Priming Sugar Confusion

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UselessBrewing

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I'm looking at purchasing two 5gal Corney kegs and a 5# bottle (along with other misc items:) ) from a guy that no longer has an interest in HB. WOOT! :mug:

I have read posts that say you put priming sugar in the keg and some that indicate a keg is force carbed without priming sugar.

Questions:
Do "you" put a decreased amount of priming sugar in the keg?
How much priming sugar do you use?
How much yeast settles out after the beer is carbed?

I occurs to me that if you don't use priming sugar then there will be less "trub/sediment" settling out in the keg. So I feel this is the best way to go, if it is in fact a viable alternative to adding priming sugar.

As always your insight and experience is most welcomed!
 
If you're kegging, you can force carb. Simplest is to hook your keg up to gas (cold, in the fridge) at 10PSI for a week. You can force carb it quicker using higher pressure and lots of shaking (the beer will still need the normal time to condition; force-carbed green beer is still green beer).

If you're rather save a bit of money, you can also prime your keg with a bit of priming sugar (less than you would use for bottling; I want to say 2-3 ounces for 5 gallons). You'll still want to hit the keg with a little bit of pressure to seal it up, but then leave it in a fairly warm spot (same as bottle conditioning) and let the yeast do the work. When it's carbed up, hook it up to the gas for serving. There will be more sediment, though (it'll mostly settle out and come out in the first few pints, so it's not the end of the world).
 
You can use either method.

Whichever way you chose, you will still need CO2 to push the beer out of the keg. If you keg prime, the standard measurement is 3/8 cup of priming sugar for five gallons. The logic behind this is explained in The Complete Joy of Homebrewing. The amount of yeast settling out is going to be dependent on how much you cleared the beer in primary/secondary before kegging. Most people who keg cut off a short section of the dip tube which keeps most of the settled yeast out of the beer, or just discard the first couple pints or so of yeasty beer.
 
I don't know about the "less trub/sediment" thing...can't see how some dextrose would have any effect on that...but to answer your other Q's: I force-carb with CO2. 35psi for 2 days.

As for yeast & solids settling out in the keg, that depends a lot on how long it was in the carboy prior to putting it in the keg...how flocculent your strain is...how cold your aging temps in carboy were...whether you used gelatin or other fining agents...etc.

For normal '1 week in primary, 2 weeks in secondary, rack to keg' kinds of scenarios, I'd say that in general, you get a little cloudiness from the first few pints, but it's nothing to get too concerned about. Some people cut their dip tubes by a small amount, but I'm just not that concerned about it myself.
 
No, no need to prime if you're force carbing. Of course, this assumes that you're force carbing at refrigerator temps. If you prime, you'd keep the keg at room temperature.
 
Im currently priming my first keg or Honey weiss. I usually force carb but wanted to try it this way. I used 3/4 cup of priming sugar boiled with 2 cups of H2O. Hopefully it comes out ok in about 10 days or so.
 
One thing if you natural carb for a couple of weeks and then hook up your CO2 to the keg, it may back fill because the pressure inside the keg may be higher than your regulator setting. Bleed off the air pressure first prior to hitting it with gas.
 
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