Rebuilding the brewery

We had a fire at our house in January and just got back in (no injuries, mostly just smoke damage). The bad news for me is that we redid a number of things in the house during the rebuild which robbed me of all the space where my brewing stuff used to be (not to mention the fact that all tubing, etc was ruined by smoke). The good news is that I get to rebuild basically from scratch now. One of the things that really bothered me before was that my carbonation was always uneven. This was driven home this morning when a few bottles of stout exploded in our redone back room. I know it sounds complicated, but I'm determined to start dialing my process in to where my beer is consistently excellent. My recipes were always tasty, but the inconsistency in the packaging drives me nuts.

I used to bottle out of a bucket, but I'm thinking about changing to CP or a beer gun so that I'm bottling out of a keg that is already carbed to my liking. The challenge is that I do not have room for a keg fridge, so here is what I was thinking: transfer out of the primary directly to a keg, and seal it with a spunding valve. When it's sufficiently carbed, crash cool it in a pot of ice water on bottling day, and bottle from there.

Does this seem plausible?
Does crash cooling it the day of bottling give the carbonation enough time to get into the liquid so that the bottles will have carbonation?
Is the spunding valve going to be an accurate way of gauging how much carbonation is in the keg when it's at ambient temps?

If I'm out of my mind, feel free to tell me so. I'm just trying to think of ways with limited space and chilling capacity to get some more consistency in my packaging. The keg in the ice water always seemed to work when we have a party and I use a keg, so it seems like it might work. In my mind, anyway.

Bump

I don't see how tis would work well. Mine isn't carbed to my liking until it has been chilled and on the gas for about a week. I force carb at 30 psi and leave it sit at room temp for a week usually. When I put it in the keezer I give it a bump. After it chills it takes a bunch more CO2, and at that point it is not carbed to my liking.

I read posts about filling bottles from the keg, but they have been chilled then carbed.

http://***********/stories/projects-and-equipment/article/indices/20-build-it-yourself/400-build-your-own-spunding-valve-to-carbonate-in-the-keg[/URL]

It is possible to naturally carb a keg, as seen in the link I have attached. I was mostly just wondering if anyone has tried this. Apparently not.

kmlavoy said:

http://***********/stories/projects-and-equipment/article/indices/20-build-it-yourself/400-build-your-own-spunding-valve-to-carbonate-in-the-keg[/URL]

It is possible to naturally carb a keg, as seen in the link I have attached. I was mostly just wondering if anyone has tried this. Apparently not.

Click to expand...

Yes this is possible, and some people probably do it this way, so that the carbing step is mixed with the fermenting step. You just have to be sure to transfer to the keg at the right moment. If the remaining gravity points are too high, the spunding valve will take care of releasing the excess of CO2, but if it is the other way around (transfer too late), you will be missing some CO2.

An other way to achieve the same thing is to simply let the beer ferment, then add priming sugar in the keg and keg the beer. This way, you do not need to monitor the pressure to avoid over carbonating your beer. Do not forget that you will still need to purge the keg with CO2 and seal the keg by hitting it with 30psi.

Yeah, that seems a lot more exact, and then the beer truly has a chance to finish first. Thanks for the tip.

Do you think that chilling the beer the day of bottling will be enough time to force the C02 into solution? I can always find a work around for that.

To reply to the original post:

kegging should not be the solution to avoid uneven carbonation.
It is very easy to over carbonate bottle if:
* you bottle too early. Make sure that the beer is done fermenting by taking some gravity readings a couple days apart.
* you do not mix well the priming solution. Simply give a nice and gentle (to avoid oxidation) swirl to your beer, this should mix the priming solution evenly.

But kegging is way easier than bottling. So if you want to spend the money, and need a reason to start kegging, go for it

kmlavoy said:

Yeah, that seems a lot more exact, and then the beer truly has a chance to finish first. Thanks for the tip.

Do you think that chilling the beer the day of bottling will be enough time to force the C02 into solution? I can always find a work around for that.

Click to expand...

I honestly think that rushing this is a mistake. Like in a bottle, beer needs to sit in the cold for one or two weeks to absorb the CO2 correctly. If the CO2 gets out of solution easily, you will end up with a batch of flat bottled beer.

kmlavoy said:

Yeah, that seems a lot more exact, and then the beer truly has a chance to finish first. Thanks for the tip.

Do you think that chilling the beer the day of bottling will be enough time to force the C02 into solution? I can always find a work around for that.

Click to expand...

I wouldn't think one day is enough. I force carb and store at approx 70 degrees for weeks and then do exactly as mrk305 does. It's never "good" until at least 2-3 days, depending upon the beer style.

I moved to 6 gal batches....one for bottling and the other 5 go in a keg. Didn't require any increase in equipment size, well, except my Pompous Ass Ale I have to limit to 5 gal because it's 10.5% ABV and fills my 12 gal mash tun.....and it all goes in a bottle.