I thought I would try something different so I would not have to wait 3-4 days to get my ales carbed. So I added 1/2 cup of corn sugar to the keg as I racked it off primary. I spilled a little so I figure I ended up with 1/3 cup. I usually use 3/4 cup when I bottle but I wanted to be on the safe side.
Does anyone else keg carb and how much corn sugar do you use?
Dave
I’ve done it a couple times. I used 5oz because I was bottling some and putting the rest in the keg. It carbed just fine. There have been a few threads about it and best I can tell, the 1/3 cup in a keg vs 3/4 cup for bottling is an “old brewer’s tale”.
I pretty much use the same amounts as with bottles. I think a good start is 3oz of cane sugar- which will carb up 5 gallons quite nicely.
Is this really faster than carbonating using head pressure? I haven’t done much bottling but I thought it generally took a week or so to fully carbonate.
It’s not any faster IMO but you don’t need to hook up the keg to the gas either so keg-priming can be done “off-system” so to speak. My preferred method.
What about just charging the keg high like 30psi and then taking it off the system, so you can set it aside and still have that one carbing. thats what I do.
+1. This is why I wanted to give it a try.
Dave
The problem is that a keg can’t handle enough pressure (~400 psi) in the head space for that to carbonate the beer. You could pressurize the head space to 30 psi, and that CO2 will go into solution, but you’re less than 10% of the way to fully carbonating the beer.
I can see where this approach wouldn’t make much sense to someone with a balanced multi-tap system! ;D Recently as two years ago the idea had poor reception.