To prime or not to prime?

[ManseMasher]

Here's a question for the corney keg community (I've just got my first one!). Do you still prime the keg, force carbonate without priming, or both prime and carbonate?

 

[clibit]

Corneys are not designed to be primed. Some people do, but the normal method is to force carbonate, with zero priming.

 

[McMullan]

You can prime kegs or force carb them. To prime, use about 60% of the sugar you'd use for priming a batch in bottles. View the keg as one big 'bottle'. The headspace is much smaller than that you'd get in 40ish bottles combined, which is why less sugar is required, apparently. It's important to lube the keg seals with keg lube or K-Y jelly. After purging air from the keg's headspace a few times, using about 5psi, remove the gas disconnect and ramp up the pressure to 25-30psi. Then connect it back on the gas-in post. You should hear it pressurising and sealing. (Always make sure the gas is on before connecting to the keg. You don't want beer in your regulator. You can get a gas disconnect check valve for about a tenner.) Then remove the gas disconnect and leave it at room temperature for 2-3 weeks. You can monitor the pressure using a gauge connected to a gas disconnect. To force carb, purge and seal as above. Then set the regulator to the required psi, which depends on the temperature of the beer (cooler is better) and vols of CO2 you want. If you leave the CO2 attached, triple check for any leaks. Without a carb lid and carb stone, it's going to take at least 5 days to carbonate properly. You can't shake the keg to get the beer carbed properly in a short time. Both priming and slow force carbing should get your beer carbed properly. I prime most of my kegs these days and force carb when I'm in a hurry.

 

[peebee]

Like McMullan I use both. But being a bit of a "real ale" guy try to limit the CO2 to just getting the stuff out of the corny, not purposely carbonating the contents. Really needs flashy secondary regulators for this which aren't easy to get (cheaply! Best I've done is using modified "airbrush" regulators to get down to 4-5psi; and not reliably at that!). So I'm priming with about 20-25g sugar and pressuring keg up to 3-4psi after purging out the air (never had problems sealing, but always lube the seals). Some of the bitters I brew are ready to drink within a week, but because I add finings at the same time as priming, conditioning is slow so I need the gas to get the beer out. After a couple of weeks the pressure is allowed to climb to 6-8psi where the regulators are much happier too.

Dark and "matured" beers don't need this treatment and get pressured to 6-8psi straight away (I think its the fresh hop flavours in bitters that don't like the gas?).

The demand valve for the hand-pump isn't meant to work above 5psi but doesn't cause me problems.