Repost Bottling after cold crash? Bottling from keg?

How many of you have tried bottling after cold crashing a brew?

I have some brews that have been crashed for a couple days, and another couple that have been at 37F for a couple weeks. This is obviouslky done to get the yeast to drop out, but I am running into storage problem and would like to bottle some of this beer. I have 50+ gallons of beer between primaries and secondaries and only 5-5gal. kegs. Even with a healthy drinking curve I am going to need to do some bottling.

Another question, bottling after force carbing. How is this done? I assume I need some special gizmo. Thanks

Robar said:

How many of you have tried bottling after cold crashing a brew?

I have some brews that have been crashed for a couple days, and another couple that have been at 37F for a couple weeks. This is obviouslky done to get the yeast to drop out, but I am running into storage problem and would like to bottle some of this beer. I have 50+ gallons of beer between primaries and secondaries and only 5-5gal. kegs. Even with a healthy drinking curve I am going to need to do some bottling.

Another question, bottling after force carbing. How is this done? I assume I need some special gizmo. Thanks

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Temp crashing is a good way to drop yeast, but takes about two weeks. Afterward, tranfer to a serving cornie, and carb. After carb use a "beergun" or a counterpressure filler. These things are kind of pricey, but last forever.I prefer the latter (i have both). I have to bottle a lot because my daughter wants my beer (36). She has no way to handle cornies...........

Well, if you want to bottle a lot of beer out of a carbed up keg, you'll need either a counter pressure bottle filler or the blichman beer gun. Neither are cheap though.

I looked at the counter pressure deal today when I was at my LHBS They wanted 51.00 plus hoses, plus connecters, plus tax, plus the cost of air, plus...

For what they wanted I could buy 3 used corneys and been in pretty good shape. Neither was the answer as I didn't have the wiggle room in the budget.

Stick a racking cane with a #2 stopper (ish - to lazy to go down stairs and look) into the end of a cobra tap. Trim the end of the racking cane to an angle so it doesn't stit flush on the bottom of the bottle. Stick racking cane end into bottle. Push #2 stopper into top of bottle. Depress cobra tap. Gently squeeze stopper to allow beer in and air out of bottle until full.

You just made a $5 beer gun.

Another cheap option is a piece of 1/4" tubing shoved into the picnic tap that is long enough to reach the bottom of the bottles. It helps reduce foam if the bottles are cool and still wet surface inside(add ice to sanitizer solution, or to distilled water after sanitizing). Use really low pressure and gravity if possible to reduce foaming as well.

Okay I just did a trial with my getto picnic tap-bottle wand assembly. Here are some pics.







Well I'm rather displeased I can't get anything other than click it links, but we'll have to live with it.

So anyway I took the bottle filling wand that came with my origanal Ale Pale home brewers kit (I think). I stuck it through the beer bottle sized cork (#2?) then pushed the wand into the end of the picnic tap, perfect snug fit! Then I inserted the wand into the bottle and started filling using the tap trigger. You have to play wiggle the cork a bit to release the gas build up, but it worked pretty good. I had NO foam up or any other undesirable effects.

The beer was cold, the bottle was cold and wet inside, and I used low presure for the transfer. I didn't even sanitize the bottle for this trial run I just took a clean bottle, rinsed it with tap water and filled. Tomorrow I will do a more realistic experement with sanitized bottles etc. This was just seeing if the idea would work. Form what I could tell it worked like a charm.

I actually found the racking cane/tubing w/ stopper method to be easier than a true beer gun. One thing you will want to watch out for if you are bottling for longer term storage is that you're keg post, tap, ball lock QD and tubing all need to be disassembled and sanitized. All of these items tend to get infected quickly via normal use. Never a problem for normal use, but can be a problem for bottling.

JimC said:

I actually found the racking cane/tubing w/ stopper method to be easier than a true beer gun. One thing you will want to watch out for if you are bottling for longer term storage is that you're keg post, tap, ball lock QD and tubing all need to be disassembled and sanitized. All of these items tend to get infected quickly via normal use. Never a problem for normal use, but can be a problem for bottling.

