Does priming sugar play a role when bottling from a keg?

I'm sick of the beer I have on tap and want to bottle from a keg, and the guy at my local homebrew store showed me a counterpressure filler he made, which looks easy enough to use but I've heard about beer not lasting very long that way.

So I was wondering...If I removed the keg from the co2, purged it and let it go flat, could I then add priming sugar and bottle, to recarb it? How long would it take to go flat before I could add priming sugar?

Would this extend the carbonation of the beer as opposed to bottling straight from the keg with co2 in it?

And in general, whatever method used to bottle from a keg, would naturally carbonating the beer with priming sugar instead of force carbing help maintain carbonation if I eventually want to bottle it?

Thanks!

Are you trying to empty an existing keg and bottle it, so you can put in another keg? If so, Just pull the old on out and store it in your basement until you're sick of the new keg. I do it all the time.

In order to recarb your beer you need to have active yeast. As long as they are alive and kicking your plan will probably work. You might end up with well carb'd beer, or many bottles of flat beer. You won't know until a few weeks after your try it. Also, in letting the beer go flat, you may introduce some O2.

I have a bottle filler, but I usually use it for bottling beer to transport to poker night, so I only keep it in the bottles for a few hours or days at most. Can't really speak to longevity. I don't know why there would be a difference other than the obvious risk of adding O2 when you bottle. If you do it right, and use a decent bottle filler, it seems pretty minimal.

I don't think there is a difference between natural and forced carbonation as far as maintaining the CO2 in your beer.

Why not just split your batches in the future? Bottle half and keg half. That way you can drink some now and save some for later and speed up your keg rotation.

That's what I'm trying to do, but I'm pretty sure I won't want to return to the first keg of beer on tap. It's a 10.4% thick holiday ale. My friends don't exactly chug down several of them...

Plus I want to keg something else soon.

Yeah, maybe I should go half and half with some batches. This one was one of my first on tap and I was all excited and feeling festive, I guess.

I have no patience!

The Biermuncher Bottle Filler may be what you need

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/we-no-need-no-stinking-beer-gun-24678/

I don't have any actual experience, but I've been reading up on kegging since I'm headed in that direction.

I would guess that there is probably very little yeast left at this point. If you wanted to carb it naturally, you would want to add some yeast before bottling. My first thought would be to up the carbonation just a little before bottling, that way you'd be more likely to even out if you lost any during the bottling process.

thistleglassgirl said:

That's what I'm trying to do, but I'm pretty sure I won't want to return to the first keg of beer on tap. It's a 10.4% thick holiday ale. My friends don't exactly chug down several of them...

Plus I want to keg something else soon.

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Hmm...Sounds like you need more kegs. I started with 2 and now I've got 10. It's a sickness.

b-boy said:

Hmm...Sounds like you need more kegs. I started with 2 and now I've got 10. It's a sickness.

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I have 6... 3 tap kegerator, 3 back ups. But 2 of the back ups are filled with burnt versions of the two heavy ones we have on tap...That holiday malt-fest and a scotch ale. My husband refuses to toss them (I guess I do too, they weren't cheap...). And half of our beer drinking friends still hit the fridge looking for Bud light when they come over.

More kegs? I think we need more taps!

thistleglassgirl said:

I have 6... 3 tap kegerator, 3 back ups. But 2 of the back ups are filled with burnt versions of the two heavy ones we have on tap...That holiday malt-fest and a scotch ale. My husband refuses to toss them (I guess I do too, they weren't cheap...). And half of our beer drinking friends still hit the fridge looking for Bud light when they come over.

More kegs? I think we need more taps!

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Well, more taps is always a given.

I know what you mean. I have a Zombie Dust gone wrong sitting in my kegerator. The hops were like $50, so I refuse to throw it out. No one else will drink it, so it's up to me. I try to choke down at least 1-2 glasses per week. I keep hoping it will miraculously fix itself, but it never does.

At this rate I should be done sometime around July 4th.

That's one of the perils of the hobby. You have to drink a lot of bad beer every once in awhile.

twalte said:

The Biermuncher Bottle Filler may be what you need

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/we-no-need-no-stinking-beer-gun-24678/

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Absolutely this!

I use this exact set-up, and have been doing so off and on for the past year or so. It's great when you want to just bottle up a beer or two to give to a friend, or fill up a growler without having it foam up all over the place, OR when you get down to a gallon or two in the keg and you just want to move on to the next keg in line, as you discuss. Simply use the setup described in the link (though I don't even bother to reduce the pressure at this point - I don't recall if biermuncher's article recommends doing so or not), bottle up your carbed beer and cap (no need to let it go flat and re-condition!). I still have 3 or 4 bottles of a bock that I bottled up in exactly this manner back in April or May, and they're still in perfectly good shape! Those are the oldest, though I've got bottles off of various kegs from between then and now still hanging around.