Bottling from keg - tried it and need help

[McKnuckle]

I have tried bottling from my kegs a couple of times now, and it's consistently been a major FAIL. I don't know what I'm doing wrong!

I've got a plastic bottle filler tube inserted into a picnic tap faucet. I have a small rubber bung fitted onto the tube such that the tube, when inserted into a bottle, sits a fraction of an inch above the bottom. The tap line is about 5' and the filler tube maybe another foot in length.

I've turned off the gas, purged pressure, restored gas at a low pressure (5 psi), and attached the aforementioned picnic tap.

I have chilled my bottles. I gently pinch the rubber bung to relieve pressure as I fill.

Every time I try this, I get major foaming and overflow. Even when I release the picnic tap valve, the beer keeps flowing. I never have trouble with the picnic tap under normal serving conditions.

I've also tried ditching the picnic tap and inserted surgical tubing into one of my kegerator's Perlick faucets. The tubing fits over the bottle filler tube and the rest is the same. Again, foam Foam FOAM. What a pain in the arse!

Are there any suggestions for what I might not be doing correctly here? Thanks and Happy New Year to all.

 

[LLBeanJ]

Try not chilling your bottles. I know that chilling them first is common advice, but I've found that pouring beer into chilled anything results in more foam, not less. Everything else you've described sounds fine.

 

[firerat]

Try reducing the pressure to like 1 or 2 PSI.

I had similar issues until I dropped the pressure to an almost drip.

Do you open the picnic tap all the way up or just slowly "throttle" (for lack of a better word) the trigger? I found that if I don't give it all full throttle i get foaming issues as well.

 

[BeerFst]

I have a dedicated bottle filling line, the tube is really only a foot long, and i set to 1 or 2 psi.

As previously mentioned, open that sucker to full throttle. However before I cap, I'll depress it slightly and just let a small amount of foam out until it barely rises over the top, then cap on that. Previously I had held the cap on and tipped the bottle, which ended up in foam volcano's and more lost beer.

lastly, are you using 3/16th line or a larger ID?

 

[lud]

I've never ever had luck bottling like that. For me it yielded inconsistent filling. I went to counter pressure filling and never looked back.

 

[zach976]

I tried the same way with poor results. Broke down and bottle a beer gun. Works like a champ.

 

[Inkleg]

Your process sounds solid.
Like the others said drop the pressure to 1-2 psi. I lock my picnic tap open in the up position and control the flow with releasing pressure on the bung. It was tricky the first few times flipping the tap closed, but now it's second nature. I also set the bottles in a 6 pack holder, just helps steady them.

 

[McKnuckle]

I have nothing to add but want to thank folks for the replies. Cheers

 

[ktzimmer]

Blichmann Beer Gun...problem solved.

 

[ThorGodOfThunder]

Build your own beer gun. Takes a few dollars worth of parts you can get at your local hardware store. I built my own and I've bottled many kegs worth of beer and cider. The only problem I've had with my diy beer gun is that I have to keep everything moving. If the liquid in the lines warms up too much I'll get a geyser when I remove the stopper.

 

[m00ps]

I'm jsut starting kegging now and was wondering the same thing. If the bottle will be drank in a few days, I'm guessing just a rinse and normal fill would be ok? Like a growler?

But if I want to give them as gifts or bring to a competition, I want a reliable process to get them to keep well in bottles. If I dispense it at 1-2 psi, wouldn;t that result in a very flat beer upon opening it later? Or is that not how it works?

I may just end up getting a beer gun.

 

[McKnuckle]

The psi level used to fill the bottle is not related to the CO2 (carbonation) dissolved in the beer. Its sole purpose is to push the beer up and out of the keg, through your tubing and other bottling apparatus, and into the bottles. That's why the value is so small - you just want to nudge it along, not blast it out.

 

[LandoLincoln]

1) Don't chill your bottles. Totally unnecessary and may be counterproductive.
2) Get a longer beer line. 10' would be good.
3) Reduce pressure even further if necessary, but it probably won't be.

 

[D-Train]

You mentioned bottle filler tube. You need a straight tube with zero disruptions to flow. Are you using a wand with some sort of stopper?

I use a rig with the same concept as you, except I bottle using a perlick tap insert at serving pressure. It's been working great. I'm sure there's just a small kink you need to work out because the process is sound.

 

[shaneshepherd]

McKnuckle - Were you able to find the culprit in your system. I am new to bottling out of the keg...just started this week. Trying a setup that sounds very similar to yours. Losing lots of beer. I love to hear what you found...if you've worked out your issue yet.

 

[McKnuckle]

I haven't tried it again yet.

I had better success the first time I tried it, actually, where I followed a couple of the suggestions here a bit more closely: Warm bottles. Very slight pressure. In that case I used a piece of tubing shoved into my Perlick faucet, through a tiny stopper, and "burped" the stopper periodically. It was still messy but I lost less beer.

I realize some people will continue to suggest a beer gun, but I read just as many anecdotes from others saying what a complex pain those are. And for the amount of keg-bottling I do and my personality in general, I prefer to avoid that option.

For the question about my bottle filler tube; I used a straight hard plastic tube with the spring bit removed from the end. Just a dead simple tube going through a stopper that's lodged in the bottle. Perlick tap insert, eh? Hmm, need to Google that.

 

[wilserbrewer]

I fill bottles and growlers from the keg with just a picnic tap. I find that tilting the bottle as much as possible and gently filling gives fine results...

