Keg Conditioning

[emsroth]

My brew schedule was unfortunately delayed by 2 weeks, so I am thinking I'll whip up a nice Dark Mild this weekend for a quick brew day.

Two questions:

1. I normally fly sparge, but I've read with low abv, delicate beers it's best to no-sparge. Does anyone know about no-sparge efficiency?

2. I am thinking I would love the soft, delicate carbonation of "cask" conditioning. I've read that keg conditioning requires less sugar than bottle conditioning. Does anyone have experience with keg conditioning?

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

I always fly sparge. it just insures your getting all the sugar off

 

[Anthony G Milner]

Local Mild beers here were always sparged. Carbonation in Cask beers is dependent on the type of vessel you carbonate in, a polypin - plastic barrel with bottom tap - requires about 60 / 70 grams of sugar per 20 lits. a bit high at first but as the headspace increases the carbonation will drop to the point where you need to top up the co2 via the S30 tap to draw a pint anyway. Most polypins leak co2 I've found. If you plan to Corny Keg the beer then you will need less sugar.
Cheers

 

[emsroth]

Thanks a bunch!

 

[Nosybear]

I always fly sparge. it just insures your getting all the sugar off

True.... But batch sparging generally works well enough. Just be careful not to sparge too much and extract astringency - the gravity of your runnings should never go below 1.008. This is not a problem with batch sparging. As to the cask conditioning, low carbonation and freshness should do the job there. Keg conditioning does require less sugar - you're getting quite a bit of your carbonation from the CO2 pressure where we bottle conditioners have to develop all the gas in the bottle.

 

[GFHomebrew]

My thoughts on keg conditioning is the time my beer spends In the keg untill I consume it all.