Natural Carbonation in Keg

[thatguy314]

I'm preparing for a homebrew dinner. My kegerator can only hold/chill 2 kegs at a time, but I think I'm going to have to carbonate several batches over the next 3 weeks. I think I may have to use priming sugar in the kegs. I know you're supposed to use less than in bottles... does anyone know why? Does anyone have any insight on how to target a specific number of CO2 volumes by sugar in the keg (versus in the bottle of which there is a lot of info)?

[edisonst]

If you have pro mash it has a calculator for that. Brewing Classic styles also has a graph thingy in the back of the book for calculating vols with priming sugar or dme.

[thatguy314]

If you have pro mash it has a calculator for that. Brewing Classic styles also has a graph thingy in the back of the book for calculating vols with priming sugar or dme.

Yeah. That's very accurate for bottles. However, I've repeatedly read that carbonating kegs requires less sugar than bottles. I was wondering if anyone had any idea how much less to use for a keg than I would for bottles.

[brewinhard]

Isn't there something in Palmer's book How to brew about carbonating in a keg with priming sugar?

[Jaeger48]

Can you force carb for 2 days or so and then put the others in an overflow fridge?

[TheMadHopper]

If you have pro mash it has a calculator for that. Brewing Classic styles also has a graph thingy in the back of the book for calculating vols with priming sugar or dme.

Yeah. That's very accurate for bottles. However, I've repeatedly read that carbonating kegs requires less sugar than bottles. I was wondering if anyone had any idea how much less to use for a keg than I would for bottles.

I don't have the program in front of me to look at, but I seem to remember that you can change either the number of bottles used or the size of the bottles used. Either set that at one bottle, or set it for a 5 gal bottle. It works.

The reason you need less sugar, is because you have less headspace, therefore more pressure. If you take the amount of headspace in 50 twelve ounce bottles and add it together, it would be much more than that left in the top of a keg. Less headspace makes pressure build up faster, which carbonates the beer more.

[Brewchief]

If you have 3 weeks that is way more than enough time. You can get a head start on each keg by jacking up the pressure and intermittently shaking the keg with the high pressure on it. That should be much more consistent and hassle-free than trying to prime.

You will be fine. If you have the CO2 you might as well flex it!