Question on carbing

Ive searched and didnt find what I wanted. I'm going to keg my 5 gallon batch but want to bottle a few that i want to save, how would I figure out how much sugar to use for a 12oz and a 22oz bottle? Thanks.

Why not carb it all in the keg and then pull your bottles from there? There's a thread called something like "we dont need no stinking beer gun" that talks about how to make a quick counter pressure bottling setup. There are also several good videos on YouTube that show the process.

I've even chilled down a bottle or 2, turned the psi down to 2 on the keg and filled. Might lose a little carbonation, but for just 2 bottles I've never found it to be a big deal.

There bottles I want to let sit for a long period of time and age, and I know the keg won't last that long lol.

I do the exact same thing. I make sure I take at least 2 bottles from each keg, label them (very important!) and cellar to see how they age. Even with kegs that seem to overstay their welcome - which doesn't happen too often!

The long answer is it depends on what type of sugar you're using, what temperature and how much CO2 you want/your beer style requires. The short answer is use approximately 0.5 tsp of sugar per 12 oz bottle.
(this is scaled from 4oz or 3/4cup per 5 gallon batch -assuming my quick calcs are correct)

The easiest way to bottle only a couple of bottles and keg the rest is to use "carb tabs". They are little tablets/drops that have priming sugar in a set amount, and the dose is something like three for a 12 ounce bottle, and five for a 22 ounce bottle. That would be one way.

I'd probably keg the whole thing, and then bottle a few bottles off of the keg to store, age, or give away.

I found this bottle priming calculator. Never used it and don't know what you would have to lose converting ounces to gallons and trying this out on a couple of bottles. It's a neat calculator, accounts for beer style, desired CO2 volume, etc. Might be worth a shot. Here you go! http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/priming.html

If you are just doing a couple bottles, its hard to beat the carb drops.

Why not just prime the whole keg and then fill a couple of bottles?
Where I live sugar is a lot cheaper than C02.

BOTTLE SIZE / SUGAR AMOUNT
12 ounce bottles use 3/4 TSP.
16 ounce bottles use 1 TSP.
22 ounce bottles use 1 1/2 TSP.
1 liter/quart bottle use 2 1/2 TSP.
2 liter bottles use 1 1/2 TBSP.
3 liter bottles use 2 1/4 TBSP.

PosterGuy said:

Why not just prime the whole keg and then fill a couple of bottles?
Where I live sugar is a lot cheaper than C02.

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I don't know. CO2 is pretty cheap. I get a 5 lb swap for $14 and it'll force carb and push at least 10 cornies. The cost difference between force carbing a six pack's worth vs priming them has got to be pennies at most.

gr8shandini said:

I don't know. CO2 is pretty cheap. I get a 5 lb swap for $14 and it'll force carb and push at least 10 cornies. The cost difference between force carbing a six pack's worth vs priming them has got to be pennies at most.

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You're doing pretty good.
I can push about 6 fully carbed 1/2 barrel kegs.
If I need to force carb them I'm lucky to get half that many out of 5 lbs of gas (about $17 and a trip across town for me).
It only takes about a pound of table sugar to fully carb a 1/2 barrel (about $0.60)

I wasn't really looking at the difference in cost of priming vs carbing a couple of bottles, rather making it easier to measure and mix the sugar and commenting on the cost of force carbing the whole keg vs priming it.

I also think there are subtle differences in flavor and head quality between priming and force carbing the beer, but that's another story.