Houston, we may have a problem.

I want to try bottling from a corny keg because I feel it would just be easier to push beer from the keg than to use a siphon. To clarify, I am not bottling carbonated beer, but rather adding priming sugar and using the keg as a glorified bottling bucket. That was the plan today.... however....i hit a snag.

ok, so I had everything ready, beer dry hopped, bottles sanitized, and botting sugar boiled and cooled... went to pop the top off the corny to add sugar and hisssssssss.... there was pressure in the keg. Seems I didnt vent all the pressure after clearing out the O2 when I racked the beer over to the keg. Upon examination of the beer in the keg, I see that it has a nice thick creamy head on it, which is great, IF IT WERE IN A GLASS.... lol.

so, is my best bet to let the co2 off gas for a while (pull vent every once and a while until no more hiss)... once flat, then add priming sugar and bottle?

Im thinking if I add sugar at this point, im going to get over carbonated bottles, since the beer has more co2 in suspension than it should at its particular temperature (closed system and all).

can someone tell me if im on the right track.

IS THIS BATCH RUINED? (sorry, I had to).

thanks!

It's ruined. Probably you should send it to me for disposal. (Sorry, I had to, too.)

If you just purged the O2 with a couple shots of CO2 just vent it. If you left the CO2 on for a week then the wort might have some carbonation in it, but just a quick O2 purge - No worries.

Dan said:

If you just purged the O2 with a couple shots of CO2 just vent it. If you left the CO2 on for a week then the wort might have some carbonation in it, but just a quick O2 purge - No worries.

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thats what I was trying to get at... I purged, but must not have got it all out, because the keg was pressurized when I went to add priming sugar today. So, what ever pressure it had in there, it was on it for 10 days.

If the beer IS carbonated a little, will letting it go flat, then adding priming sugar and bottling solve my problem?

Hi

The other possibility is that the beer is not done fermenting ....

Bob

Thats a great point Bob. It should definitely be done after 10 days in the keg.

So OP, had the FG stabilized at the expected SG when you racked it?

carlisle_bob said:

Hi

The other possibility is that the beer is not done fermenting ....

Bob

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Dan said:

Thats a great point Bob. It should definitely be done after 10 days in the keg.

So OP, had the FG stabilized at the expected SG when you racked it?

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yes, beer was in primary for 4 weeks and stable when I racked to secondary (keg) for dryhopping x 10 days. So, im pretty sure thats not the issue.

pretty sure its carbonated because I pressurized the keg when I set it to dryhop.

HItransplant said:

yes, beer was in primary for 4 weeks and stable when I racked to secondary (keg) for dryhopping x 10 days. So, im pretty sure thats not the issue.

pretty sure its carbonated because I pressurized the keg when I set it to dryhop.

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wooo hoooo, 1000th post.

At this point, I can't bottle...so I'll just let all the co2 vent (and take my hop aroma with it probably), and once it's flat I'll prime and bottle as per plan.

If anyone has a suggestion about a better way to proceed (or even support for my plan), that would be great.

Thanks!

anyone else have anything HELPFUL to add?

Their is a stickey about bottling keged beer, you need one of these bad boys!
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/we-no-need-no-stinking-beer-gun-24678/
So cheep and works great!!!! A little pressure or a lot, it freeken works!!!

Thanks for the reply, however, I am not bottling kegged and carbonated beer, merely using the keg as a bottling bucket. I mentioned this in the original post.

anyone else?

Well, I don't see any real good reason why it won't work, but then again, I never was too bright.

If you just did one hit of gas to purge and didn't leave the gas on for several days then the beer is not carbed. More than likely a temp change released some of the disolved co2 from the beer and left the keg pressureized. When you released the pressure even more dissolved co2 came out, leaving you beer with actually less carbonnation than it should have at its current temp

Step 1, taste the beer. Is it carbonated and if so, how much?
step 2, Adjust priming amount as needed.

Otherwise you can wait, pull the relief valve every few hours, then proceed as planned when there isn't much/any CO2 left. I hope you have a good sealing lid, though. WOuldn't want anything getting IN.

JeepDiver said:

If you just did one hit of gas to purge and didn't leave the gas on for several days then the beer is not carbed. More than likely a temp change released some of the disolved co2 from the beer and left the keg pressureized. When you released the pressure even more dissolved co2 came out, leaving you beer with actually less carbonnation than it should have at its current temp

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As mentioned before, the pressure in the keg was in the keg for the entire dry hop (10 days).

tre9er said:

Step 1, taste the beer. Is it carbonated and if so, how much?
step 2, Adjust priming amount as needed.

Otherwise you can wait, pull the relief valve every few hours, then proceed as planned when there isn't much/any CO2 left. I hope you have a good sealing lid, though. WOuldn't want anything getting IN.

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you can taste beer and know how much residual co2 is in suspension?
I'm impressed.
I however, cannot... which is why the later option is what Ill have to do... I'm just wondering if anyone has done this, and/or has any suggestions on best way to proceed, pitfalls, etc.

HItransplant said:

As mentioned before, the pressure in the keg was in the keg for the entire dry hop (10 days).

you can taste beer and know how much residual co2 is in suspension?
I'm impressed.
I however, cannot... which is why the later option is what Ill have to do... I'm just wondering if anyone has done this, and/or has any suggestions on best way to proceed, pitfalls, etc.

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I can taste not enough carbonation (generally one volume)versus no carbonation, versus average carbonation (around two volumes).that's close enough for me

tre9er said:

I can taste not enough carbonation (generally one volume)versus no carbonation, versus average carbonation (around two volumes).that's close enough for me

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well I can do that... but I wouldn't feel comfortable priming a batch with sugar based on 0, 1, or 2 volumes... not when I measure my priming sugar by grams.

