Hi all after some advice on naturally carving a keg.
I have an IPA I’m going to be kegging today and I’d like to naturally carb it with priming sugar my question(s) is
1)how much should I use for a IPA
2)assuming I just dump the priming sugar in the keg first and rack on top?
3)what initial PSI should I put on top?
4)what temp will it need to sit at to naturally carb in the keg?
Sorry for all the questions and thank you all for your advice in advance 
Dissolve the priming sugar in boiled water, put into the keg and rack beer on top of it. Figure about 1/2 to 2/3 as much sugar as you would to bottle condition. Pressurize as needed to seal keg and then bleed off to just a couple of lbs. Temperature should be just like you’re bottle conditioning.
I use 3 oz. of table sugar by weight, and it carbs a five gallon batch to a pretty good generic level, say 2.3 volumes. YMMV, but it is a good starting point.
Sealing the keg with CO2 is critical. I think I skipped that on my last batch. Not carbonated, which was disappointing but easily rectified.
I typically hit the kegs at 30 psi to seal the lid. If it doesn’t seal well at that pressure, you’ll typically hear it leaking out.
I use the Brewers Friend Priming Calculator to determine how much priming sugar will be needed based on my volume, desired carbonation level, and current beer temperature. I also use the full amount it suggests and my beers are carbed nice and appropriate - not overcarbed. Dissolve in ~8oz boiling water first.
You’ll definitely want to seal the lid with some good pressure (20-30psi) after securing the lid, and I even check it 12 hours later (and even once more 12 hours after that) to make sure I’m not leaking out gas through the lid.
After that, let the keg sit at room temp (70±5°F) for two weeks usually does it for me.
I have to say, I felt like a total knucklehead when I checked my keg after two weeks and there was absolutely no pressure.
The bottles carbed up perfectly. The keg is on CO2 for the past three days and will be tapped tomorrow. Maybe even drained tomorrow.
I’ve been in the same position before, and that’s when I learned to hit the headspace a couple more times at 12 hour intervals ;D. I have old, used cornies with not-the-most-tight-fitting lids so it’s extra important for me. The brand new corny kegs seem to have excellent sealing abilities just by closing the bail.
Luckily, there’s probably been positive pressure inside the keg for most of the time so any staling is probably minimal at worst; most likely it’s perfectly fine. At least you’ll have some bottles to compare the flavor quality with - I guess that’s the bright side ;D
Yeah. I’m not worried about staling. I’m pretty sure the CO2 from the priming sugar kept any air ingress from occurring.
My experience has been that I need to use the same amount of priming sugar in the keg as I would if I were bottling. I’ve been using 4.5 oz. of cane sugar.
I don’t put any pressure on top (no harm in it though), just attach a spunding valve to the gas post so I can monitor progress and know when it’s ready for the kegerator.
Even holding the keg at 72 degrees, I find it takes a solid 2.5 weeks to fully carb.
I’m just gonna ask in this thread, since there is a ton of them already out there. I have a batch I’m going to split between bottling and the rest will be kegged. I already have 3 kegs in my beer fridge so I don’t have the room to get this cold and force carbonated right now. I have always wanted to give priming a keg a try.
I understand some say to use less priming sugar for priming a keg than I would for bottling a full batch, but my question is how will all that head space make a difference if I am only filling half a 5 gal keg and priming it? Will the blast of co2 I give it at first to seal the lid make up the difference, or should I maybe use the full amount of sugar as if I was bottling to fill that head space…thoughts?
If you’re pressurizing the head space to the equilibrium carbonation pressure (~30 psig at room temperature) then you don’t need to worry about it and can just use the correct amount of sugar for your beer volume.
How full do you typically fill your cornies?
I just filled one up completely (beer started coming through gas line in my closed transfer) and I used the full amount of priming sugar recommended for bottling.
I really want to avoid any purging since it’s an IPA and has great aroma already and I just added 7oz of dry hops.
I am planning on building a sounding valve this week so maybe that could be useful worst case scenario.