secondary in your keg

[i4ourgot]

Has anyone had pretty good success doing secondary in a corny keg and just bleeding it once a day I am running out of carboys but not kegs and I need some place to put my lager? If so how often are you bleeding it and do you think it would be a good idea if i hooked up the co2 to pump out the settlement on the bottom so the beer doesnt sit on it and pick up a flavors?

 

[Golddiggie]

I don't secondary 99% of my brews. Even when I do it's really more of extended aging in another [sealed] vessel on something (wood of some type). Otherwise, I simply transfer the finished beer into serving kegs, carbonate as normal and put on tap. :rockin: I've long since sold off my glass carboys. I only have a couple of PET ones to carry water into my brewing area. Otherwise, they sit empty.

 

[dinnerstick]

you want to both bleed off pressure and add pressure from the co2 tank?? to bleed off pressure just run a hose from the co2-in port into a bottle of sanitizer, old fashioned blowoff tube. there is certainly no harm in trying to push out sediment but in all likelihood you wil only clear the tiny area around the dip tube, rendering the exercise largely pointless. like golddiggie, i minimize transfers, unless there is some pressing reason i only go from the primary into the keg. if it's going to sit at room temp for a few weeks then i might even add sugar and carbonate naturally, or else i get the pressure on it to carb up; if the beer needs more time i just wait, you will clear any sediment on the first pour (and possibly every first pour after you move/shake it)

 

[SalmoSalar]

I mostly brew lagers, but I do the same thing for ales, except don't ferment as long.
I ferment in the same fermenting vessel till it's done,i.e F.G. hasn't changed, 4-5 weeks for lagers at 50F and 2-3 weeks for ales. Then I rack to the corny keg, and leave it on gas at the same serving/carbonation pressure( for me that's about 11psi @ 35F) for 4 weeks minimum. If I'm doing a big lager like a Maibock or Baltic porter I leave for 6-8 weeks.

I've thought about racking to a secondary fermenter to lager and then carbonate after the lagering period, as much brewing literature recommends, just to see if I get better results. But, I think my beer tastes fine and it takes about 3 weeks to carbonate the beer at serving pressure/temp, so I'm saving some time and an extra step. It's an experiment I should probably do.