Why do you add less sugar to prime a keg than bottles?

[kcosen2112]

Title says it all. I've search and read through books, but can't find any info why this is. Can anyone point to a good source or explain why this is?

Thanks!

[codewritinfool]

Bodensatz has this to say: (http://www.bodensatz.com/staticpages/in ... edures-faq)

"if you are priming with corn sugar (or DME for that matter) use the exact same amount that you would use if you were bottling. We see a lot of people who recommend using only 1/3 the amount, and frankly, we'd like to choke the person (whoever it is) who originally started this myth. There is nothing magical about a keg which means you need less sugar. A volume of beer is a volume of beer, no matter how you slice and dice it. So use 125g (3/4 cup) plus or minus according to your own tastes."

[kcosen2112]

Thanks. I figured that you would use the same amount...it didn't make sense to me why anyone would use less.

[codewritinfool]

It would be good to have someone else chime in on this.... I'm no expert!

[Dirk McLargeHuge]

It sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Until someone contradicts you, I'll use 2/3 cup.

[bcmaui]

I thought the advantage to kegging was that you can force carbonate and dial in your CO level. Are there styles that priming sugar is better for? The end result is CO2 in the beer.

If you are kegging to save bottling time but do not have the carbonation equipment yet I can see why you might want to go this way, but how to you get the beer out later without the CO2?

These might be dumb questions because I don't have kegging equipment yet and have only bottled. There may be styles (sour beer, barley wine, etc.) where there is an advantage to fill the thing up sealed in a dark, cool area for a long time and leave the CO2 connection until much later?

And to partially answer my own question - I guess this is how you carbonate wood barrel aged beer?

[SacoDeToro]

Certainly, a huge advantage of kegging is the ability to dial in your carbonation at any point. CO2 is the same gas no matter what the source. Some may argue that CO2 is finer or more delicate in a bottle/keg ("naturally") conditioned beer, but that's really more related to yeast still in suspension. It can also be related to remaining yeast's ability to continue to absorb and soften flavors over time.

IMO, force carbonating in a keg is best for most styles of beer. Styles that require very high levels of carbonation (saison, Belgian strong golden, etc...) can sometimes be difficult to fill bottles with and dispense without making a ton of foam. In this case, some people prefer to prime in the keg, then immediately bottle the beer and let it condition for a few weeks.

Beer that is truly barrel aged is nearly still when it's done maturing. About half of the breweries I know choose to force carbonate barrel aged beer prior to packaging. The other half do the bottled conditioned thing. The camp seems to be split on this one. That said, all the Belgian inspired barrel aged beers I can think of that get bottled are bottle conditioned.

[Happy Smurf]

It would be good to have someone else chime in on this.... I'm no expert!

Well, I'm no expert either, but the arguments for using the same amount make sense to me. Also, BeerSmith's carbonation tool doesn't have different results (priming sugar mass) for kegs and bottles. Sounds likt you're good to go.

In fact, if anything, I would think you would need more sugar in a keg if you had a lot of headspace (say 3 gallons in a 5 gallon keg.