Question about difference between bottling and kegging

[bx1]

Hi, I am still relatively new to home brewing and this site (this is my first post); so if this question has been asked already I apologize.

To date, I have only brewed beer using a beer brewing kit which consists of a plastic fermentor which the wort ferments in for about 1-2 weeks (depending on the recipe). After that you put the beer into air tight bottles with sugar and allow a second fermentation for about a week or two (producing more CO2 than alcohol this time).

What I want to do is upgrade to fermenting the second time in a cornelius keg. Is there something different I need to do here? Or can I simply put the same proportioned amount of sugar (as in the bottles) in the cornelius keg and allow a second fermentation just the same?

Also, I have heard of forced carbonation, how is this done with a cornelius keg? Is it better?

Any answers or directs to a place on the forum for answers will be appreciated as I have not yet found a thread that specifically answers these questions, thanks!

B.

 

[AggieChemDoc]

You can just put the sugar and beer in a corny and naturally carbonate if you want, but you'll still have to wait.

Forced carbonation uses a CO2 tank and regulator. You carbonate the beer by "injecting" high pressure CO2 into the beer. It is expensive, but is the way to go, IMO.

 

[cedar_lake]

You can carb a keg with sugar, just like having one big bottle.

-search "natural carbonation, keg" and there's a bunch of threads

-there is some debate about how much sugar to use- I usually use a little bit less than if I was going to be bottling.

-You'll still need gas, because once you put the primed wort in the keg you'll want to hit the keg with enough gas to set the seals.

 

[Hammy71]

These should help:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/sticky-kegging-faqs-43347/

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/keg-force-carbing-methods-illustrated-73328/