I constructed a bottling rig to bottle from my keg. Maybe it’s a new idea, maybe not. I am rather new to brewing so perhaps somebody already came up with this idea. I bought a liquid side connector and length of tubing and spring tip bottling wand. I added a rubber stopper that will fit the top of a 12 oz or 24 oz bottle and slid that onto the bottling wand. I will use the rig to bottle under pressure. I tried this in another way by cutting the tip off of a bottling wand and jamming the tube into the picnic tap. That worked well but I ended up cracking the picnic tap. I will be using this new rig this weekend. I will report the results. The stopper to provide back pressure really does wonders to suppress foaming up and loss of carbonation. When I remove the wand there is enough foam in the bottle to displace the oxygen for the most part. I am bottling a bourbon porter that tastes fantastic.
I do something similar, but without the stopper. Curious to see how much of a difference it makes. The theory is that is just prevents the gases from mixing, thus less foam, correct?
Well the theory is that if you have back pressure it will keep the CO2 from being able to come out of solution. When CO2 comes out of solution it causes foaming and sometimes makes a mess. If you use the stopper it prevents foaming during the agitation of filling the bottle.
I do exactly the same, but I use a piece of vinyl tubing stuck into a cobra tap through the stopper. Been doing it for years and it works well. See tip #4 here…http://www.strangebrew.ca/Drew/cheap.html
