keg condition, how much sugar?

[Moog]

I've been BIABing now for 2 years and kegging for 1 year.
My last brew I bottled half a dozen, and kegged the remainder, The bottled ones are much nicer than whats in the keg (hoppier, crisper), the keg having been force carbed, and the bottles bottle conditioned.
Its seemed for a while that my early brews, despite my inexperience seemed a bit better than what I've produced of late.
Some people say force carbing spoils the beer slightly, and this seems to be my experience.
I know you can carbonate more slowly but this requires the keg being connected for a long time, I'm reluctant to do this in case of a small leak, then my gas bottle could empty.

I've weighed the sugar volume I use for bottling, and for 20 litres it works out at 130g.
Can anyone recommend or correct my estimate, If I were to keg condition with this next batch of Citra IIPA,

 

[LAGERFRENZY]

Half the sugar that you would normally use for bottling is the rule of thumb that most use for naturally carbing kegs. I recently did an APA with 60 grams of dextrose and it came out just slightly under carbed.

 

[Moog]

Ok great, thanks for the heads up, I was right to check then...
Is dex better than sugar? does it leave less sediment or anything? It would be nice if I could cut that down a bit, cos what ends up in a bottle, multiplied up to a full keg, would be quite a bit...

 

[Rocker1986]

I doubt the sediment would multiply to that extent, although I've never naturally carbonated a keg to find out. In any case, neither dextrose nor table sugar leaves sediment, the sediment is mainly yeast.

I don't use that shake around force carb method in my kegs, I just hit them with higher pressure gas for about 20 odd hours, leave to settle, then top up with serving pressure gas. This way they're nicely carbonated in about two days, without having to drive CO2 up through the beer or shake the kegs around. I have no leaks in my system though. Personally I prefer the force carbed kegged beer over the naturally carbed bottled beer, but I suppose the method I use doesn't strip flavour. I just picked up a 10L keg the other day to reduce my bottling even more. It will contain about 5L each of two different batches of similar styles.

 

[LAGERFRENZY]

I've only recently made the change to dex but wouldn't go back to table sugar. Not so much a difference with sediment in bottles - I just found that they seemed to mature a bit quicker. Haven't struck sediment in the keg as yet.

 

[Lethaldog]

Why don't you check your system for leaks so then you wouldn't have to worry about leaving it on longer?

 

[Moog]

would 75g of table sugar do the trick then?
I'd need to drill a hole in the fridge to be able to leave it connected, at the moment I only connect it when I open the door and pour some out.

 

[LAGERFRENZY]

As i said before the rule of thumb is half of what you would normally use for bottling which would be 65 grams - I could not see 10 extra grams causing too many problems.

 

[620rossco]

I naturally carbonate some of my kegs, usually 60-70gm for a pale ale. If it comes out a little under-carbonated, leave the keg connected at pouring pressure for a few hours.
There will not be substantially more sediment than normal, my understanding is that the yeast that are already present do the job. If you want it super clear, gelatin it once you have cooled it in the keggerator.

 

[Moog]

ok, cool, thanks guys