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I'm brewing to keg for the first time, finally. I am planning to force carbonate and was wondering: Are there was any steps I need to take to stop any active yeast before putting it in the keg and gassing it up? Is this even something I need to worry about?

It will have been fermenting about two weeks before going into the keg.

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You can just put it in the keg, no need to do anything with the yeast. After two weeks, a regular strength beer will have fermented out, so there's little CO2 going to be produced.

Even if there were some CO2 produced, it takes time for the forced carbonation to enter solution, so any additional co2 from the yeast just contributes to the pressure in the headspace which is then topped up to your target psi by the co2 tank. Any co2 from the yeast simply means you use a fraction less co2 from the tank, but it's a small amount and not worth worrying about.

Stopping the yeast would not be good for the beer, since it's needed to condition and improve the beer. After two weeks, the beer is still pretty green - another couple of weeks with the small amount of yeast in suspension cleans up the beer.

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  • I like to wait until the beer has mostly clarified before putting it in the keg. This helps reduce the amount of trub in the first pull from the keg.
    – FishesCycle
    Apr 26, 2012 at 5:46
  • Hilarious. I LITERALLY just came here to ask this and this was the top question. I have a strong IPA, doing my first secondary (usually a long primary) and it's still kicking a bit 12+ days in. Didn't expect much fermentation in the secondary. Feel better about kegging it in another week now w/o it exploding!
    – goodytx
    Apr 26, 2012 at 15:42
  • anybody who worries about a keg exploding from residual fermentation isn't drinking often enough!
    – Dale
    Apr 26, 2012 at 19:59
  • hehe, yes, and they'd also be bending the laws of time and space since there isn't enough sugar in a regular 20 gallon batch to raise the pressure above 120 psi, and even then the pressure relief valve would open, so definitely no explosions, just maybe an unwelcome hiss!
    – mdma
    Apr 26, 2012 at 21:24
  • typo in the comment above, I mean a 5 gallon, not 20 gallon batch.
    – mdma
    May 16, 2012 at 19:25

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