7 replies to this topic

[SchwanzBrewer]

I need to bottle or keg my Irish red. I have a corny keg that I reconditioned and a keg charger. The beer has been in primary for 4 weeks and I can:1. Go ahead and natural carb in the keg2. Put the carboy in the fridge for a few days and let some of the sputz fall out, then carb in the keg so I have less gunk on the bottom when its ready.I'm itching to use the keg charger, so what do yall recommend?Cheers,Rich

[SchwanzBrewer]

Also I got the grains for 10 gallons of MLPA and I need both carboys to do it so I might be able to brew this weekend.Cheers,Rich

[ncbeerbrewer]

Rich,I suggest if you can hold out a couple of days to cold condition your primary to drop anything in suspension and then transfer into your keg and carbonate. I think the cold conditioning will allow better clarity without filtering and then when you transfer it will be that much colder already and carbing will go smoothly. As you can guess I voted Yes. Cheers,Mike

[Big Nake]

Chill the carboy, rack to a keg and force carb it! Was that one of the options? I forget because I'm not wearing pants. Ps. You could also cold condition the primary, then rack to the keg with priming solution (remember it's only 1/3 cup of priming sugar to prime a keg!), allow it to sit warm for natural carb to form and then cool it down. Cheers.

[jdl973]

Cold Crash for a couple of days, rack to keg and force carbonate at about 20 PSI, roll the keg on it side a couple of times and hit it with another shot of CO2. I find most my beers (depending on the style) take about 2-3 weeks to condition in the keg.Jason

[Thirsty]

It sounds like Zym that you do not have CO2 setup yet to do a force carb, and carbing a keg with a portable charger may be difficult. So that leaves you with naturally carbing the keg. If you are shooting for clarity and want to do the cold crash, I would crash it for at least a week, then rack to keg, let the keg warm up to room temps for a couple days, then add your priming solution and wait. Best of both worlds.

[SchwanzBrewer]

Chill the carboy, rack to a keg and force carb it! Was that one of the options? I forget because I'm not wearing pants. Ps. You could also cold condition the primary, then rack to the keg with priming solution (remember it's only 1/3 cup of priming sugar to prime a keg!), allow it to sit warm for natural carb to form and then cool it down. Cheers.

Why is it different for a keg and bottles? (I'm using a 5 gal corny)Cheers,Rich

[Big Nake]

I don't know because science is not my thing... but I have seen this many times. There is a link here which discusses it further. I have seen this in a number of books, etc. I have never naturally carbed a keg because I find force-carbing to be way too easy and efficient. But if I did... I would go with 1/3rd cup of sugar to make the priming solution. Cheers.