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Author Topic: can i carbonate beer in a keg with priming sugar and no co2?  (Read 55928 times)

Offline tschmidlin

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Re: can i carbonate beer in a keg with priming sugar and no co2?
« Reply #15 on: August 31, 2010, 01:18:02 pm »
The cold temp will definitely keep the yeast from carbonating the keg, but it's an either/or thing.  Either prime with sugar or force carbonate with CO2.

If you mean you put some pressure on the keg and let it sit cold, then added sugar and got no carbonation, your problem is the yeast won't work when it's too cold.

If you mean you had constant pressure on the keg and let it sit cold and it didn't carbonate, then a leak is the most likely suspect as euge said.
Tom Schmidlin

Offline deepsouth

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Re: can i carbonate beer in a keg with priming sugar and no co2?
« Reply #16 on: August 31, 2010, 01:53:37 pm »
i ended up kegging it later than expected and i'm force carbonating it with co2.  thanks for all the help.  it will surely come in handy in the future!

cheers.
Hoppy Homebrewers of South Mississippi (est. 2009)

AHA# 196703

bottled:     white house honey ale

Offline trekmore

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Re: can i carbonate beer in a keg with priming sugar and no co2?
« Reply #17 on: August 31, 2010, 11:33:26 pm »
I did have constant pressure... and had 3 kegs hooked up.  The other 2 are fine and the CO2 has not drained, but I will check for a leak anyway and perhaps try to reprime it if that does not work.... I guess perhaps warmed a bit... Thanks.

Offline tschmidlin

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Re: can i carbonate beer in a keg with priming sugar and no co2?
« Reply #18 on: September 01, 2010, 12:32:04 am »
Are you sure the gas is actually flowing into the keg?  Because it should force carbonate if there's gas there, and if the leak is so slow that it didn't drain the tank then the keg should be holding enough pressure to carbonate the beer.

Don't add more priming sugar, if you choose to go that route just warm it up.  The sugar is probably still there and the beer will carbonate.  It might need some yeast added though.  This is just a weird situation.
Tom Schmidlin