Dog That Got Away?

[bigjim63]

Hey everyone I've got a question that I hope someone can help me with. I purchased a couple of Craigslist special corney kegs this weekend that I broke down, cleaned, and replaced the rings on. I had a DFH 90min clone that had been sitting on a dry hop for a week longer than planed so I wanted to get it out of the fermenter. I asked my friend who has many more beers behind him than I do if it would be OK to condition w/o CO2 in the corney. He said it would be fine we just had to use less priming sugar in the keg which Beersmith kindly provided us the information for. We transferred it over and sealed it up with no problems.


Now the questions: We had about 3-5 inches of headspace in the keg. Will this oxygen affect the beer?


When I get my CO2 (hopefully this weekend) will it be OK to force carb after we have already primed the keg? I'd like to drink this beer young because I've heard that it will lose it flavor over time. Honestly aside from not being fully carbed it was the most amazing beers that's come out of my fermenter. We were drinking the trub on this stuff!


Since we keged this I've been going over the forums about this subject reading about how people purge the headspace with CO2 and problems with people getting their lids to seat properly to form a good seal. I'm getting a little worried that I've ruined my best beer yet simply because I was too lazy to bottle it. PARANOIA HAS SET IN. Please advise. Thanks, -Jim

 

[marmonduke]

If it were me and I already added priming sugar I'd purge the keg when you get your co2 tank by pulling the relief valve a few times and unhook the gas. Let the sugar carbinate. eventually with the co2 and sugar you'll get higher pressure in the keg than regulator is set for and you could get beer in your gas line/regulator.

 

[TopherM]

When you are naturally carbonating in a keg, there is actually much less headspace than there is in the aggregate of a couple cases of bottles. For this reason, you actually only need to use about 1/2 to 1/3 of the amount of priming sugar in the KEG that you would use in a BOTTLE. So about 2-2.5 oz priming sugar for a typical ale to get about 2.2-2.5 atmospheres.

One other thing. You really should still SEAL the keg with your CO2 tank, even if you are going to naturally carb. After you put your priming sugar in, hit the corny with 30 PSI of CO2 for a few minutes to properly seal the tops. Purge just for a second to get the oxygen out, then put the keg in an interior closet or somewhere else that's temp stable to condition for about 2-3 weeks.

You MAY get a good seal without this procedure just from the natural CO2, but it really isn't guaranteed unless you hit it with high pressure ahead of time.

Hope that helps!!

 

[bigjim63]

TopherM, should I leave the CO2 line on it after I seat the lid?
Will this:
A) overcarb
B) make the beer ready to drink sooner (most desirable outcome)
C) make a bomb

The Dude abides!

 

[TopherM]

If you want to naturally carb in the keg, then no, you just need to keep the CO2 line on there long enough to seat the lid, like just a minute or two. Then check for leaks, and if you are good to go, put the keg in a closet for 2-3 weeks.

If you want to carb quicker, you can force carb on the CO2 tank. I set mine at 30PSI for about 12 hours (making sure to check for leaks), then set it at serving temp (dependent on the length of your serving lines) for about a week. You can do it faster at higher PSI, but it then becomes a VERY inexact science and is very difficult to control. It is easy to control over the course of a week, but very difficult if you have to have everything down to the minute at higher PSI.