Oops, Forgot to Bleed the Keg

[Whamolagan]

Anything in the headspace should be displaced by CO2 anyways... ???

OK...let me throw this out there, just to further this fun conversation. Since it's in a keg, which is a sealed evironment, you're saying that the oxygen would be displaced by the CO2....but where does it go? If it's been displaced and can't get out of the keg, does it get displaced back into suspension along with the CO2 that's being put into the keg? Things that make me go Hhhmmmm.....

Out the top? How do you fill your kegs? I am assuming that we all here are using pinlock or ball lock

[mashani]

Anything in the headspace should be displaced by CO2 anyways... ???

OK...let me throw this out there, just to further this fun conversation. Since it's in a keg, which is a sealed evironment, you're saying that the oxygen would be displaced by the CO2....but where does it go? If it's been displaced and can't get out of the keg, does it get displaced back into suspension along with the CO2 that's being put into the keg? Things that make me go Hhhmmmm.....

Out the top? How do you fill your kegs? I am assuming that we all here are using pinlock or ball lock

I don't keg, so anything I say might be crazy. But I do understand the gas laws.

So the way I figure it... Your beer has CO2 in it, even though you haven't carbed it yet... (this is why temperature is important to calculate priming rates, to understand just how much dissolved CO2 is already hanging out in the wort you need to know the temperature... also air pressure if you want to get really technical/accurate, but that's more of a coast vs. rocky mountain kind of issue until you force pressure to build somehow). Your wort at the time of racking is likely still pretty much as saturated as it can be at the temperature and air pressure it is under, unless you shook the crap out of it.

In any case, while you are racking or bottling, some of it will get knocked out of suspension. That should form a little blanket over the wort and most of the oxygen should rise above it. So if you fill the keg pretty full, most of the oxygen should already be pushed out. In theory at that point yes, your wort can absorb more gas. But whatever it absorbs has to be touching the surface, and that's CO2 still, (that it offgassed). And any CO2 you pump in should also keep any oxygen floating above it.

It is probably a bigger issue if you only semi-fill the kegs. And if you shake the crap out of them all the time. I could see the need/desire to try to force most of the remaining oxygen out if your keg was not full and you had to shake it.

[BlackDuck]

but with Chris still being relatively new to kegging it isn't surprising for him to have concerns and questions the same way we all did when we first started brewing/bottling/batch priming, etc.

Thanks Ron.!!

This has been a good conversation, thanks to everyone!