Conditioned beer that is force carbonated, can it ever be bottled?

So what I have been doing is kegging all my beer, because I have heard how horrible bottling is. With that said, I usually keep my two kegs around 15psi with no co2 tank connected, until I reset it back to 15 after I dispensed a few beers.

When I am rolling over to someone's place or when I bring a sample up to the brew bar, I just dispense into like a 20oz water bottle and put the cap on quickly, leaving about an inch of head space in the water bottle. Mind you you can see a wave of carbonation try and escape to the top of the bottle from the beer, not the head.

Carbonation at this point looks great, you can see it in the beer, and the best part is I've waited sometimes four, five hours before I actually get where I am going to drink it and you can hear the crisp carbonation sound when you take the cap off.

Where I am going with this is I told my buddy I really want to bottle this double IPA but, I don't have time to bottle it the legit way. I was wondering if I conditioned a keg perfectly with forced carbonation over the course of a couple days and then obviously dispensed a few - for drinking purposes - could I fill say a 12 pack of sanitized bottles, capping each one with the quickness - and have them still remain at original (carbonation) quality for say a month? ?

My goal is to not mess with all out bottling, while being able to save a couple for about a month or two, and still getting to keep my kegs full!

Let me know what you guys got...

Thanks

You will be disapointed, and your beer will be flat. What you need to do is bottle a few with priming sugar when you rack to the keg. There is a special cap for 2-liter bottles that has a gas in post on it, so you can fill with already carbonated beer, pressurize the head space, and it will stay carb'd for a while ( not sure how long, maybe someone ese knows?).

Good luck, I often have the same issue, as I am far too lazy to bottle, but sure wish I had a few stashed away for later!

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=6151

IIRC there are several other options

Pick up a Carbonater Cap.



This puppy is great and will keep it carbonated for days. I've actually filled bottles, capped it with this puppy, charged it with 20 pounds and shipped them UPS. They show up OK and carbonated.

I got a carbonater cap, the first time I tried using it was on a small 20 0z water bottle and it wouldn't seal correctly - I guess I need a coke-like bottle for it to work? I mean I was more just looking to have some sitting away for a month later when the keg would be gone, in glass bottles....I am definately good on the temporary storage devices, just trying to get bottles without going through all the hassles...

freshbrew07 said:

I got a carbonater cap, the first time I tried using it was on a small 20 0z water bottle and it wouldn't seal correctly - I guess I need a coke-like bottle for it to work? I mean I was more just looking to have some sitting away for a month later when the keg would be gone, in glass bottles....I am definately good on the temporary storage devices, just trying to get bottles without going through all the hassles...

Click to expand...

I use the Smart Water water bottles as they come in 1 and 1.5 liter sizes.

As far as bottling, a Blichmann Beer Gun rocks. I've been drinking Tecate & Carte Blanca beer to save up on the nice 32 oz. bottles. They make nice gifts and they cut down on bottling time.

Here's a cheap bottle filler idea I found online.

Well, if you want to have a few bottles "for later", I think the only thing that is reasonable to do is to bottle a few when you keg. You can buy carb drops for this- use a bottle filler (so you don't aerate the beer) and drop the correct amount of carb drops in. I think it's something like 1 for 12 ounces, 2 for 22 ounces, etc, but the directions are on the package. You'd still have to sanitize those few bottles and cap them with crown caps. Sounds like a big pain, but it really isn't so bad. They'll keep for up to a year or so.

I don't keg- I bottle all my beer and wine and that's pretty large scale. Doing 6 or 12 won't be too bad at all.

Cool guys, I just shelled out almost four grand for a new transmission in my car, so I can't really invest in any more brewing equipment for the time being - of course I will still brew!

I was just curious if anyone had ever over carbonated their beer in a keg and then bottled straight from the beer tap, thust trapping additional co2 to compensate...I mean I got 60 clean, empty bottles, caps, and a capper, I just don't want to bottle the old fashion way...trying to cheat the system with just my existing keg operation

I've sanitized and chilled bottles before adding beer and using a bottle opener that also slides over the neck, thus sealing the bottle. It takes a while to fill it up, but it works.

After battling with my couterpressure filler last night I am going to recommend Sea's suggestion. Bottle X many beers when racking into the keg and use the carbonation drops, then force carb the rest in the keg. I am going to start doing that from now on.

I've built a couple very simple bottle fillers that I've yet to test, but they look like they will work fine. I'm going to try them with my Grolsh bottles once I get my beer kegged and conditioned. I'll try to link to photos.

Here is the photo of two I am building:

http://i10.tinypic.com/4zcs9rq.jpg

They aren't complete, but you can get the point.

The one on the left is a swagelok 1/4"x3/8" union that is drilled out so that 1/4" tubing will pass through it. I drilled out (slightly oversize) and tapped into the 6 sided nut part with a #8 NC flat head machine screw. This is the bleed screw, and is airtight when lightly cranked down because the screw is tapered and fits into the shallow countersink I put in the screwhole. The short 3/8" piece and bottle bung are the same as on the right hand prototype. Where the 1/4" tubing passes through the fitting at the top, I have a ss nut with teflon ferrules (non permanent but airtight) - that way you can slide your tubing to fit your bottle. The 1/4" piece shown is just for beta build - the real thing will be longer.

After I built this, and looked at the parts, I realized I can do this another way. The one on the right uses a 3/8" ss tee, which requires no drilling to pass 1/4" tubing. I've got silicone in there for beta build, you could use anything you want. The full teflon ferrule is shown in this pic - you can use any material for the nut you want, the only important part is some kind of soft ferrule that is not permanent (although if you only fill one bottle size, you might want to have a fixed length). The brass tubing cap is the bleed of screw. Very easy on the fingers.

I'll get these going once I get kegged and conditioned and let you know how they turn out.