any help on bulk primming please

The ins and outs of putting your beer into kegs.

any help on bulk primming please

Postby bangers » Friday Aug 01, 2008 5:26 am

Hi all ,
I'm starting to put together a small keg system to start off with and I've read Olivers topic on gasing up ect.
I'm going to use a 9 or 12ltr party keg, a keg tap and a co2 keg charger.I read that I can naturally carbonate my home brew by bulk priming it and leaving it in the keg for about 10 days as I would with bottles, and that the small co2 charger mainly helps to maintain pressure in the keg .So how do I work out my ratio of priming sugar per litre of wort ? I usally use carbonation drops which are pretty straight forward .but Ive never used priming sugar before so can any one put me on the right track
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Re: any help on bulk primming please

Postby Chris » Friday Aug 01, 2008 7:39 am

Use the ratio of 1/3 cup of sugar for 19L.

I'm sure you can do the maths for a 9 or 12L keg.
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Re: any help on bulk primming please

Postby rwh » Friday Aug 01, 2008 11:55 am

Australians generally expect a "high" level of carbonation. When bottling this generally works out to be about 8g/L of sucrose, which is approximately 6g per longneck (1 teaspoon) or 3g per stubby (1/2 teaspoon) or 180g per 23L batch. When kegging, you need to use less sugar (due to less headspace on average I think) so 120g/19L is probably appropriate, which works out to be 54g/9L or 72g/12L.

Note that bulk priming can be used equally well when bottling as when kegging. You just boil up the sugar in some water (normally a cup or a bit more than a cup) and add this to a sanitised fermenter, and rack the beer on top. The swirling action of the beer as it racks onto the sugar stirs it in, and you can then bottle and cap the beer without having to prime individual bottles. Bottle priming vs bulk priming is really just a preference thing, people just do what they find easier.

Once you have carbonated your beer in the keg, you need some way to force it out of the tap so you can drink it. That's where the CO2 chargers come in. You will need about four CO2 bulbs to force out a 19L keg, so I'd guess about 2 to 3 bulbs for a 9 or 12L keg. You can't really carbonate beer with the chargers as they simply don't contain enough CO2 and they're relatively expensive. At least you can recycle them with your normal steel cans.

Note that I'm quoting all the sugar weights for dextrose. Sucrose is 10% more fermentable by weight (dextrose contains a molecule of water in its crystal lattice for every molecule of sugar, whereas sucrose does not). So to convert the weights to sucrose, multiply by 0.9 (if you can be bothered, I guess it's not that significant).

Anyhoo, if you're interested in learning a bit more about priming, check out:

Essential Guide to Bulk Priming
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Re: any help on bulk primming please

Postby bangers » Saturday Aug 02, 2008 5:32 am

O.K. thank you very much gents !
What my plans are once i've got everything set up is to fill the keg up then bottle the rest for later ,till I get more expierence with kegging (it seems the best way to go in the future ) I was going to use a coopers lager for my first go as its not too expensive and if I bugger it up I wont be as upset as I would be if I'd done an A.G. So I'd be looking at 180gs per 23ltr and 120 per 19ltr .once again thanks for the directions
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