What are your personal experiences with naturally carbing in the keg

[eSePeludo]

Title says it all im just curious what your experience is. Do you feel that it adds anything to the beer over force carbing? I currently have a 10.5 RIS thats been aging for 4 months i primed in the keg. I plan to tap it in exactly 2 weeks.

 

[InTheBasement]

How did this work out? I tried naturally carbing in the keg once. It seemed to work out fine, but I needed to connect gas anyway for serving, so I did not really see the purpose. In your case, since you planned to let it age for so long I guess it makes sense because you did not have a keg that you were not drinking from occupying your gas.

 

[eSePeludo]

Ill be finding out in the 21st when i tap the keg. when you naturally carbed yours were you happy with the carb level achieved?

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

It didn't "add" anything. But, it did "take away" the need to wait for the keg to force carbonate. I yeast carbed the keg often when I had a pipeline of kegs in the wait. Doing this, by time the keg had chilled to serving temp it was ready to pour.

 

[Sotty]

I do this all the time when the keezer is full, but there is beer ready to package. Works well. I think the beers I do this to taste a little better, but I believe that this is due to the little bit of extra maturation time.

 

[pvpeacock]

like Sotty, I do it when I know there won't be room in my kegerator for at least 10 days or more. That way, the keg gets a jump start on carbonating before I hook it up to gas. I also thought that naturally carbonating may eat some of the oxygen in the keg/beer from transferring, but never tasted any real difference. The main difference I notice is the amount of crap (presumably yeast) that settles to the bottom of the keg. However, that is easily drained in the first few pints.

 

[eSePeludo]

I do this all the time when the keezer is full, but there is beer ready to package. Works well. I think the beers I do this to taste a little better, but I believe that this is due to the little bit of extra maturation time.

like Sotty, I do it when I know there won't be room in my kegerator for at least 10 days or more. That way, the keg gets a jump start on carbonating before I hook it up to gas. I also thought that naturally carbonating may eat some of the oxygen in the keg/beer from transferring, but never tasted any real difference. The main difference I notice is the amount of crap (presumably yeast) that settles to the bottom of the keg. However, that is easily drained in the first few pints.

so how does this differ from say a bottle conditioned beer. Does it not achieve the characteristics of a "bottle conditioned beer"? or is it just like you say the extra time that improves the flavor not necceserally the second fermentation that takes place?

 

[bucfan1234]

I have actually only primed the keg once, usually force carb. I primed a batch of brown ale that I kegged too green, and let it sit for three or four weeks.

It turned out great, and honestly wound up being one of my best extract batches.

 

[brandonlovesbeer]

Put in the appropriate amount of priming sugar for a 5 gallon batch. Then let sit just like you would with bottles.

Once the pressure begins to subside due to pouring, I hook up the CO2 at a lower pressure. It keeps it perfect.