Bottle and Keg

[rwh]

I typically keg my beer but, I brewed a batch of the Caramel Amber Ale from the recipe section. I want to bottle half and Keg the other half. Is there any problem using a 5 gallon keg on 2.5 gallons or should I buy a smaller keg?

 

[Build]

You can use it as long as you keep co2 in the headspace after it's fully carbed. How long do you plan on conditioning it before you drink it?

 

[Homercidal]

I would simply keg it all and then fill bottles from the keg. You can accelerate the carbing process in the keg and not have to wait 3 weeks for the bottles to carb up.

There is nothing wrong, however, with kegging 2.5 gallons if that's what you want to do. I'd be sure to purge the keg with CO2 beforehand just to help get as much Oxygen out of it as you can.

 

[rwh]

I have been practicing bottling from the keg, but I'm not very good at it yet. I want to try to send some bottles to a competition just to see what the beer judges say.

 

[Brewenstein]

I have been practicing bottling from the keg, but I'm not very good at it yet. I want to try to send some bottles to a competition just to see what the beer judges say.

I bottle from the keg from time to time, mostly to take somewhere, or to free up the keg when it is almost kicked. There is sticky on making a your own counter pressure bottle filler, but I am too lazy for that, so here is what I do.

First, I sanitize the tap and shove a Starsan soaked paper towel up the faucet and let it sit while I finishing prepping. Sanitize 6 bottles and let them rest upside down in a pot. Shut off the CO2 to the kegs I am not bottling from, dial down the pressure to 2-3 PSI and bleed the pressure from the keg that I am bottling from. Remove the starsan paper towel from the faucet and draw out about 3-4 ounces to clear the beer line (I find the first part of my pours to be lacking in carbonation). Then I stick a bottle onto the faucet, and pour the beer into the bottle - I tilt the bottle. It takes about 15 - 20 seconds to fill the bottle, and there should be very little foam. I leave about 1-1/2 inches of head space. I then shake the bottle side to side until a head starts to form and rises to the top of the bottle. Then I stick a sanitized cap on it and cap it. Set it off to the side and repeat.

I usually do this when I have 6 - 10 beers left in a keg, so I put them in the fridge. However, I have done this to carb and bottle a barleywine last year, and a year later they are fine. I think the biggest things are making sure the faucet is sanitized, and capping on the foam.

I am not saying this is a best practice, but so far it has worked for me.

 

[Homercidal]

Nothing "wrong" with bottling. I do it fairly often when my kegs are full or I'm brewing a big beer or a smaller batch of something different.

But I prefer to bottle from the keg most of the time because I end up with a bottle of beer that doesn't have any sediment that can be swirled up in handling. And I can tweak the carbonation prior to bottling if need be. And it can be quicker (Although that's not always an advantage.)

I have a bottle filler want which is just a plastic tube attached to a SS screw-in adapter for my faucet nozzle. I used to try to pressurize the bottle, but I found that was a pain to do and often made more work than necessary. These days I just turn the pressure down, fill a glass (to chill the faucet and filler tube) and slowly fill each bottle. It seems to work just as good as the pressurize method without the tediousness.

Actually, I need to add "bottle witbier from keg" to my list of things to do tonight. I need an empty keg!