Carbonating

[itry]

Greetings. Im doing alot better with the beer making. The thing thats letting me down is getting it to fizz.
I have corney kegs and a co2 cyli der from air liquid. When i presurise do i just get thw keg up to pressure then take it off. Or do i get it to the rite pressure then leave it at pressure for a week?

 

[foxbat]

Pressurize and vent at least 3 times to rid the head space of oxygen then pressurize and leave on the gas for at least a week.

There are charts and calculators online that will tell you the correct pressure for the temperature of your keg and how much carbonation you want. Err on the low side, pints of foam are uncool.

 

[itry]

Just to understand. I put the gas on it at say 11 psi and leave it on amd connected for a week?

 

[foxbat]

Just to understand. I put the gas on it at say 11 psi and leave it on amd connected for a week?

Yes. The regulator will hold it at 11psi while the CO2 slowly dissolves into the beer.

 

[Dutto]

Just to understand. I put the gas on it at say 11 psi and leave it on amd connected for a week?

Yes.

Go to "Calculators" above ...

... then go to "Keg Carbonation Calculator" ...

... select Celsius or Fahrenheit ...

... feed in the desired CO2 Volume (the different styles are shown lower down the page) ...

... feed in the desired keg temperature ...

... hit the "Update" button and you will see the required regulator pressure displayed.

An alternative to waiting a week is that you can "shake it all about" every so often. This will get the CO2 into the brew quite a bit faster.

 

[RossSherwood]

Apologises for the newbie question but im just learning about cornelius kegs at the moment. When using the method described above, is the wort dumped from the FV to the keg with no priming sugar added? If the wort is primed can c02 be used to simply push the beer out rather than carb it? Thanks

 

[braziliain]

Yes. I did this with my last brew. I added sugar to prime in the corny then used the CO2 to dispense only.

After adding the priming sugar and closing the lid, make sure you connect the gas and give it a single blast at 20psi. This will force the lid into position to seal it properly and will let you determine any leaks before you lose all that CO2 from your secondary ferment.

If force carbing with CO2, as described in the earlier posts, you don't need to add priming sugar.

 

[phildo79]

Yes. I did this with my last brew. I added sugar to prime in the corny then used the CO2 to dispense only.

After adding the priming sugar and closing the lid, make sure you connect the gas and give it a single blast at 20psi. This will force the lid into position to seal it properly and will let you determine any leaks before you lose all that CO2 from your secondary ferment.

If force carbing with CO2, as described in the earlier posts, you don't need to add priming sugar.

Braziliain

How much priming sugar did you use? I bought a standard lager kit to try and get used to kegging. Ordinarily I would prime the batch with approx. 120g of sugar when bottling. Am I right in thinking I don't need that much when conditioning in a keg?

 

[Dutto]

Just about half an hour ago I posted this in another Thread:

"I use the Calculator at the top of this page.

The KK has an overpressure device so it's pointless looking for a much higher pressure than that achieved by the sugar recommended for 1.5 to 2 volumes; as recommended in the Post above."

 

[braziliain]

Braziliain

How much priming sugar did you use? I bought a standard lager kit to try and get used to kegging. Ordinarily I would prime the batch with approx. 120g of sugar when bottling. Am I right in thinking I don't need that much when conditioning in a keg?

The theory goes that you need a little less sugar because you have less total headspace than when using 40 or so bottles.

However, I'm usually a little short of a full 19L keg because I tend to brew around 14 - 15L. I just use the same amount of sugar as when bottling. If you over carbonate a bit, it's easy to adjust it back down by venting some pressure from the release valve .

 

[phildo79]

Ok, cool. Thanks mate.
This seems like a handier way of carbing the beer inside the keg. And you don't have to wait an extra week before you can drink it.