Kegging questions.

[flairman123]

Hi.

I will be taking the plunge to kegging in the not so distant future I hope!.
I am happy enough with the keg/C02/Regulator set up at this stage but I have some questions around secondary fermentation when kegging.
I currently run 2 x 23L primary fermentation vessels, what are the best budget type secondary fermentation vessels used for the purpose of removing sediment before kegging?
When carrying out secondary fermentation & fitting an airlock I presume, do I lose carbonation?
If I decide to force carbonate how long should I leave a batch in the secondary fermenter? if its purpose is just leaving the sediment behind in the primary before kegging,
can conditioning be carried out in the keg instead?
Sorry if the questions are a bit basic,but I was hoping to possibly even siphon from 1 fermenter to another,transfer to cornie, then if force carbonating, ,condition the beer in the cornie before actually carbonating it.
That way I will not be tying up my fermenter for too long?

Thanks for any help!

[Metattron]

I use the same type of fermentors for both primary and secondary fermentation.  I usually have my beer in secondary for about 2 weeks, then transfer to keg and leave it for a month or so.  Then I force carb for a few days and then get a tap on it.  The beer won't be carbed coming out of secondary.

You could go straight from primary to keg, or condition in the keg, or add sugar to the keg to prime it and allow to carbonate by itself.  I found these leave more yeast in the keg and the first few pints can be cloudy.  Maybe longer conditioning would clear more, but the dip tube still pulls beer from the bottom of the keg, so if there is a lot of yeast around the end of the dip tube then you are going to have that come out with the beer.

You could stick with the equipment you have.  Use one fermentor for primary, the other for secondary, then keg from there.  Just keep the beer moving from primary to secondary to keg to glass. 

[flairman123]

Thanks for your reply.

That answers all my questions!