can carbonate in a keg using the same way you would in bottles and not using CO2 to carbonate. Let me know if this is a good way to do it.
I think that once long ago I found something that said you use less priming sugar in a keg than in bottles. I looked but cant find that information yet.

Just to let you know, I tried this by using about half the amount of sugar into the keg thin put about 9 psi of co2 to seal it for 2 weeks. It worked just fine. Take note that when you put c02 on the keg it carbonates along with the sugar so that is why you use less sugar.

 

[bellhp]

I used 1/3 cup corn sugar for 5 gal as per instructions in "complete joy of homebrewing" back when I was kegging.
I put 10 psi on keg to hold a seal and it worked well .

 

[doug293cz]

Just to let you know, I tried this by using about half the amount of sugar into the keg thin put about 9 psi of co2 to seal it for 2 weeks. It worked just fine. Take note that when you put c02 on the keg it carbonates along with the sugar so that is why you use less sugar.

Well yeah. If you put continuous pressure on the keg, it will carb without any added sugar. Your experience proves nothing.

The original discussion was about natural carbonation from fermenting sugar, without CO2 pressure applied.

Brew on

 

[day_trippr]

Writing for comprehension is hard.
Is it possible member Arbe0 meant the CO2 was applied just to seal the keg lid and then was unplugged?

Cheers!

 

[doug293cz]

Writing for comprehension is hard.
Is it possible member Arbe0 meant the CO2 was applied just to seal the keg lid and then was unplugged?

Cheers!

If that were the case, then @Arbe0 's beer did not reach their target carbonation level. They may have liked the beer at the lower carb level, and thought that it was what they were targeting.

Brew on

 

[day_trippr]

I just realized I missed part of that post. NVM, it's all good...

Cheers!