Bottling from keg, no priming, keg carbed

[TravelingLight]

I'm getting ready to do my first sour. I want to bottle this beer so it can sit a while on the shelf, and I only have one tap and don't want to occupy my kegerator for that long.

Here's where I need some advice. I have never bottled a beer before, other than bottling from the keg with a Blichman bottling gun.

I want to know if, when this beer is ready, I can keg it and carb it as usual, then bottle the entire batch with a bottling gun? **NOTE: this sour will have no brett in it. I'm sure that matters, so just throwing it out there now.** This is more of a "quick" sour with lacto and sacc. Fruited and oaked.

Any glaring problems with this method? I'd just rather not have to mess with priming sugar and all that crap since I have a keg and CO2. Thanks.

 

[sweetcell]

i don't see why this method won't work... proceed as planned. lacto-soured beer will carb just as well as clean, sacch-only beer.

did you sour with lacto pre- or post-boil? if post, you'll want to sanitize that bottling gun and it's tubing really, really well (ideally, replace the tubing and use that one for sours only).

 

[m00ps]

I think getting a bottling bucket and just doing traditional bottling with a calculated amount of priming sugar would be the way to go. I do this for all my sours and I feel like the bit of yeast sediment gives it a longer shelf life and lets the sour character evolve more over time

youd definitely contaminate your beer gun if you were going to use it with future clean batches

 

[TravelingLight]

i don't see why this method won't work... proceed as planned. lacto-soured beer will carb just as well as clean, sacch-only beer.

did you sour with lacto pre- or post-boil? if post, you'll want to sanitize that bottling gun and it's tubing really, really well (ideally, replace the tubing and use that one for sours only).

I think getting a bottling bucket and just doing traditional bottling with a calculated amount of priming sugar would be the way to go. I do this for all my sours and I feel like the bit of yeast sediment gives it a longer shelf life and lets the sour character evolve more over time

youd definitely contaminate your beer gun if you were going to use it with future clean batches

Damn, I didn't even think about that! And it's a buddy's beer gun, so I don't want to be bugging up his shizz. I guess I'll have to go the bottling bucket route. I think the main reason I have always been so anti-bottling is that probably 80% of the homebrews I've had from other people that were primed and bottled were over carbed. So I think I've just always assumed that it's an insanely finicky process and I don't want to ruin it. I've never even researched it. But I suppose if I find the right calculator and follow directions to the letter, I should be alright?

 

[m00ps]

Yeah. Just use a calculator and target slightly below where you want if you are worried. I use the one at Northern Brewer. I usually do IPAs/Pales at 2.4vol CO2, stouts/porters at 2.1, and belgians at 2.8ish. For sours, I usually just aim for a normal carb level of 2.4-2.5. I find too high carbonation doesnt go well with the sourness. You dont want to go much higher than 3.0 in regular 12oz bottles

Be sure to keep in mind when you are putting in your batch size, you need to account for trub. This may be why so many bottle primed beers are overcarbed (that or using those carb drops). If you have a liquid level of 5.0 gal in your fermentor, you will likely only get 4.5 or so in the bottling bucket. I will usually subtract 0.25-0.5 gal in my calculations to account for that.

 

[TravelingLight]

Yeah. Just use a calculator and target slightly below where you want if you are worried. I use the one at Northern Brewer. I usually do IPAs/Pales at 2.4vol CO2, stouts/porters at 2.1, and belgians at 2.8ish. For sours, I usually just aim for a normal carb level of 2.4-2.5. I find too high carbonation doesnt go well with the sourness. You dont want to go much higher than 3.0 in regular 12oz bottles

Be sure to keep in mind when you are putting in your batch size, you need to account for trub. This may be why so many bottle primed beers are overcarbed (that or using those carb drops). If you have a liquid level of 5.0 gal in your fermentor, you will likely only get 4.5 or so in the bottling bucket. I will usually subtract 0.25-0.5 gal in my calculations to account for that.

Great advice again, brother. Thanks. Thankfully I've got a few months before I get around to bottling this. Hell, haven't even brewed it yet but will be in the next week or two. Just got to figure out which lacto brevis strain I want to use and how long I should let that sour it before pitching sacc. I'd rather not open it up and take samples and ph readings every day and keep introducing oxygen. So I guess I'll give it a few days then check it?