Keg Priming

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Kanetoad23

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Hi all,

This is my first post to the site. So sorry if this is in the wrong spot / already answered.

I have finally got my co2 bottle filled and I'm on my way home keen to hook it up. I have a batch ready to go, but do I need to prime with sugar or just go for forced carbonation or something else? There seems to be conflicting opinions on what to do.

I have always had trouble getting this right.

Thanks
 
Depending when you want to drink your beer. If your not in a hurry and can wait a couple weeks you can put your keg in the fridge hook the gas up at pouring pressure and let it sit for a couple weeks and it will gas up. Or you can prime it with sugar and leave it in the cupboard for a couple weeks like a big bottle. Or you can turn the pressure up higher for two or three days then drop the pressure and let it sit for a couple days. All of these I have done. Work fine. If your in a hurry you can force carb which is high pressure and shake keg for a certain time and your good to go in a few hrs. This I've never done so not sure how exactly. Fire away with questions if you need to. We all had to learn. Chris
 
You can prime a keg using sugar, and store at fermenting temps until ready. Basically think of it as a big bottle. I put it in the too hard basket, aka I can't be stuffed doing it.

My normal procedure is just hook the cold keg up at serving pressure, about 80kpa. Burp the keg to get rid of any left over air and fill the head space with CO2. Leave it for a week and it will be ready to drink. This is the easiest as you never have to worry about playing with the CO2 reg and can have both kegs gassing and serving from the one CO2 bottle.

If you need it quicker, set it to 3 bar, burp the air, and leave for 24 hours. After 24hours drop the pressure back to 80kpa (just under 1 bar) and burp the excess pressure off, it's then ready to drink.

If you want it even quicker there are shake methods that give you beer ready to drink in 5 minutes. Refer the articles section for procedures.

Have a look across of the site there is a link to articles, under there another link to Storing and serving with some good info in there. Have a read and see how you go.

QldKev
 
I prime all my kegs now with sugar as I have a stock of extra kegs now. But I have always done as kev said and set at pouring pressure for a few weeks while I'm drinking my other keg. Perfect
 
I use roughly 4 grams per litre and found that quite gassy. I have only used dextrose but pretty sure you could use dme might be a little different measure. Your keg system will differ to mine as different beer line lengths ect but mine is about 7-8 psi. Search on here for, balancing a draught system, and it will explain that. Just the pressure so you can pour a beer with decent speed and not too fast to cause foam.
 
http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...=10667&st=0

better to go a little "under carbed" than over if using this method and then "top it up" over the next few days i reckon

over carb is annoying....

do this step... or for me i get over carb...
Step 7 Wait for an hour or so and then vent the excess pressure via the pressure relief valve. If you decide to do this right away, the video shows what will happen.
 
I have primed kegs with sugar without any issues. However, you need to prime with sugar at half the rate you would do bottles of the same quantity.
 
I prime my kegs with dex and sometimes find that the beer absorbs all the Co2 into solution. I use 80g per keg. Is this possible?
 
How do you mean absorbs into solution. Is there no pressure in your keg after a few weeks. I use about 80 grams, just under and I find it's a little over fizzy so will back it off a bit. I also found there was more pressure in my keg than my pouring pressure as I nearly buggered my regulator because of back flow. If you have no pressure I would suggest a leaking seal, going by my couple of kegs I've primed.
 
I prime my kegs with dex and sometimes find that the beer absorbs all the Co2 into solution. I use 80g per keg. Is this possible?


Keys often don't seal fully unless they have quite a bit of pressure - are you sure it's not slightly leaking?
 

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