The Blichmann Beer Gun

Mine should be here tomorrow. Going to bottle right off the corny keg some beers that I think should sit for a while (too hot and boozy right now) and a few that I'm going to take to a party and not have to lug around kegs.

So, here's the question:

Do i force carb before bottling? the gun has a CO2 attachment so is it carbonating as I put it in or should the beer in the keg be fully carbed first

1st hand experience, do you guys have an idea of how much beer will go to waste due to foam while doing this? 10% of 5 gallons? 25%?

Finally, How long can I expect bottled beer gun 22oz bombers to stay carbonated? Meaning, is it identical to carbing with priming sugar as far as the end result or is it always going to be just a little bit flatter than what I'd get with priming sugar style carbonation?

Thanks!

The beer needs to be carbonated already. The co2 part of the gun is only for purging oxygen out of your bottles.

As long as you keep the psi low (around 5) when bottling, you shouldn't really lose anything to foaming.

Northern brewer has a nice video on YouTube of the gun. You should check that out.

^^^second that. its a pretty sweet toy once you get the hang of it.

I ordered a beer gun, but it didn't arrive in time for me to bottle before I went on the trip I was bringing the bottles on. I ended up just turning the PSI on the keg to ~3-5 PSI and using the picnic tap to fill the bottles. Very little foaming once the pressure was adjusted. I was able to fill a long neck to/past the start of the neck before the foam came out the top, and capped on foam. It worked great and I haven't even bothered opening the beer gun. Last night I tried one of the bottles that had been sitting for about a month and it was perfect. Wish I had tried this before ordering.

Thanks. Found it!

I've read a lot of back and forth on counter-pressure versus beer gun. Decided to get this and really only plan on using it with big beers that I want to see how they develop over time but NOT use up one of my precious kegs. Dual Purpose is if a friend really likes one of my beers, I can fill up a 750ML or Growler for him with it and he can just promise to bring the bottle back. Sort of a dual purpose just nice to have toy.

I'll start by doing fills with a beer I'm not too much of a fan of until I get the hang of it.

The beer gun arrived yesterday.

I'm glad that I spent the extra $20 on the accessory kit. It had everything I needed. Unless you have tubing, flange connectors, ball lock connectors and other nuts and bolts just laying around, it would be a pain to remove all of that from my kegerator setup so the accessory kit was perfect.

Also, it says on instructions you need a dual output CO2 regulator. I had that but, since I'm usually a multiple keg setup, this works as well - http://www.midwestsupplies.com/4-way-co2-distributor-5-16.html. So my splitter or dual regulator. The only thing that's good about me having the dual regulator is that i can do a higher PSI for the O2 purge on the beer gun and another for the bottle fill. That was nice.

Moving on, it was a slow start but eventually, I got a rythym. In 3 hours, I brewed a Belgian Saison and while that was boiling / cooling / siphoning to primary, I filled 12, 1-litre swing tops of my 12.5% barley wine, another 10 22-ounce bombers of my smoked chocolate imperial stout and finished up with 3, 2 litre swing top growlers full of my previous Belgian Saison.

This freed up these three kegs (some were half empty) for some other beers and I can let that stout and barleywine age for a few months before I enjoy them.

So, $100 for the beer gun + $150 for the regulator + $50+/- in bottles but it's all reusable.

Thought I'd post that for guys that have kegs but want to bottle things for friends, parties or competitions. This is pretty nice.

I use mine for bottling wine also, I pump the wine into a purged Corney through the beverage out connector, then put a couple psi on it to push it through the beer gun and into bottles...works great. Like you, I use it to empty partial kegs into bottles to free them up for the next batch. I've been very happy with it so far.

Blichman gun is one of the Top 5 Best Things I have bought for my brewing.

If your beer is completely carbonated in the keg, your carbonation in the bottles will last as long as capped. It also is great for pulling bottles of beer for competitions.

Congrats on a great purchase!!!

I picked one up 2 or 3 years ago after taking a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in various categories at a competition with the thought of making my life easier for future competition bottlings...however, life got in the way and I haven't entered a competition since nor have I ever taken it out of the box. But, it still looks like it will be cool when I use it someday