Bottling From Keg

[LowNotes]

This may have been covered before, but I was wondering if anyone has ever tried the following procedure to use a keg to bottle beer, but carb it in bottles with priming sugar:

-Rack beer to keg when done fermenting/aging
-Close keg, and before carbing, set to serving pressure
-Use tap to pour flat beer from the keg into bottles
-add measured sugar (2.0-2.1g seems like a decent estimate) or carb tabs to each bottle
-Cap bottles, set keg to carbing pressure, put bottles away for a few weeks, cleanup.

This would save the hassle of dealing with a bottling bucket/siphon, and I wouldn't have to use a beer gun (either ghetto or expensive variety). I would end up with some bottle conditioned beers for storage and/or sharing and would have the bulk of the beer in the keg for easy carbing and consumption.

What do you think?

 

[TheZymurgist]

I do this all the time. I usually split batches with a buddy of mine, so we add priming sugar just like we were bottling the whole 5 gallons, then rack it to the keg and bottle from there. The bottles carb up just as they normally would.

 

[241]

Sounds like it could work. Worth a shot at least. I'd do as you say and carb the bottles not add sugar to the keg. I'd also be wary of the liquid sloshing around too much when filling the bottles for oxidation reasons.

I have to say though that I use the Blichmann beer gun and love it. Worth the $ IMO

 

[NickTheGreat]

I don't know a lot about bottling/kegging but what's the advantage? Seems to me that you are still siphoning into something, and then using CO2 to bottle. Why not just siphon to the bottling bucket and eliminate that redundant step?

I guess my bottling bucket has a spigot on the bottom and I just plumb my bottling wand directly to that. So I don't have to siphon into the bottle.

 

[TheZymurgist]

I don't know a lot about bottling/kegging but what's the advantage? Seems to me that you are still siphoning into something, and then using CO2 to bottle. Why not just siphon to the bottling bucket and eliminate that redundant step?

I guess my bottling bucket has a spigot on the bottom and I just plumb my bottling wand directly to that. So I don't have to siphon into the bottle.

Forgot to mention that I use a party tap on my keg, and have a hose that fits perfectly into the end of the party tap that then goes into the bottle.

It's easier to do it this way since we're only racking the beer once, rather than racking to a bottling bucket and a keg. Plus, I think it's slightly easier to bottle using the party tap vs. the bottling wand. Just my opinion, though.

If the beer is already carbed in the keg, I have a bung that fits into the top of the bottles which the hose goes through into the keg. This: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/we-no-need-no-stinking-beer-gun-24678/
minus the racking cane. I just stick the bung onto the hose. This works wonders, although it took a few times to get the hang of it. Now I can bottle without any foam coming out, and without losing any carbonation. SLOW is the key. Still, we can have 25 bottles done in less than a half hour.

Beer guns are definitely not worth the money in my opinion, when there's an option like this.

 

[Odin_Brews]

Just to give you another idea, you could make a sugar solution of known concentration and use a kitchen syringe to add your bottling sugar. THat's what I do, I add 5 ml sugar solution per bottle which should be about 2 grams. Made it alot easier to deal with the measurements and I just keep on hand ready to go as needed.

 

[LowNotes]

Just to give you another idea, you could make a sugar solution of known concentration and use a kitchen syringe to add your bottling sugar. THat's what I do, I add 5 ml sugar solution per bottle which should be about 2 grams. Made it alot easier to deal with the measurements and I just keep on hand ready to go as needed.

After typing my original steps I started to wonder about this, to make it a more thoroughly mixed solution wihtout shaking the bottles and getting oxygen into the beer. I'll have to figure out exactly how to make my solutions ahead of time, but I am okay with basic chemistry so shouldn't be a problem.

The beer gun / "we don't need no beer gun" options are intriguing...I guess I was hoping to keep it simpler/cheaper/cleaner, but given the extra steps of weighing sugar and potentially creating a solution I might be adding enough complexity for it to be a wash. I'll ahve to look into the DIY option more, as the last time I read through it I knew I was years away from kegging so didn't really think it through. Now I will probably have a setup after Christmas, and am trying to plan ahead for how to use the new toys to their best ability.

 

[BakRivrBruen]

I bottle like this and it works sweet. Minimal investment and much quicker than waiting for natural carbed bottles.

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