Bottling some, kegging some?

[jwb96]

So if I want to bottle part of a 5 gallon batch and put the rest in a keg, what's the best approach?
- prime the whole batch or only the part going into bottles?
- okay to only partially fill a cornie, or look for 3-gallon?
- if I prime only part of the batch, is the amount of sugar needed proportional to the beer being bottled?
- if I put primed beer in a partially filled keg, I assume I won't get the CO2 level desired. Just force carbonate to the right level?

Thanks,
Jim

 

[Yooper]

So if I want to bottle part of a 5 gallon batch and put the rest in a keg, what's the best approach?
- prime the whole batch or only the part going into bottles?
- okay to only partially fill a cornie, or look for 3-gallon?
- if I prime only part of the batch, is the amount of sugar needed proportional to the beer being bottled?
- if I put primed beer in a partially filled keg, I assume I won't get the CO2 level desired. Just force carbonate to the right level?

Thanks,
Jim

The easiest way is to prime as usual, fill as many bottles as you desire, then fill the keg with the rest. Headspace isn't an issue at all- you can put the co2 on the keg, and purge the headspace several times to displace any air with co2.

And it will carbonate quite a bit in the keg, after priming, but you can also force carb to correct any lack of carbonation. It might even have more carbonation than you desire. Usually you use 1/2 the amount of priming sugar for a full keg, so I'm not sure how much you'd use for a keg that's only half full. If it's a little overcarbed, that's easy to fix just by releasing the pressure a few times.

 

[MikeInCtown]

I can't remember where in here the post is, but someone came up with a great idea for a beer gun/bottle filler. Force carb the keg and use the carbed beer to fill the bottles with the home made beer gun.

 

[Amiaji]

I can't remember where in here the post is, but someone came up with a great idea for a beer gun/bottle filler. Force carb the keg and use the carbed beer to fill the bottles with the home made beer gun.

Its a sticky at the top of this forum:

BMBF