Corny Kegs racking/drinking

[mancer62]

I currently have two Cornies and without now the need to batch prime as I did with my pressure barrels and bottles was wondering what would be the average time between racking into the kegs and drinking???

 

[chewie]

It will depend if you allow some conditioning to occur in the FV before you rack to the keg, but if the beer is in a drinkable state when you keg allow 3-5 days for force carbing.

 

[mancer62]

I've heard it said that u can drink as early as a few hours after force carbing by rocking the keg back and forth. Is this the case?
What do u mean by conditioning before kegging. I plan to maybe have beer in FV for a month before racking to keg....will that be conditioned enough....I actually have a 6 week time slot to get my brew ready. Is there a better way to do it?

 

[Bigcol49]

Hi!
Conditioning beer in a FV in the fridge does not tie up your kegs for long periods.
I've just kegged a Munton's Gold Continental Lager kit that sat in a cool brewfridge for about a month after fermentation had finished.
Once it was force carbed by rolling on the floor at 20psi, it was ready to drink immediately. It should continue to improve but it is definitely ready to drink.
Remember that if time isn't important, you can carb up your beer using the "set and forget" method - find out what pressure level you need for the appropriate carbonation for that style of beer, set the regulator to that pressure, put the keg in the fridge and wait a couple of weeks.

 

[chewie]

Different strength/types of beer will condition at different times, conditioning is the time taken for the beer to reach its peak taste/flavour, one rule of thumb is that the higher the ABV then the longer the conditioning time that should be allowed for. You could just keg and carb it the second fermentation has finished but expect a cloudy beer. If you have 6 weeks i would ferment for 3 weeks, rack to another vessel for 1/2 a day and then keg it, a small burst of Co2 to purge the keg then leave it for 2 weeks, the final week i would be force carbing it and chilling, purge excess pressure and serve at 5 psi or thereabouts depending on your setup. As Big C points out about tying up kegs for long periods i should say that i use 3 kegs, 1 for drinking, 1 empty for next batch and 1 for conditioning.

 

[Jonniepeek]

i have found and has worked on many styles, ferment beer for 7-10days in bucket rack off to secondary ( pressure barrel) cold crash for 1 week then rack into corney keg set psi to 20-30 psi depending no style leave another week and bingo clear carbed beer, of course, the longer you leave the better it gets.

 

[Drunkula]

I've force carbed and drunk the beer within 2 minutes but you notice it getting better over a week. I don't think I've even managed to keep anything in a keg for 2 weeks.

 

[IainM]

Drunkula is right, you get get the CO2 is very quickly. However, don't do what I did and ramp it up to 50 PSI and shake the life out of it, because that way lies overcarbonation.