northman

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Anyone use their keg to fill bottles? I don't have a bottling bucket or bottle filler but I do have kegs. Can't think of any reason why it wouldn't work really well. what do ya think?

Just to be clear I mean adding priming sugar and beer to keg then using keg with co2 as propellant to fill bottles.

HoppyDaze

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Walker

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This has been discussed a bit. I think there was a good thread on it just last week.

At any rate, you should be able to do it. The question is how much sugar to use because (a) a batch going into a keg needs less priming sugar than a batch going into bottles, but then again you are going to have more headspace after you fill some bottles.

I suggest priming as if you were going to bottle the batch and then just deal with an under or over carbed keg if necessary by forcing more CO2 in or venting excess CO2 out.

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mattd2

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Just to clear it up a bit more, are you asking if you can use a corny as a bottling bucket (not as it seems the other replies are thinking; adding priming sugar to the keg, sealing it, letting it carb and then bottling)
If so I don't think you will even need to use much (or any at all) CO2. Do as you said, put priming sugar and beer into keg and make sure it is well mixed up, then put the keg on a high(er) shelf and connect you bottling wand with a length of tube to the out connection and either siphon or push beer out, once the tube is full you should be able to siphon the whole keg with no more CO2 needed (just make sure the keg is vented)

northman

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I'm sorry I mean I want to pour beer into keg with priming sugar then seal, pressurize and pump out priming sugar and beer mixture into bottles, cap and allow to carb up in bottle.

Reelale

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Yes, you are just using the keg as a bottling bucket but transferring under pressure. Knock yourself out. It'll work fine. Maybe a little messy, but fine.

bad67z

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a big plus 1 to BM's homemade bottle filler, it works great!

mattd2

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The only thing I would say is it seems to be a bit of a waste of CO2 when you could just use gravity (by siphoning out the liquid diptube) to transfer the beer from keg to bottle.

I have done that before and it works great.

Walker

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My bad. I thought you wanted to bottle a portion of the batch and then keep the rest in the keg.

I don't see any gain from just plain using the keg as a bottling bucket, but you can definately do it if you want.

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goose1873

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use a siphon...its much easier and less clean up. or keg and force carb then bottle carbed beer so you don't have to wait for bottle conditioning.

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