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Thanks for the heads up on this, I was wondering about it myself.

The whole thing did work out pretty easy as far as the filling went. I don't know that I want to do 50 bottles this way, but I am glad to know it works.

I may end up just sprinkling in a little dry yeast a couple days before bottling, then rack to the bottling bucket and prime as normal for the long term stuff. With that said, this is a great cobble job for taking a selection of whats on tap to share with some friends. Thanks for the help guys.

Well as a follow up I bottled up a keg of stout using my cobbled filling rig. It actually went ver ysmooth and I may have to rethink my earlier statment of doubting I would use it. Time will tell if it truly worked. If it can go a month or three without have an oxidized taste or some other problem I may employ this more often. I like to have beer on tap, but I also like to have bottled brew. We'll see how it ends up.

Thanks for the idea and pics. I have been beating around the idea of buying a beergun just to fill bottles for parties. That way I don't have to take a full keg, co2 and a way of keeping it cold. I could just fill some bottles and be on my way.

Here's a thread on discussing the simplest way(s) to get carbonated beer out of your keg and into bottles.

"We No Need No Stinking Beer Gun"

What I have been doing, If I need to take a few bottles somewhere, is just a piece of tube stuck in the tap to fill the bottle from the bottom. If all the bottles are going to be "utilized" within a couple days, I dont even bother sasnitzing, just wash them out fairly well. Worked really well for me, and 2 cents worth of tubing beats a beer gun anyday.

BierMuncher said:

Here's a thread on discussing the simplest way(s) to get carbonated beer out of your keg and into bottles.

"We No Need No Stinking Beer Gun"

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My rig is basicly the same as yours instead of the racking kane I use the bottle filling wand. I am sure either works just fine. I get zero foam up using this rig at 5lbs of presure. My bottles are also about 50-55 F when I fill them.

BierMuncher have you ever had any problems with oxidization on longer term savers using this method? If so how long? I'm pretty sure everyone concidering this bottling method will be hanging on the answer to this question. Thanks again for your help.

Robar said:

...BierMuncher have you ever had any problems with oxidization on longer term savers using this method? If so how long? I'm pretty sure everyone concidering this bottling method will be hanging on the answer to this question. Thanks again for your help.

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I just openned another Porter from March and it was perfect. Nice CO2 cloud in the neck of the bottle. Rich, white think head at pour and nice lacing all the way through the drink.

I don't think oxidation is an issue, because I fill the bottles until the slight amount of foam squeezes out the cork. All that CO2 in the foam, essentially purges the O2 and even after I cap, the residual "bubbling" from the fill process, creates enough additional CO2 to blanket the beer.

I've yet to pop a bottle that wasn't just right...up to an 8 month period.

Thanks BierMuncher
I too fill right up to the cork. The process works very well and suprisingly doesn't take a lot of time. I was only worried about long term storage and it sounds like there is no worry in that department either.

For those that are thinking about using this method, the number 2 cork is important. It gives counter presure and helps keep the beer from foaming up. It also slows the flow as presure builds up thats why you have to rock or wiggle the cork a bit now and then or your beer flow will come to a stop and not fill.

I will be using this method to bottle a lot of beer in the future. Before I tried it on a whole keg I wasn't sure, but now after doing a keg of stout I've had a chance to see how smooth it works production wise.

Total cost? I'm not sure. I had the hose/picnic tap as it came with my keg set up. Filling wand came with my original brewing kit. The only thing I bought separately was the cork and I bought that for culturing yeast in a 22 oz bottle. So it was all stuff I had on hand, items most brewers have laying around. So I guess it was free-ish.

Okay here is a bit of a follow up.

This process works very well, but I have descovered something that need to be taken into consideration. I get a decent Phsstt, when the bottle is opened but he beer is fairly flat. What I think happened was that the beer, a stout being low on carbonation anyway equilized allowing it to release part of what little carbonation it had. I think the next beer I bottle this way will get just a tad more force carbing then I want in the finished product. Not a whole lot more, but just a bit to allow for this.

Don't worry though, that is a tasy stout and I drink it anyway. I some times mix it with a real carby IPA as well.