Calculating a few bottles worth of DME

I'm starting kegging, but I will be sending off a few bottles of each batch to friends and family. I'm wondering how I calculate DME for this. I have some pint size bottles from Germany and some regular sized American bottles.

I guess I just need to do some math, but I figure someone here might have already done it!

How many quarts/ounces of beer total?

If I'm doing partial bottlings, I usually just use muntons carb tabs...so I'm no help.

Evan! said:

How many quarts/ounces of beer total?

If I'm doing partial bottlings, I usually just use muntons carb tabs...so I'm no help.

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That's what I should do to, but planned on bottling today. Maybe I'll just wait til Thursday when the LHBS is open. I'm thinking a 6 packs of 12ounce bottles today.

I don't measure my priming sugar by weight, I measure by volume. 1.25 cups of DME is typical for 5 gallons, which is 640 ounces. (6) 12oz bottles is 72 ounce. 72/640 is 0.1125. Multiply that by 1.25 cups and you get 0.140625 cups. Not easy to measure that. If you knew how much 1.25 cups of DME weighed, I could figure out your total in ounces.

Also, what brand of DME?

Evan! said:

I don't measure my priming sugar by weight, I measure by volume. 1.25 cups of DME is typical for 5 gallons, which is 640 ounces. (6) 12oz bottles is 72 ounce. 72/640 is 0.1125. Multiply that by 1.25 cups and you get 0.140625 cups. Not easy to measure that. If you knew how much 1.25 cups of DME weighed, I could figure out your total in ounces.

Also, what brand of DME?

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I'll have to check on the brand... according to google: 1 US teaspoon = 0.0208333333 US cups

sooo, .02*7 = .14 ... I think that's close enough! 7 teaspoons should work just fine. Thanks for the help, Evan.

No problem. good luck.

Oh, and make sure it's not laaglander. super-suxxorz.

Why not bottle from the keg? It is really simple and unless you are bottling for long term storage you do not need a beer gun or counterpressure filler.

TheJadedDog said:

Why not bottle from the keg? It is really simple and unless you are bottling for long term storage you do not need a beer gun or counterpressure filler.

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I have been interested in doing this. How whould one go about filling a growler, for example, which will be consumed fairly quickly?

Iordz said:

I have been interested in doing this. How whould one go about filling a growler, for example, which will be consumed fairly quickly?

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Good call, but I'm brand new to kegs and have no clue what I"m doing with them.

Iordz said:

I have been interested in doing this. How whould one go about filling a growler, for example, which will be consumed fairly quickly?

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What I do is take a length of tubing that is long enough to reach the bottom of whatever bottle I am filling and sanitize it along with my bottle(s). Then I insert one end of the tubing into my picnic tap put the other end into the bottle so it reaches the bottom and start filling.

If I am getting too much foam I will raise the bottle so it is above the top of the keg and that usually solves the problem; sometimes I have to release some pressure but not usually.

I use this method if the beer will be consumed within a week; after that I would recommend a beer gun or counter pressure filler/method as the carbonation does not hold as well.

The easiest way to bottle if you are now kegging;

Fill the keg, from your carboy. Hook it up to your dispensing system. Have the bottles clean and set up with the appropriate amount of Muntons Carb-tabs in them. Fill the bottles with the warm, flat beer, that you just put in your keg. Bottle condition, as per your usual procedure. (You may want to use a "party tap" with a bottle filler pushed into it, instead of a faucet. Yes, the bottle filler will fit in a party tap. Fits good, too.)

Easiest way, after you switch over to kegs.

steve

If I understand correctly what you are trying to do, this should work.

http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipator/carbonation.html

skou said:

The easiest way to bottle if you are now kegging;

Fill the keg, from your carboy. Hook it up to your dispensing system. Have the bottles clean and set up with the appropriate amount of Muntons Carb-tabs in them. Fill the bottles with the warm, flat beer, that you just put in your keg. Bottle condition, as per your usual procedure. (You may want to use a "party tap" with a bottle filler pushed into it, instead of a faucet. Yes, the bottle filler will fit in a party tap. Fits good, too.)

Easiest way, after you switch over to kegs.

steve

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I hear ya, didn't want to wait til Thursday for the carb-tabs though. Went ahead and did 15 tablespoons of water with 14 teaspoons of light DME (not laaglanders). Boiled for 6-7ish minutes, poured tablespoon into each bottle and then sealed. Did 12x12ounce bottles. Should be fine.