Worried about bottle bombs

[thorHB]

I have been dry hopping for about a week now in a sealed corny keg. I plan to bottle about a gallon of it before putting the keg on C02. The keg has been in my fermentation chamber at about 70 degrees until the last few days when I bumped the temp down to 65 to accommodate primary fermentation of another brew. I have been trying my best to purge the CO2 that is being created by the yeast as often as possible however I am sure the beer has absorbed a decent amount by now. Do I run the risk of creating bottle bombs if I rack and bottle as I intend to do this evening? If so, how can I prevent this?

 

[thorHB]

Any suggestions?

 

[m00ps]

You are fermenting in the keg? How long has it been going?

I would think as long as you have stable gravity, you would be fine bottling. But if the beer is already carbonated, you are going to have a very hard time bottling at room temp without most of it becoming foam...

 

[Thanks_Yeasties]

I think if your releasing the pressure pretty regularly then the amount of carbonation in the beer will be no more than usual when you go to bottle.

As far as I know even beer fermented in an airlocked vessel has around an atmosphere of carbonation in the liquid. If you depressurizing the keg until it no longer is letting out any pressure you should be at that same level and not have any problems.

 

[thorHB]

You are fermenting in the keg? How long has it been going?

I would think as long as you have stable gravity, you would be fine bottling. But if the beer is already carbonated, you are going to have a very hard time bottling at room temp without most of it becoming foam...

I fermented in a primary for 10 days. Gravity reading was 1.012 when I racked it into a keg to dry hop. been dry hopping for a week now.

 

[thorHB]

I think if your releasing the pressure pretty regularly then the amount of carbonation in the beer will be no more than usual when you go to bottle.

As far as I know even beer fermented in an airlocked vessel has around an atmosphere of carbonation in the liquid. If you depressurizing the keg until it no longer is letting out any pressure you should be at that same level and not have any problems.

I have been releasing the pressure at least once every day for the duration of the time its been in the keg.

 

[Gavin C]

Why not just carb, chill, and clear in the keg and bottle from the keg when it's as you want it. (sample as needed prior to bottling) With a current SG of 1.012 I can't see bottle bombs unless it's a Saison or something and the planned FG is near 1.000

 

[thorHB]

I'm bottling some up as a wedding gift and I would be worried about the shelf life if I bottled straight from the keg.

 

[Thanks_Yeasties]

You could definitely do it differently like Gavin C mentioned. I go that route if I do bottle anything it is straight from a forced carb'd keg using a "poor mans bottling gun" (a stickied thread on hbt and a simple money saver).

If youre sticking to your plan than I am assuming you want to add priming sugar to the bottles individually, rack beer onto into bottles, chill and carb the remaining beer in the keg.

In the future I would suggest against racking a beer before the fermentation is done. I would also suggest waiting until fermentation is over to dry hop. Which you can do right in the primary or rack to a secondary if youre so inclined.

 

[Gavin C]

I'm bottling some up as a wedding gift and I would be worried about the shelf life if I bottled straight from the keg.

Why would that be a concern over bottling in the more classical way with all that added potential of oxidation.

Not seeing the argument there.

Carbonated, cleared beer under CO2 at pressure (probably 10+ PSI) in keg transferred to sanitized bottle, capped on foam. Works a champ. I think you may be overcomplicating things a touch.

Maybe there is something additional in your setup that is giving you the willies?

 

[thorHB]

You will have to excuse my ignorance if I am way off base here but I thought that when conditioning in a bottle the yeast will consume the oxygen as well as the added sugar. Can you really get the same shelf life bottling from the keg? I will definitely use this method if that is the case. I have read some about the capping on foam technique but I guess I will have more research to do.

 

[Gavin C]

The yeast can only do so much with regard to consuming oxygen. I am really out of my knowledge depth here. If correct bottling practices are employed oxygenation at bottling (conventional method with priming sugars) should result in minimal oxygenation. If you are stirring the beer or employing some other poor practices then all bets are off.

Bottling from the keg is cheap, easy, quick, requires no priming solution, and results in beer that has a comparable shelf life to any bottled home brew as fas as I know. I've had some I bottled and tasted 3 months later just to test this out. No problems. (sample size of 3 beers as i am inexperienced so take this flimsy evidence as it is). There are lots of folks who will attest to the efficacy and product stability of bottling from the keg. Plenty of threads on HBT covering this. Check out this great thread

Edit: There are still millions of yeast cells in the beer regardless of how you bottle. If they can consume oxygen there is no shortage of them

 

[Thanks_Yeasties]

I think the amount of oxygen you could/would introduce bottling is far more than priming yeast can consume.

The beer in your keg now is oxygen free so carbing it up in there then bottling from the keg can only introduce oxygen as it is bottled, you can purge the bottle with CO2 beforehand to avoid that, but Ive found its unnecessary IME.

Plus if you are giving them away you have much less sediment in the bottom of the bottles which can bother some people.

And agreed with Gavin as I have 4-5 months old bottles with no noticeable impact on flavor from bottling from the keg.

 

[aaronmq]

I have always bottled by dropping the PSI down to 2-3, sticking a 3/16" tube into the end of my faucet, then filling up the bottle until beer is pouring out (Removing the tube leaves the perfect head space in the bottle) then cap it.

In fact, last September, I bottled the last bit of a Belgian White that I brewed to finish off the keg using this method. I took the bottles to my parents house and put it in their garage fridge and completely forgot about them. Last week, I came across them and they were 1,000,000x better than my last time tasting it.