I brewed a beer a week ago for a competition. I keg all of my beers and have for a long time now. I don’t have cases of empties like I used to either. Instead of bottling the whole batch can I mix the beer with priming sugar in the bottling bucket, bottle up a six pack then rack the rest into a keg, purge with co2?
Why not bottle from the keg?
you could also use carb drops in the few bottles that you plan to bottle.
I have a beer gun but I think its more trouble than its worth.
Take the tip off your bottling wand, jam it in the picnic tap, turn your psi down and fill the bottles. That’s what I do when I want some bottles and it works very well. Stick the bottles in the fridge before hand so they are cold when you bottle. That will cut down on the foam.
I have a beer gun but I think its more trouble than its worth.[/quote]
Picnic tap with bottling wand. Release the pressure on the keg, drop the regulator pressure and fill the bottles.
If you have a #2 stopper, that can be added to the bottling wand to help control foam.
I have a beer gun but I think its more trouble than its worth.[/quote]
Picnic tap with bottling wand. Release the pressure on the keg, drop the regulator pressure and fill the bottles. If you have a #2 stopper, that can be added to the bottling wand to help control foam.[/quote]
Exactly. This is all you need to do. Your beer is already conditioned, there’s no need for additional priming for the bottles.
It has worked for me for quite a few years and if you keep everything cold when you bottle (including the empty bottles) you’ll have no problems and the beer will be fine. I also purge the frozen, empty bottles with co2 before filling them.
Works like a charm. I’ve even kept stronger beers bottled this way for upwards of 2 years.
I was sort of getting at doing this right out of the primary, not after the beer has been sitting in the keg for weeks. I was hoping that doing it the way I proposed would get me the 6 pack i need for comps but then naturally carb in the keg afterwards and maybe save a little co2.
Yes if you want to do it this way.
You can also skip the bucket and just mix the sugar in the keg. Then push it into the bottles with a picnic tap and cap.
By carbing in the keg you avoid the yeast in the bottle and then a cloudy pour.
I have a beer gun but I think its more trouble than its worth.[/quote]
You’re doing it wrong…
I use a beer gun for bottling but sometimes I just want a few from the keg to take somewhere. I am not quite following how you guys are doing this. Any chance I can get a picture?
Just did this for the first time last week to get some bottles ready for the Bluebonnet Brewoff in Dallas. Easiest way ever to fill bottles from a keg. I had contemplated getting a counter pressure filler in the past but never could justify the $80 or whatever it was to buy one. Picked up a cheap bottling wand and a stopper at the HBS last week at the suggestion of one of the employees…no sweat. Heck it took me longer to chill the bottles in the freezer than it did to fill them up. 
yeah I’m not sure I am getting it either. I have 3 taps on my fridge, so I’m not sure where you guys are getting picnic taps from? I have one, I guess I could swap it out with the beer line on the fridge and do it that way. I’ve done the beer gun a few times and it works but it’s hard to clean and generally involves removing my Co2 tank from the fridge. I guess if I had a second co2 tank just for this it would be a lot easier.
Someone also makes an adapter for a regular tap that lets you attach a piece of hose for bottle filling.
A bottling wand is just a piece of hard plastic tubing with a spring-loaded tip. I think you want to remove the tip so it disturbs the beer less. The end fits perfectly in a picnic tap, you just use the tap to dispense beer into the bottle. Some people put a one-hole stopper on the wand to get a counter-pressure fill but I don’t think it matters too much. You want a fairly long hose on teh picnic tap, and make sure your bottles are the same temp as the beer (NOT frozen, that causes lots of foaming). I usually overcarbonate slightly because you do lose a little in the filling process.
I did buy a Beergun recently but haven’t tried it. The video convinced me to pony up for the device.
I will have to look into this picnic tap thing. I just want somehting easy to fill a few bottles to go. I have both the blinkman beer gun and one of those cheap bottle fillers that are spring loaded. Both work great but now that I keg I really like the beer gun. Yes, it is some work but the finsihed product is so nice. I also found along with cold bottles make sure they are wet. This reduces the friction inside the bottle and produces nearly no foam. I think this is more important than being cold.
Here is a video on the process with a picnic tap.
http://youtu.be/Ln3sGEmfijsVideo off the tap. The adapter mentioned before is for the Perlick 425’s with removable spout. The adapter is listed as out of stock.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXhYmTlH ... re=related