Corny keg - carbing with sugar basic setup

[slackman99]

Hi all!

Bare with me as I'm new to all this with only a couple of kits under my belt so far!

I have been bottling my brews to date and letting the beer carb in the bottle with priming sugar.

Cleaning and sterilising enough bottles for the brew is time consuming and not always easy with 2 young children running round.

I got to thinking about corny kegs as 1 would take almost a while brew leaving me with a few bottles to fill. Trying to keep things on a budget means I'll likely struggle to get a full setup past the wife, but nothing to stop me adding to it over time :)

Could I get a 19l corny, rack the beer in to it along with priming sugar and use this to carb the beer rather than having to force carb with a full co2 setup? I'd get a small bulb co2 regulator and tap to let me tap it and draw off 2l at a time into a mini keg/growler to chill in the fridge and drink same/next day.

Would this work or would I have 19l of beer in a corny that I cant get out without buying a full co2 setup, or be drinking beer that's gone flat in the fridge?

 

[Hoppyland]

First, yes. You could put beer into a keg, prime it, and the beer would be fully carbonated if you left it enough time.
But..... Once you started pulling pints, the cabonation level would drop. Well before you'd drawn off all your beer, there would be no pressure in the keg.
I've no experience of it, but yes, you probably could get a small-bulb CO2 injection system to drive the rest of your beer out of the keg.
But why?? OK, a "big" CO2 cylinder aint cheap. I had to pay a deposit on my Hobbyweld 6kg cylinder. I can't remember how much it was, but certainly £50. Refundable, though. I can always take the cylinder back & reclaim my deposit. Plus, you need a regulator - probably £25. A 6kg refill costs about £30-35. Sounds a lot, but hey is it worth it. One cylinder lasts me more than a year, and it is multi-purpose. As well as carbonating, I can use the CO2 for purging - thoroughly, as the gas itself ain't that expensive - so my beer keeps in first-class condition for ages. Well worth the investment!!

 

[Drunkula]

Christ, Hoppyland that's tons. Loads of people on here get the refilled less than 20 sheets and pay no deposit.

Slackman the expense of buying doodads for doing what you want to do is a collossal waste of money. Carbing using sugar means you get a wasted pint which immediately nullifies any saving that sugar over co2 brings. Using a 6.35kg cylinder force carbing a corny costs about 16p, then serving it costs 26p. So overall about 42p a keg. Doing the same thing with co2 bulbs costs about £7.40.

And if you've cold crashed the beer you need to get it back up to temperature to force carb - and the light might not seal. Just no. You're better off bottling.

 

[slackman99]

Ok, appreciate the replies. I kind of thought that it might not be the best solution. A a halfway house night a soda stream cylinder be an option as I'll only be brewing 5 or 6 times a year.

Drunkula, not quite sure what you mean, but are you saying that having it carbed in the corny and then transferring to something smaller to go in the fridge to drink will mean it effectively un-carbs, or that cooling it in the fridge will mean the carb will drop as it's a lower temperature to when it was carbed?

 

[Session]

Another option is to use a spunding valve to naturally force-carbonate your keg without the need for priming sugar. This is what I have done and it both saves CO2 and minimises O2 exposure (if that’s your bag). You can then either dispense using a soda stream cylinder or regular 6kg cylinder, or bulbs if you fancy.

 

[Banbeer]

Am I right in thinking that when you fill a corny you need to add C02 to seal the lid?

 

[slackman99]

Ok, so off to look up what a spunding valve is :)

 

[Session]

Sorry - spunding is a technique whereby the fermentation vessel is ‘capped’ or sealed whilst the beer inside it still has some gravity points remaining. This causes the CO2 produced by the residual fermentation (which would normally exit through the airlock) to be trapped in the beer and naturally carbonate it without the need for sugar or externally provided CO2.

A spunding valve is a variable pressure release valve which allows you to set the pressure at which the valve opens, and thereby adjust the volumes of CO2 in solution.

 

[slackman99]

Ah ok, so is that similar to 'pressure fermenting'? I think i understand, but wouldn't that leave a lot of the trub in the FV?

 

[Session]

Ah ok, so is that similar to 'pressure fermenting'? I think i understand, but wouldn't that leave a lot of the trub in the FV?

Similar in a way, but you don’t need to pressure ferment to spund.
I don’t think it would leave any more trub in the FV, but to minimise transfer to the serving keg I use a floating dup tube and have very little issue with trub.

 

[Drunkula]

You can also carbonate a keg using a schrader valve attached to a pop bottle with yeast, nutrient and sugar that you use to generate co2. You need about 125g of sugar and you end up with a bottle of 3.5% crappy sugar wine as a 'bonus'.

 

[Session]

You can also carbonate a keg using a schrader valve attached to a pop bottle with yeast, nutrient and sugar that you use to generate co2. You need about 125g of sugar and you end up with a bottle of 3.5% crappy sugar wine as a 'bonus'.

Ah wow I never knew about this - amazing! Off to have a google!

 

[Rodcx500z]

You can also carbonate a keg using a schrader valve attached to a pop bottle with yeast, nutrient and sugar that you use to generate co2. You need about 125g of sugar and you end up with a bottle of 3.5% crappy sugar wine as a 'bonus'.

So you can carb yer beer and get phished on crappy wine, Drunkula your a naughty boy i like it

 

[Drunkula]

So you can carb yer beer and get phished on crappy wine, Drunkula your a naughty boy i like it

He he - I think I documented it on here, or somewhere. It worked just as well or better as doing it on set-and-forget on a co2 cylinder. I did it as a proof of concept

Ah wow I never knew about this - amazing! Off to have a google!

I hope you find it because I came up with it on my own and I've never actually checked if anyone else did it. I bet it's been done many times before because of co-evolution. It took about 2 or 3 days, which was like whahhhh - and when I shook the keg you could heard the bubbles going in just like when you force carb after about 12 hours. I have documentaried it.

Aaaaand I wrote an excel sheet that does all the maths for you for the amount of beer, size of the keg it's going in and the size of the pop bottle you're using. You say what carb level you want and it tells you how much sugar to use. All the maths is already out there.

 

[Rodcx500z]

Genius i love it

 

[slackman99]

Just to continue on a bit from the above, I think the main issue i'm going to have will be keeping a keg cool. I don't have a second fridge or enough room in our main fridge, so the keg would be 'room temperature conditioned'.

Would I then be able to rack off some beer into something small and cold crash in the fridge (thinking of a mini-keg or bottle with a carbonation cap) for drinking?

 

[prog99]

Yes I've done that before.

 

[Honk]

You can also carbonate a keg using a schrader valve attached to a pop bottle with yeast, nutrient and sugar that you use to generate co2. You need about 125g of sugar and you end up with a bottle of 3.5% crappy sugar wine as a 'bonus'.

I like this idea, I could also use my 5 litre mini keg to ferment some apple juice or similar, I managed to get a big co2 cylinder delivered yesterday but worth remembering if co2 stocks get low again