Fri May 18, 2012 5:26 am
Whenever I dry hop in the keg, I carb with priming sugar (figure it helps eat some O2 from the hops). Also sometimes when the fridge is full I naturally carbonate. I try to shoot for a little under carbonated, hoping to get to the right level very quickly when I put the keg in the fridge.
Another potential reason for needing less priming sugar is that more carbonation is lost when bottling (since you have multiple transfers). Thus you have more CO2 already in solution when racking straight to the keg. I believe I heard that from Brew Strong.
I haven't found this to be the case, though. By using only slightly less than my software tells me to, I get about the right amount of carbonation after a week. The same software worked for bottles which just uses the standard carbonation tables you can find in How to Brew or elsewhere (~3/4 cup dextrose fro 2.5 volumes in 5 gallons). I might be getting the right carbonation in the keg because I only wait a week or two (as opposed to letting bottles age for 3+ weeks) - if one waited longer one might get overcarbonated beers?
One tip, though. Some kegs won't hold a seal below about 5psi, so if you try and naturally carbonate, put ~5psi into the keg before letting it sit. Otherwise all the CO2 created will just push itself around the seals.
Beer. Bikes. Cosmic B-fields.