..
.

oh well.... I guess Ill just see what happens.

cheers

Relax buddy, we're only here to help...

If you want to knock all the gas out of solution fast, hook your gas line up to the beer out post, pull the relief valve and let CO2 bubble up through the beer for a minute. That will knock your tiny bit of CO2 out of solution and you can bottle right away. It's a great trick for overcarbed serving kegs: a couple of seconds of bubbling will significantly reduce the carbonation level.

Edit: I firmly believe that the CO2 you have in solution from dry hopping a fully-fermented beer in a closed system is negligible. I'd save my gas/time and just prime as usual.

HItransplant said:

As mentioned before, the pressure in the keg was in the keg for the entire dry hop (10 days).

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How much pressure and was gas hooked up the whole time. If you hit a keg with 30-50 OSI and unhook the gas you will end up with .000?? Vols of co2. Not enough to matter. You do realize that if you ferment beer even in an open container there is going to be dissolved co2 in it right?

bigbeergeek said:

Relax buddy, we're only here to help...

If you want to knock all the gas out of solution fast, hook your gas line up to the beer out post, pull the relief valve and let CO2 bubble up through the beer for a minute. That will knock your tiny bit of CO2 out of solution and you can bottle right away. It's a great trick for overcarbed serving kegs: a couple of seconds of bubbling will significantly reduce the carbonation level.

Edit: I firmly believe that the CO2 you have in solution from dry hopping a fully-fermented beer in a closed system is negligible. I'd save my gas/time and just prime as usual.

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I know everyone is trying to help, but this is the first post that has anything to do with my question. Thanks for actually reading my post.

Jeepdiver also seems to think I have nothing to worry about.

thanks again for chiming in, and for the interesting, and very useful trick.

JeepDiver said:

How much pressure and was gas hooked up the whole time. If you hit a keg with 30-50 OSI and unhook the gas you will end up with .000?? Vols of co2. Not enough to matter. You do realize that if you ferment beer even in an open container there is going to be dissolved co2 in it right?

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gas was NOT hooked up the whole time and there couldn't have been more than 30 PSI in there to start with, but probably more like 10 or 20.

I do realize beer maintains dissolved co2, even in an open system... It was the loud hiss and large head of foam that made me feel like this was more than just dissolved co2..

granted, Ive never done this before.. but the head and the bubbling hydrometer sample made me feel like there would be more co2 in solution than the priming calculator was considering-- this made me fear bottle bombs.

if it was just co2 in solution, wouldn't that mean there would be nothing to vent? why then would I still be able to pull the bleeder and let co2 out? This is why I suspect more co2 than for the temperature it has been sitting at for the past 1-2 weeks.

thanks again guys/gals.

I'm new to kegging, but find it pretty odd that if you managed to get a head, and bubbles to come off a nucleation point after only 10 days with 10-20psi in the headspace for the keg. If the gas wasn't hooked up the whole time, it would only absorb what it could, and even then it wouldn't be much at all.

I skimmed through, but is the keg cold? Or room temp? If it's room temp, and it got the mentioned gas, there is no way it's carb'd and something else is going on. That little bit of pressure is enough to keep it sealed and free of oxygen. You can bulk store it that way.

Also, if it's in solution, that doesn't mean you won't be able to vent it. If you purge the headspace in the keg, the co2 will attempt to come out of solution to fill that space to equalize it.

Also, adding the dry hop will also give it nucleation point for any residual co2 in the wort to come out as well, leaving that creamy, almost yeasty raft looking top.

I'd say your fine.. Prime and bottle away.

FATC1TY said:

I'm new to kegging, but find it pretty odd that if you managed to get a head, and bubbles to come off a nucleation point after only 10 days with 10-20psi in the headspace for the keg. If the gas wasn't hooked up the whole time, it would only absorb what it could, and even then it wouldn't be much at all.

I skimmed through, but is the keg cold? Or room temp? If it's room temp, and it got the mentioned gas, there is no way it's carb'd and something else is going on. That little bit of pressure is enough to keep it sealed and free of oxygen. You can bulk store it that way.

Also, if it's in solution, that doesn't mean you won't be able to vent it. If you purge the headspace in the keg, the co2 will attempt to come out of solution to fill that space to equalize it.

Also, adding the dry hop will also give it nucleation point for any residual co2 in the wort to come out as well, leaving that creamy, almost yeasty raft looking top.

I'd say your fine.. Prime and bottle away.

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yes, warm. Just blasted it with co2 to get the O2 out after racking onto dry hops. Gas was not connected, but there was certainly enough to seal the keg-- there was a creamy head, maybe from the 2 oz dry hops, but I didnt notice this the last time I dry hopped.

nevertheless, Im going to bottle today. I was mostly worried about foamy bottles (and then bottle bombs).

guess well find out.

thanks again!

Yeah, warm beer, and that little burst of gas, there is no way in hell your keg is carbed.

Bottle away.

FATC1TY said:

Yeah, warm beer, and that little burst of gas, there is no way in hell your keg is carbed.

Bottle away.

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done.

I will say, the "plan" to use a little pressure to start the siphon through the keg dip tube = FAIL.

I had to switch to my autosiphon.

mixed pretty vigorously as the beer was 6-8 inches away from any 02, but im still worried about that sugar getting distributed.

needless to say, the whole batch is in a tote with 2 towels and a plastic bag over it (in case it go boom).

thanks again for everyone who helped and/or tried to help.

bottoms up!