Naked_Eskimo
Well-Known Member
If I have a new uncarbed 2 gallon batch of beer sitting in a 5 gallon corny that I want to carb naturally, do I have to take into account the volume of beer vs the volume of headspace?
In my mind, if I carb my 2 gallons of beer with the appropriate amount of sugar to get 2 volumes CO2, I would get different results if the volume of the keg was full (no headspace) vs half empty (lots of headspace)? Wont half the CO2 produced by the yeast go into the headspace and not actually carbonate the beer, or perhaps carbonate poorer than a full keg?
So, the background to this story is I have 2 gallons of IPA that I want to transfer to the keg. I dont have the freezer and CO2 set up yet (pending arrival of freezer and temp controller), but I want to transfer my IPA from the primary into the keg and let my beer age in the keg (at room temp) until my gas setup is all sorted out. Since I want to naturally carb, I wasnt sure whether I needed to take into account the amount of headspace in the keg or not? Will the C02 produced by the yeast stay in the beer, or will most of it dissipate into the headspace.
So would I carb the same (ie. the same amount of sugar) irrespective of how full the keg is, or would I have to adjust accordingly?
I know I could fill the headspace with CO2 gas at the outset and circumvent this putative problem -- but as mentioned earlier, my setup isnt quite complete yet, so I dont have gas.
In my mind, if I carb my 2 gallons of beer with the appropriate amount of sugar to get 2 volumes CO2, I would get different results if the volume of the keg was full (no headspace) vs half empty (lots of headspace)? Wont half the CO2 produced by the yeast go into the headspace and not actually carbonate the beer, or perhaps carbonate poorer than a full keg?
So, the background to this story is I have 2 gallons of IPA that I want to transfer to the keg. I dont have the freezer and CO2 set up yet (pending arrival of freezer and temp controller), but I want to transfer my IPA from the primary into the keg and let my beer age in the keg (at room temp) until my gas setup is all sorted out. Since I want to naturally carb, I wasnt sure whether I needed to take into account the amount of headspace in the keg or not? Will the C02 produced by the yeast stay in the beer, or will most of it dissipate into the headspace.
So would I carb the same (ie. the same amount of sugar) irrespective of how full the keg is, or would I have to adjust accordingly?
I know I could fill the headspace with CO2 gas at the outset and circumvent this putative problem -- but as mentioned earlier, my setup isnt quite complete yet, so I dont have gas.
