Bottling for competition

[sictransit701]

I have never done a competition. My beer is currently kegged and carbonated, but I would like to enter it into a competition. 2 bottles are required. Is there a way to bottle from a keg without a fancy bottle filler? I’m thinking chill the bottles, turn down the psi, fill to overflow, and cap. Would that be an acceptable presentation? Or, should I leave headspace? Just worried about oxidation.

 

[Broken Crow]

A lot of folk are really fond of the Tapcooler; Tapcooler Counter Pressure Bottle Filler | MoreBeer
It hadn't realy hit the market when I bought the Blichmann BeerGun, which has served me perfectly. There are several techniques to fill a bottle, but the best of them seem to always involve purging with CO2, then filling with just enough foam that when you remove your filler, you're left with the appropriate amount of headsapce made up entirely of foam, which only contains CO2 [thus displacing O2], and you quickly cap on the foam before it all precipitates.
If you're willing to venture into competion, my personal opinion is that it would be in your best interst to invest in the hardware to best accomplish and tried and tested bottling method. That said, if I were just getting a filler today, I'd get the Tapcooler and cry about the cost later.
Best of luck!

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Somewhere on this forum is a thread to do it without investing is much equipment… and I didnt find it to share with you, but essentially it guides us to fit a bottle filler into a picnic tap and if you’d prefer counter- pressure put a small drilled bung on the bottle filler.
Yes make everything cool, but don’t freeze your empty bottles. Pressure low on the keg.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Is there a way to bottle from a keg without a fancy bottle filler? I’m thinking chill the bottles, turn down the psi, fill to overflow, and cap. Would that be an acceptable presentation? Or, should I leave headspace? Just worried about oxidation.

If you have been following the "over fill to avoid oxidation" idea, you should have noticed an anecdotal story (or two) on bottles failing due to cracking.

On behalf of future bottle sorters and stewards, please do not make their job dangerous.

Thank you.

 

[sictransit701]

A lot of folk are really fond of the Tapcooler; Tapcooler Counter Pressure Bottle Filler | MoreBeer
It hadn't realy hit the market when I bought the Blichmann BeerGun, which has served me perfectly. There are several techniques to fill a bottle, but the best of them seem to always involve purging with CO2, then filling with just enough foam that when you remove your filler, you're left with the appropriate amount of headsapce made up entirely of foam, which only contains CO2 [thus displacing O2], and you quickly cap on the foam before it all precipitates.
If you're willing to venture into competion, my personal opinion is that it would be in your best interst to invest in the hardware to best accomplish and tried and tested bottling method. That said, if I were just getting a filler today, I'd get the Tapcooler and cry about the cost later.
Best of luck!

I wonder if the tap cooler would connect to my picnic tap?

 

[Gfei]

Somewhere on this forum is a thread to do it without investing is much equipment… and I didnt find it to share with you, but essentially it guides us to fit a bottle filler into a picnic tap and if you’d prefer counter- pressure put a small drilled bung on the bottle filler.
Yes make everything cool, but don’t freeze your empty bottles. Pressure low on the keg.

This should be what you're referring to.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

This should be what you're referring to.

Personally, I have had excellent results with the "No Stinkin Bottle Gun" approach. I have bottled IPAs for competitions. I have tried opening bottles of IPA months after they were bottled and they were still quite nice with no signs of oxidation.

It does take some practice. I would try bottling up several practice bottles well in advance of the competition. Set them aside and make sure they still have good carbonation an not obvious issues. When I am prepping for a competition, I will cool my kegerator down a bit for a few days before hand and I will reduce down the pressure on the keg when time to bottle. Those steps, plus chilling the bottles gives me good results. If I need to send off 2 bottles for a competition I will plan to fill 4 to 5. That way I can pick the ones that were filled the best and I have at beer or two to taste at the time of the competition judging and when I get my scoresheets back.

 

[Broken Crow]

I wonder if the tap cooler would connect to my picnic tap?

A BeerGun would connect to a keg, the Tapcooler to a Nuka/Intertap, but consider the other responses here and do what best suits you. ...if I had a healthy body and brain, I'd probably go with the 'work with what I have on hand' approach and consider anything else a luxury or convenience to buy when I can spare the cash if I cared enought to.

 

[TheMadKing]

So one word of warning about the tapcooler (I have both a tapcooler and a beergun that I picked up very cheap): The tapcooler REQUIRES that your kegerator lines and faucets have been recently cleaned and sanitized. I bottled for a competition from my tapcooler last year and ended up with 4/4 infected bottles from pediococcus in my beer lines. It never presents itself in the kegerator because the beer and lines stay cold. But you fill your bottles, they get nice and warm waiting for judging, and in the words of Ron Jeremy - gnarly gushers for everyone.

Since then I have been more regular about caustic cleaning my serving setup and have not had any issues.

 

[dperrigan]

This should be what you're referring to.

This. This is a full counter-pressure bottle filling system for filling directly from carbonated kegs. It just takes about $20 worth of parts. It works amazingly well.

Dan

 

[Redracer1205]

I've avoided the cost of counter pressure bottle filling. I've recently started using a racking hose that goes through a rubber stopper with a hole in it. Shove one end of the hose into the keg dispensing tap and the other end with the rubber stopper into the bottle and hold it tight. I shut off the CO2 bottle and then pull on the tap. Beer will flow rather quickly at first but slows down as the pressure in the bottle increases. This prevents excessive foaming. You need to burp the bottle a few times by squeezing on the rubber stopper and breaking the seal.
I have got up to 4 bottles filled using this method without the keg running out of pressure to push through the beer. You could get more, but 4 bottles are all I need when going away.
I haven't entered a competition in years but plan to use this method later this year when I jump back in.