Secondary in Keg with No CO2

[Brew2Brew2Brew]

I've done plenty of searching and have yet to find a definitive answer to this:

Can you rack your beer into your keg using it as secondary without purging with CO2 or priming?

That last bit is important. Yes, if you have CO2 it seems to be ideal to purge the tank of oxygen after racking. Yes, you can just naturally carbonate using priming sugar and treat your keg as a "big bottle".

What I'm asking is: How bad is it to not purge after racking? As in, will your beer be ruined if you do not purge for at least one week then force carb?

(Now, I'm actually attempting this so I'll let you know the results. But, it seems that many fellow brewers have encountered this problem without any reassurance on if their babies will be drinkable. So, I just wanted to get a "definitive" answer to this question on the boards.)

 

[Zepth]

I suppose you could. It isn't uncommon for people to use a secondary or clearing carboy without purging it. If you rack and seal the keg up try moving it to a slightly warmer part of the house. It will begin to off-gas co2 as a direct result. Then you can bleed it off with the pressure relief valve. It'll be better than nothing and doesn't cost anything to try. Think of it as a ghetto purge.

 

[Foosier]

I think of this as a "sure you could, but why" type scenario. For me, I always try to rack into a keg that already has CO2 added to it.

My process is to clean the keg, then fill with a half gallon of Starsan, seal, shake and then push the starsan out with CO2. This fills the keg with a nice volume of CO2. I then rack my beer immediately into the keg. This keeps a layer of CO2 over the beer in the keg.

Once the keg is filled, I usually hook it to gas and start carbing for serving. You could just as easily, presurize the keg and leave it out to continue to clear then carb chill and serve at a later date.

The key here is why leave the CO2 out if you have it and it does not make things harder?