Recommended force carbing steps for bottling?

[phattymatty]

I have a California Common ready to move to the keg and force carb. I plan to bottle the entire keg and want to know what temperature I should force carb the beer and any tips for bottling. I don’t have room to chill all the bottled beer so I thought I should force carb and bottle at room temperature so the beer doesn’t go from cold to room temperature. Does this even matter?

So,

1. should I chill the keg, force carb and bottle at a cooler temp? Then let the bottles return to room temp for storage?

Or,

2. Keg, force carb, bottle and store at room temp?

Any bottling tips for either option?

Thanks

[a10t2]

I bottle from the keg when I need beer for a competition, but I would never do an entire batch. This is basically the same procedure I use: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/we-no-n … gun-24678/

You’ll want everything involved to be as cold as possible, to reduce foaming. Trying to do it at room temperature would be a disaster.

[phattymatty]

@a10t2

I typically wouldn’t bottle an entire batch either but I made this one for my nephew’s graduation and there will be several weeks from the time I bottle until the time consumed. I want to force carb to reduce sediment and we’re bottling so we can create labels to commemorate his graduation.

I’ll carb and bottle cold like you suggested. Is there a reason I shouldn’t bottle an entire batch?

[bpbco]

[quote=“phattymatty”]

I’ll carb and bottle cold like you suggested. Is there a reason I shouldn’t bottle an entire batch?[/quote]

I think he was just making the point that it will be kind of a pain in the you know what, but if that’s what you want to do there’s no reason you can’t do it. And yes definitely keep everything cold before/during bottling, there’s no problem with letting the bottles warm back up once they’re filled so don’t worry about that.

[phattymatty]

Great. Thank you both for your help.

[mikeandcorann]

How long will the beer be good after bottling? I’ve already force carbonated in the keg, but we would like to bottle some and save for later, we will keep it cold, we were just wondering how long it will stay good after bottling?

Thank you in advance for your information!

Mike and CorAnn

[phattymatty]

Hi Mike and CorAnn,

I asked a similar question to the guys at Blichmann Engineering

Homebrewing Equipment | Blichmann Engineering

(makers of the Beer Gun.) This was my question:

I have one your beer guns and would like to know if kegging and force carbonating then filling bottles with beer gun has an effect on the shelf life of a beer compared to bottle conditioning with priming sugar?

Here is their reply:

Used as directed it is no different. And you don’t end up with sediment in the bottle. It is essentially the way commercial bottlers do it.

[the_professor]

@mikeandcorann

How long will the beer be good after bottling? I’ve already force carbonated in the keg, but we would like to bottle some and save for later, we will keep it cold, we were just wondering how long it will stay good after bottling?..

I’ve kept average strength beers for months after keg bottling. You don’t need to keep them refrigerated, but it is definitely better to do so if you have the space (since I don’t like ice cold beer, I’ll let a refrigerator stored bottle stand at room temps for an hour or so).

For the stronger beers, I’ve kept some for many years at cellar temperature (in my basement, that’s 60°F year round) with no problems.