Tapped My First Naturally Carbonated Keg

This was 1/2 batch (2.5 gal) nut brown ale extract/speciality grain kit from NB into my torpedo keg. My mini fridge is too small to put two kegs on CO2, so I decided to add priming sugar and purge/top off the keg with CO2 at 25lbs at room temperature and let the yeast work at carbonating and conditioning the beer while I enjoyed the keg on tap.

If course I had to pour a glass within hours of after tapping. Very nice clear beer, a little thin, but I was expecting that since it was extract and I am sure I add more water than the kits was designed so my final kegged volume would be 2.5 gals, but it also had an interesting but pleasant spice hint to it, like allspice or nutmeg. Not profound, but enough to be interestingly pleasant.

Not sure if this is an off flavor that wasn't supposed to be there, or if it will disappear (primary two weeks, keg conditioned two weeks) but I liked it.

This was one of those times when you don't get the end result you wanted, but that difference was good.

Anyway, the priming in the keg worked and I have a stout and a sierra nevada clone just about ready to go to kegs and I think I'll prime these as well and let them condition while I enjoy the nut brown ale.

Appreciate all the posts in this forum than helped me build and use my kegerator.

 

Good deal. I tried priming in the keg a while back when my kegerator was full and I wanted a beer ready to chill when there was space. Worked really good. I'm thinking of trying it again soon when my lagers are almost ready to serve. It's a great time saver and helps prevent stirring up the beer like what happens when burst carbing.

 

This is my plan, once I start using the single keg setup that I bought. Did you use as much sugar as you would to bottle, or did you cut back? I've seen to use 75% then let the CO2 do the rest once you tap the keg, to avoid over carbing.

 

Use a bit less. But it depends on how much headspace you have in the keg. I think there is a calculator around somewhere that can figure it out for you. I actually didn't worry about it when I primed my keg with sugar, but I probably should have.