im ready to keg a batch of irish red and ive got no room in my kegerator to chill it like i normally do to force carb. should i just go with corn sugar at room temp or still force carb at room temp even though it takes more psi. how much corn sugar if i do it that way?
I never do anything but force carb at room temp. I’m happy with the results and can’t really think of any reason not to.
I vote for corn sugar. Use 3-4oz per 5 gallons at 70F.
Out of curiosity, why would you prefer that to force carbing at room temp? Not suggesting one is better or worse than the other, just wondering what your thinking is.
I’d force carb it, unless you really like dispensing trub.
Force carb gets my vote.
Force carbing is my choice because I can precisely control the carbonation to my liking.
If you do decide to prime, be sure to seat the seals in the keg with 10-20 psi after you close it up.
My kegging rig is pretty basic. For the last three years I haven’t bothered to run lines and keep everything hooked up all the time. Used to force carb by connecting & pressuring up the kegs every day until desired volumes were reached or by shaking. Priming puts me right there volume-wise and it keeps my hands off the brew for at least a week or two. All with zero effort.
I realize it isn’t popular with the kegging crowd but makes perfect sense to me. :
You’re blowing this ^^^ aspect way out of proportion. I don’t see any more sediment than from any other approaches. With a floccing yeast it’s clear after a couple pints.
Actually it’s super duper really freakin clear…and then the keg blows 
Ain’t that the truth. I poured a pint of my Ofest last weekend that was amazingly crystal clear and went to get a second glass only to blow the keg.
It was a sad day.
It was the best Ofest I have ever made. I will make this recipe again.
I’m with you. I also prefer natural carbonation over having to force carb the beer. The main argument is that I don’t need to have the keg hooked up to the regulator. At this point I only have one for the keg-o-rator.
From time to time the natural carbonation doesn’t work out as intended and I’ll have to force carb a beer.
Kai
I’m not blowing anything out of proportion. If you have CO2 available, why not use it? Carbonation is carbonation.
If you can naturally carb a beer without adding any additional trub, please explain how you do that.
carbing with corn sugar will not add more yeast than there is already in the beer since the yeast will not grow. But you’ll need to have some yeast in the beer to begin with. Something that you don’t need for force carbonation.
Kai
You’re being disingenuous. I’ll stand on my previous statements and not be drawn into a pointless argument with you Mikey.
So, you’re saying that corn sugar will not a one bit of additional trub? Sorry, I can’t accept that.
Euge, please quit trying to turn this into something it isn’t. Am I not entitled to my opinion here or is that reserved for only senior brewmasters?
The only trub that it would create is additional yeast. But yeast growth has already stopped in the early stages of primary fermentation due to limitation of nitrogen and oxygen. Adding more sugar won’t make the yeast grow more unless you are adding more nitrogen as well. I believe that in a well aerated batch of beer with a good pitch of yeast nitrogen limits growth. And if oxygen was the growth limiter you are not giving it to the yeast either. If you do you might be glad that you have active yeast since it scavenges the oxygen.
I’d love a discussion on this subject since it does interest me a lot.
Another aspect of adding corn sugar for carbonation is that it does change the recipe slightly. The addition rates of corn sugar commonly used for carbonation raise the OG by about 3 points or 0.75 Plato. If you still want to carbonate naturally but avoid this you’ll have to use Speise, Kraeusen or residual extract. But then you’ll also increase the trub amount. I don’t care about the latter since I’ll do the carbonation in a bright tank. But this is OT since the question was dextrose vs. force carbing.
Kai
The next time I’m on the mood to bottle, which is rare, I’ll have to run a little experiment on this.