Debut Keg

[Dave V]

Hi Forum, hope everyone well. Random question from a first time kegger and a farily new home brewer, on my 5th batch at the moment. I decided to keg as opposed to bottle which I've done with the others (using a balihoo pressure keg, https://www.balliihoo.co.uk/balliih...r-keg-with-lcd-temperature-indicator-p-8.html) It's a fairly small batch (about 15 litres) due to a few yield issues and it approx half fills the keg. I primed it with sugar to carbonate/secondary ferment last Sunday (5 days ago). I couldn't resist taking a sample from the tap last night to see how it was getting on - it was only a thimbleful but didn't seem to be particularly carbonated. So a few questions, if anyone has any advice/thoughts/wisdom it would be much appreciated!

1. Am I just being impatient? i.e. will it carbonate more over the next couple of weeks?
2. Does the keg being half full make a difference to carbonating?
3. If it doesn't work, would it be OK to force carbonate instead?
4. If so, I've got some 8g bottles of CO2 that came with the keg - any ideas of how many I should use for ~15 litres?
5. Any general wisdom over the benefits of kegging vs bottling. I've got to say I like how easy kegging is comparatively but I like the portability of bottles

Thanks in advance, sorry if these are dumb questions!

Dave

 

[mongoose33]

Hi Forum, hope everyone well. Random question from a first time kegger and a farily new home brewer, on my 5th batch at the moment. I decided to keg as opposed to bottle which I've done with the others (using a balihoo pressure keg, https://www.balliihoo.co.uk/balliih...r-keg-with-lcd-temperature-indicator-p-8.html) It's a fairly small batch (about 15 litres) due to a few yield issues and it approx half fills the keg. I primed it with sugar to carbonate/secondary ferment last Sunday (5 days ago). I couldn't resist taking a sample from the tap last night to see how it was getting on - it was only a thimbleful but didn't seem to be particularly carbonated. So a few questions, if anyone has any advice/thoughts/wisdom it would be much appreciated!

1. Am I just being impatient? i.e. will it carbonate more over the next couple of weeks?
2. Does the keg being half full make a difference to carbonating?
3. If it doesn't work, would it be OK to force carbonate instead?
4. If so, I've got some 8g bottles of CO2 that came with the keg - any ideas of how many I should use for ~15 litres?
5. Any general wisdom over the benefits of kegging vs bottling. I've got to say I like how easy kegging is comparatively but I like the portability of bottles

Thanks in advance, sorry if these are dumb questions!

Dave

How much sugar? At what temp is it conditioning ? A thimble full may not be enough to really tell. If there's a lot of headspace, it would not carb as much. And yes, you can force carbonate it if necessary.

You say it's 5 days. How long would you have expected to wait if you had bottle-conditioned the beer? I'm guessing 2-3 weeks, so it's about the same time for a keg to carbonate this way.

Because you have a lot of headspace, some of the CO2 isn't going into solution, but rather is occupying the headspace. Consider the headspace you have in a bottle of conditioning beer; proportionally, it's much less than you have in your keg, so you'll lose some carbonation to that. It's analogous to what happens when you drink a bottle of soda pop--if you drink half that soda, cap it, then come back the next day, the carbonation is less, because the pressure is equalizing in the headspace.

You don't say what temp you're conditioning this at. The old Revvy saying "70 degrees, 3 weeks" for bottle conditioning holds here. In celsius, 21 degrees. So if you have the keg in a keezer or refrigerator or kegerator and it's cold, well, that yeast isn't going to do much, and maybe nothing.

The good news is that you can force carb it. One of the reasons why I started kegging was to get away from bottle dregs. When you "keg condition" you'll have those as well, and the first few draws from the keg will draw up that yeast gunk and put it in your glass. Not nice. you still have a little when force carbing, but not nearly as much.

Now, i do need to offer a caution with the above advice about force carbing: I'm not familiar with the Ballihoo keg, and I couldn't find any indication of "max pressure" on the website. "Force" carbing can be either setting at serving pressure and forgetting it for 2 weeks (Set and forget, we call it), or hit the beer with high pressure CO2 for a shorter period of time. For instance, I might put my beer on 30psi for 24 hours, and it'll be close. You don't want to overcarb, so get close and then put it on serving pressure to finish.

But whatever you do, make sure you understand the limits of the keg and don't exceed those limits.

 

[Dave V]

How much sugar? At what temp is it conditioning ? A thimble full may not be enough to really tell. If there's a lot of headspace, it would not carb as much. And yes, you can force carbonate it if necessary.

You say it's 5 days. How long would you have expected to wait if you had bottle-conditioned the beer? I'm guessing 2-3 weeks, so it's about the same time for a keg to carbonate this way.

Because you have a lot of headspace, some of the CO2 isn't going into solution, but rather is occupying the headspace. Consider the headspace you have in a bottle of conditioning beer; proportionally, it's much less than you have in your keg, so you'll lose some carbonation to that. It's analogous to what happens when you drink a bottle of soda pop--if you drink half that soda, cap it, then come back the next day, the carbonation is less, because the pressure is equalizing in the headspace.

You don't say what temp you're conditioning this at. The old Revvy saying "70 degrees, 3 weeks" for bottle conditioning holds here. In celsius, 21 degrees. So if you have the keg in a keezer or refrigerator or kegerator and it's cold, well, that yeast isn't going to do much, and maybe nothing.

The good news is that you can force carb it. One of the reasons why I started kegging was to get away from bottle dregs. When you "keg condition" you'll have those as well, and the first few draws from the keg will draw up that yeast gunk and put it in your glass. Not nice. you still have a little when force carbing, but not nearly as much.

Now, i do need to offer a caution with the above advice about force carbing: I'm not familiar with the Ballihoo keg, and I couldn't find any indication of "max pressure" on the website. "Force" carbing can be either setting at serving pressure and forgetting it for 2 weeks (Set and forget, we call it), or hit the beer with high pressure CO2 for a shorter period of time. For instance, I might put my beer on 30psi for 24 hours, and it'll be close. You don't want to overcarb, so get close and then put it on serving pressure to finish.

But whatever you do, make sure you understand the limits of the keg and don't exceed those limits.

Thanks Mongoose! A few responses to your questions...

- it was 75g of sugar for 15 litres
- temperature I realised I left off the OP. It's been about 16 degrees (being stored in an unheated room) which I only really clocked once I took the thimbleful. I've since put it on a heating mat and it's up around 21 degrees now so this could well be an issue
- Bottle conditioned I usually wait 2 weeks although I've had acceptably carbonated brews after a week (due to my own impatience!)

Thanks for the detail on the headspace, agree it's much less than the proportional space on a bottle.

I think next steps are to be a bit more patient and see how the increased temperature and time get on. I'll pull a full pint of the stuff but it won't be before next weekend. I'm running a marathon next Sunday so am on a self imposed beer ban in the run up. A thimbleful I felt didn't violate the terms of this ban but a full pint will do! I'll see how it goes then and force carb if necessary at that point. Appreciate the detail on max pressure!

As ever I'm blown away by how helpful and knowledgable the forum is, thanks so much

Cheers

Dave