Bottling from a Corny

[theflyingric]

Evening chaps
So I've started Kegging 4th Keg in. But I would like to get some Feed back on my brews now short of inviting everybody round I was thinking of starting to enter the comps on here.
Now what's the best way of getting my precious beer from keg to bottle without forking out on a beer gun ? But the finished product been nicely carbed?
Cheers


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[Crlclarke]

I've seen people attach a bit of pipe to the beer tap and fill bottles from bottom up.

I found angel homebrew do a beer gun for a reasonable price

 

[Bigcol49]

Now what's the best way of getting my precious beer from keg to bottle without forking out on a beer gun?

Hi!
Low-cost beer gun here: http://tinyurl.com/j7ndxx9

 

[peebee]

Hi!
Low-cost beer gun here: http://tinyurl.com/j7ndxx9

A good illustration of the "other" type of beer gun.

There is two options: the "Blichman" style - flashy, but only really suitable for bottling "green" beer - and the "counter-pressure" style - like in the url.

I think "theflyingic" is describing wanting the counter-pressure type - bottling the odd bottle from already carbonated kegged beer. Like I wanted to do and got a "Blichman" style gun. It is of course useless for bottling already carbonated beer (unless very low carbonation, "cask conditioned" style). I'm surprised no-one markets a flashy "Blichman" style gun with a counter-pressure attachment. It wouldn't be easy to adapt a "Blichman" gun because they are very "leaky" with the CO2 and they feed CO2 in at the bottom.

 

[Fil]

chilling both the keg and the bottle to as low a temperature as possible and filling from the bottom of the bottle up with tube attached to the tap, filling to the brim (foam), capping asap should give the bottle a few days shelf life but is probably best drunk sooner than later.

for any sort of real shelf life your probably best of looking at a counterpressure bottle filler, a diy job can be knocked up easily enough but my take on the build resulted in a contraption needing 3 hands to operate and hold steady with a seal on the bottle burping out the excess co2 as it filled. and again kegand bottle chilling are key to success.

imho the best option is a pegas bottle filler, they are designed to flush out pet bottles with co2 and fill with beer in a 'bring your own bottle store' and can be jigged to use standard glass bottles with a notched out washer..

Not cheap, but are loved by everyone who has made the investment.

Beware of cheap chinese copies on alibaba many have been stung by poor copies with missing ports in the build needing some drilling out and jbwelding to fix... a lot more faf than the cost of the real deal imho..

http://beerinnovations.com/beerequipment/pet/pegas-evolution

not much change from �£100 after shipping iirc.. i think you need to email the ittalian supplier direct as there isnt a uk distributer atm??

but you can install a standard beer tap into the beer pass thru port and have the option to pour a pint or fill a bottle from the same keg as and when

 

[F00b4r]

The Pegas taps are amazing but if it's just for the odd bottle now and then I would pick up a few carbonation caps for a fiver each, really useful for cleaning your corny setup as well.

 

[Fuzzy-felt]

You might like to look into getting a couple of stainless steel carbonator caps. I have a BeerGun and several carbonator caps, and I've found myself using the caps much more often.

You can see them in action here:
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCrfp8ha9Dw[/ame]

The Malt Miller advertises them, but they always seem to be out of stock. I bought a batch of 10 from Australia via ebay and it cost about �£9.50 each (I passed on most of them to my beer club co-members). They were so popular that I got another 10 from the same place and it came out a bit dearer (about �£11 as the second time I had to pay extra taxes).
A quick look on ebay reveals that there a quite a few places you can get these from for a reasonable price. Make sure they are the stainless steel ones, and that they have the barb at the bottom.


They are very versatile, but there are a few things to be aware of, such as:

1. You have to use PET bottles (although I've not seen a completion yet where you can't use PET).
2. Doing more than one bottle where you want to keep the beer under pressure (for topping up the carbonation, for example) means multiple caps, unless you do them one at a time.
3. If sending off for competitions you have to swap over the cap for a normal plastic one, which will result in a bit of lost carbonation, but this is reduced if you get it down to a cold temperature, and you can compensate by over-carbonating in the bottle (can be tricky to judge it right, though).
4. If you get your pressures wrong between keg and bottle and blow back a bit of beer into your keg then you disturb the sediment and you then have to wait a fair while for it to clear again. I use a mixture of corny and crusader kegs, and I've never had this happen with the crusaders, though.

Anyway, they're worth looking into so hope this might help.

 

[peebee]

...
imho the best option is a pegas bottle filler, they are designed to flush out pet bottles with co2 and fill with beer in a 'bring your own bottle store' and can be jigged to use standard glass bottles with a notched out washer..

Not cheap, but are loved by everyone who has made the investment.
...

Thanks for that. Just what *I* had in mind. The "Ecotap" version isn't so expensive for cheapskates like me (cheaper than a Blichmann beer gun) but perhaps still too expensive to fit with the OP? From YouTube:
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bBh4AvlkDM[/ame]
Still need to figure whether I dare buy one (from Russia).

 

[Fuzzy-felt]

This Pegas bottle filler certainly looks very interesting.

The Ecotap here looks as though it costs about €76 delivered (assuming that the website is picking up that this is delivery to UK).
http://www.pegas.lt/en/170-pegas.html

I got the contact from an old thread on JBK.