Bottling from keg

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artiums_enteri

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This discussion covers bottling from an already carbonated corny keg.

There are two methods I use depending on the situation. As you are probably well aware once you start kegging bottling beer just seems to be a time vampire. However; we always have friends and family who ask for samples of our beer. Here is a quick and easy way to accommodate those folks without taking too much time or effort. This method is really only designed for beer that will be consumed within a few days of bottling. A week max.

Once the beer is carbonated in the keg attach a 3/8 inch diameter food grade hose to the tap and make sure it reaches the bottom of the vessel. I usually use 1 gallon growlers for this. Open the tap keeping the C02 regulator at about 3-5 psi. Fill the bottle until the beer starts flowing out the mouth of the bottle. It feels like you are wasting beer, but it's not a whole lot. Once you start filling the bottle with beer rather than foam extract the tubing and cap on foam. This minimizes oxidation and keeps the same carbonation level you had in the keg for up to a week. Great for gatherings.

For long term storage or competition I use the blichman beer gun. A similar product is a counter pressure bottle filler. This device ensures you keep the same amount of pressure in the bottle as you have in the keg. A lot of foam can be produced if you've ramped up the C02 on your regulator. It's a good idea to keep your pressure at about 3 psi for this. Again cap on foam to minimize oxidation. Bottle fill is judged and worth 5 points, so if competing is your bag, then keep an eye on your fill level. Again, cap on foam. It really makes this a much easier task if you can get a spouse or buddy to cap the bottle as beer is pouring out. The biggest concern is oxidation at this point, so purge the bottles for a few seconds by shooting C02 into the bottle prior to introducing beer. C02 will force any O2 in the bottle up and out the mouth leaving the bottle robbed of oxygen. This is a good practice to get into while kegging too. I usually hook up the C02 to the "in" valve for a few seconds to force that O2 up and out of the keg.

Hope this is helpful.

Prost!
 
Excellent.
Many thanks for this!!!

So beers that have been bottled with a blichman beer-gun are going to last longer as there's no risk of oxidation as the bottle is purged?
How does it keep the pressure though?

So in theory I could get a similar effect by just purging the bottles using an empty keg and tap to fill the bottles with Co2.
The using my bottle wand with the little valve at the bottom to fill??

Or do I need to add a Blichman bottling gun to my ever increasing birthday list ?? :D
 
You could probably rig something similar to the beer gun for pretty cheap if you are a creative DIY person.

The advantage to the beer gun is it acts just like a counter pressure filler but it's a lot easier to operate. It only has a trigger to work instead of two check valves that control pressure.

The big advantage of both devices is both purging the bottle and keeping the same amount of C02 in the bottle as us in the keg. If its used properly so long as you have the correct pressure and C02 levels in the keg, then you can get the same level of carbonated beer into the bottle.
 

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