Priming a mini keg

[brydo]

Hi guys, I recently did a tour of the inveralmond brewary and as part of the tour you get a 5 litre keg of your choice ( lia fail ) I'm gonna use this to store my brew in but wondering about carbonation. Its a wheat beer and normally I'd use a teaspoon of suger per 500ml bottle which works out great. Is it just as simple as outing the auger in the mini keg, followed by the beer and leaving it as per usual ? Any ideas how many grams of auger I should use ? Cheers for any help

 

[DoctorMick]

I think the recommended amount is 20g, which is what I've been using. They can't really handle masses of pressure so aren't any good for high levels of carbonation.

 

[brydo]

What styles have you primed with 20grams mate ?

 

[Chrissparky]

I think the maximum recommended for those mini kegs is about 15g of sugar. You won't get the right carbonation for a wheat beer

 

[Leon103]

I wouldn't bother with a wheat in one of those. Kegs will take 20g but that's not high enough for a wheat.

 

[MickDundee]

I pushed a keg that I suspected had a dodgy lining to 26g and I'm getting masses and masses of foam with it.

The kegs are really for "cask" type levels of carbonation so can't handle high co2 levels.

 

[Fil]

its Upto 20g for the priming charge with the minikegs iirc, any more and you risk ballooning the kegs

So upto 12g for low conditioned ales, 15-16g for moderate condition, and 20g for lagers etc..

and remember if highly conditioned pre chilling before serving is advised to avoid foaming

 

[brydo]

Cheers for all the responses, gutted a wheat beer might not be the best for a mini keg but I'm gonna give it a bash with 20grams and see what like.

 

[MrRock]

Are these figures being suggested for normal granulated table sugar that you'd put in your tea & coffee, or brewing sugar (dextrose/corn sugar)?

Probably important to distinguish as you would normally use more brewing sugar than table sugar for the same level of carbonation.

So far I've been using between 15g to 18g of brewing sugar per keg, which would equate to 13.7g to 16.4g of table sugar.

 

[DoctorMick]

Are these figures being suggested for normal granulated table sugar that you'd put in your tea & coffee, or brewing sugar (dextrose/corn sugar)?

Probably important to distinguish as you would normally use more brewing sugar than table sugar for the same level of carbonation.

So far I've been using between 15g to 18g of brewing sugar per keg, which would equate to 13.7g to 16.4g of table sugar.

I've just been using 20g table sugar.

 

[Fil]

i refer to sucrose white table sugar,
priming with anything else is a waste of money imho the proportion of priming charge compared to the volume of fermentables that provided the OG is miniscule and has no possible impact on flavour imho.

 

[MrRock]

i refer to sucrose white table sugar,
priming with anything else is a waste of money imho the proportion of priming charge compared to the volume of fermentables that provided the OG is miniscule and has no possible impact on flavour imho.

I agree, it just happens that I have a bag of brewing sugar from a Belgian beer that I brewed a while ago, so I've been using that.

 

[dave_walton]

I use sugar lumps, each one is 4g and make measuring pretty easy.

Sent from my SM-T813 using Tapatalk

 

[Jaffa91]

I find that once I've added sugar to the cider in my keg and left it for a few weeks it just froths straight from the tap when pouring a pint.

Once it stops doing this, I then have to literally tilt it back & forth to pour pints, like it's struggling and have no idea why.

I also got some Co2 Bulbs and a connector with the keg,however I have not used this yet and don't know what to do with it.


My first batch if DIY cider kit told me to add 20g of sugar for priming the keg though, not sure how much pressure that put onto the keg, felt like a lot.

Regards

J

 

[Shenfield shed]

Reading lots of these threads, but still confused. I batch primed some Pale Ale and put some in 2 x 5ltr kegs, but the froth coming out takes ages to clear, what the best solution. I've read 1/3 of the normal sugar content, does this sound about right.

 

[terrym]

Reading lots of these threads, but still confused. I batch primed some Pale Ale and put some in 2 x 5ltr kegs, but the froth coming out takes ages to clear, what the best solution. I've read 1/3 of the normal sugar content, does this sound about right.

My experience of priming minikegs is that any more than 15g sugar for the 5 litres and you are initially dispensing very foamy beer. So if you batch primed your Pale Ale at any more than 3g per litre you are are in foamy beer territory. My suggestion to you is to dispense your beer into a serving jug then pour from that when the foam has subsided but make sure the jug is bigger than your glass. So for a pint use a one litre jug. Or you could try chilling the keg and the beer in it and see if that makes any difference.