 

[jkovac]

Another vote for the Blichmann Beer Gun. I bottled from a keg for the first time ever recently and it worked great. It allows you to easily flush the bottle with CO2 first. They do include 10 or 12 feet of tubing and tell you to use it all, which I did, and there was very little foam. They say to chill the bottles, which I also did, but after reading some of the comments here I'll try not doing that next time and see if it makes any difference.

 

[DeathBrewer]

Strange to see so many people recommend not chilling the bottles. Any time beer warms up, co2 comes out of solution. I don't see how frozen bottles could possible lead to MORE foaming.

I've bottled lots of different ways, using the Blichmann Beer Gun, counter-pressure fillers, and the old picnic tap + 3/16" line using a 3/8" tube to connect the two.

My preferred method with the picnic tap is to sanitize and then freeze the bottles, fill at very low pressure (just enough to push) and spray a little foam at the end to remove any oxygen from the bottle, then cap on the foam. It usually works just fine.

In the past, I have had trouble when not spraying foam where the beer eventually oxidized and because of that, for competition, I usually use a counter-pressure filler...but I still freeze the bottles.

I'd be interested to see if you all experience loss in carbonation when bottle filling with the standard picnic tap + hose method and not freezing.

 

[fantomlord]

I just use this method:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/we-no-need-no-stinking-beer-gun-24678/

never chill my bottles, just purge the keg, and drop the pressure to 0, and slowly increase just enough to get the beer moving. Then, fill until I get liquid pushing out the stopper, then set the cap on top and move to the next bottle. When I've filled a few bottles (or a sixer, or whatever), put my thumb on the top of the cap, gently invert, get my capper ready, and once the foam gets to the top, cap it. Occasionally, I'll need to invert a second time to get the foam all the way up.

I've filled bottles for comps like this, and never had an oxidation issue...even beat my buddy at state fair for best in category--and he used his Blichmann beer gun, and got dinged for oxidation

 

[elerten]

There is a fundamental misunderstanding of beer line length and relationship to foaming. I know there is all kinds of purist that have beer lengths for certain types of beers and all that. The long and short of it, is the more pressure you run the more line length you need. Anything under 5 ft of beer line is probably counter productive. This is for serving and filling. Stick 10 ft of line on there and set the pressure to fill a class with the head you want. Otherwise you'll have your kegs set at 0.010 psi trying to not foam up the beer. Once you get into it more, then read all the wonderful advice that is out there on length vs pressure. For newbies... get 10 ft of beer line and you will have way less trouble.

 

[mtnagel]

What I have found is that the most important thing for reducing foaming when filling off the keg is to not overcarb the beer in the keg. I know it sounds super obvious, but that's all it takes. I never have to reduce the pressure on the keg to fill bottles anymore and I never have excessive foaming anymore.

And the key to not overcarbing the beer in the keg is to lower the PSI on the keg. My mini fridge kegerator isn't very good at keeping a certain temperature. I will see it swing plus/minus 4 degrees easily. I used to use the midpoint temperature to set the PSI using the Carbonation Table Pressure Chart but what would happen is that the fridge would drop lower and absorb more CO2 leading to slightly overcarbonated beer. It wasn't bad when pouring into a glass, but it lead to crazy foaming when filling bottles. Now I make sure to use the lower temp that my fridge sees. It does take a little longer to get to the perfect carbonation in the keg, but it ensures that it won't get overcarbed and therefore won't lead to excessive foaming when filling bottles from the kegs.

 

[kombat]

I don't see how frozen bottles could possible lead to MORE foaming.

Cold bottles = good

Frozen bottles = bad

When a bottle freezes, ice crystalizes onto it, creating nucleation sites for CO2 to come out of solution.

Think about it this way. Take a room-temperature bottle of Coca-Cola and 2 drinking glasses. In one glass, put 2-3 ice cubes. Pour the Coke into both glasses. Which one foams more?

The ice cubes, of course. But how can that be? Shouldn't the warm Coke hit the ice and get immediately colder, increasing its ability to hold CO2 in solution? In theory, yes, but in practice, the rough surface of the ice causes much of the CO2 to effervesce out of solution.

The same thing happens with frozen beer bottles.

TL;DR: Put empty bottles in the fridge - not freezer - before attempting to bottle from a keg.

 

[mtnagel]

What I do is put dry bottles in the freeze for maybe 15 minutes. Then I dunk them in the starsan solution, which is pretty cold in my basement and then fill. That way there is no frozen liquid in the bottles.

 

[DeathBrewer]

That all makes sense. I've never seen foaming with my frozen bottles, but then I just put them in the deep freezer for 30 minutes or so. There's a little bit of ice but as soon as the bottles start being filled there is not much left. My biggest problem is making sure I foam at the end to get the oxygen out.

Usually I starsan and then freeze. I may try the other way tonight while I bottle some bitter for comp

 

[brewprint]

I use frozen bottles. Then sanitize with my sprayer (I forgot what it's called due to too many brews). Just remembered it's the vinator.

Take off pressure, purge and move up to 5 psi slowly.

I use a long stem off of the picnic tap and 7 foot lines. I use the stopper but it's almost unnecessary.

I pull the tap all the way. Leaving it half way makes foam.

My kegerator is chilled around 37.

I keep my pressure about 10 or 10.5 psi.

Never an issue. Almost no foam...literally a few bubbles.

Chilling bottles is logic for reducing foam period.