Carbonate with Keg then bottle?

[Archer]

I am considering buying a couple kegs, regulator, CO2, etc. but I am also wondering if you carbonate your cider in the keg, but then want to bottle some of that cider (to give away or make more portable), what is the process and what if any special equipment might I need or wnat for that? Can I just go from carbonated in the keg to bottle and cap it, or do I need something else for the bottled cider to maintain the good carbonation level? Thanks.

 

[Newsman]

Sure. What I do is I use a bottling wand attached to a picnic tap to bottle from the keg. Just get your cider to the carb level you want then put it in the bottle (as I said, I use a bottling wand and a picnic tap) and cap.

 

[Pickled_Pepper]

I have one of those Blichmann Brew Guns. It works awesome if you are bottling a full keg, but it's a PITA if you only want to fill a 6're.

To fill growlers, I shoot a little CO2 in there and then, like newsman, I just fill from the tap.

 

[Rockn_M]

I recomment getting a beer gun or making one yourself. Trying to fill a bottle with already carbed beer you will probably get a lot of head and loss of carbonation.

 

[schwiz]

Yep, here is a video I happend to see yesterday.

 

[Archer]

Thank you, Schwiz!

(I assume the carb level in the botles remains good for quite a long time.)

 

[schwiz]

Thank you, Schwiz!

(I assume the carb level in the botles remains good for quite a long time.)

Well the bottle is sealed, I imagine it will be good until its opened.

 

[ThorGodOfThunder]

I made a "beer gun" and I bottle a lot from kegs. The last batch of cider is about 6 months old and it still tastes great!

My beer gun is rather simple. I took a piece of 1/4" copper tubing, flared it (you can use compression fittings if you don't have a flaring tool), and attached it to a 1/4 turn ball valve, then attached the valve to me beer line via hose barb. Then I drilled a hole in a rubber stopped and jammed the tube into it.

When I fill bottles, I purge them with a blow gun feeding off a different co2 tank (or you could just put a Y after the regulator on a single tank), then I jan the stopper/tube into a bottle and adjust the height so it is really close to the bottom of the bottle (you only need to adjust once if your bottles are all the same). Then I open the valve and the bottle will fill about 1.5" before stopping because of the back-pressure. Pushing the stopper to the side lets out a little pressure and lets the bottle fill up the rest of the way. Turn the valve off, cap, and on to the next one.

I bottled 5-gal in about 30 minutes with two people working on it. One would purge/cap and the other would fill. It works well. Only once did I forget to turn the valve off and sprayed cider all over the place.

I can get a pic of my bottling apparatus if you want.

 

[Archer]

Thor, A picture would be great. However, I am pretty sure hard apple cider should never be in contact with copper and certain other metals (other than SS), as the acids in cider break down some of the copper which then seriously screws up the taste of your cider. Maybe okay for beer or maybe its makeable with stainless steel?

 

[TheZymurgist]

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/we-no-need-no-stinking-beer-gun-24678/

^^^THIS! Beer guns are pretty expensive, and after bottling multiple brews with the above method, I think they're worthless. I actually don't even use the racking cane, I just put the hose right through the bung. Almost every batch I do is split with a buddy of mine. We keg it, carbonate it, then bottle half of it using just a party tap, hose, and bung. Takes about 20 to 30 minutes to do 25 beers, and I've refined it to the point where there's no foam overflow. That takes a little more patience and time, but it isn't difficult. Plus, since I already had the party tap and had extra hose lying around, I only had to go out and buy a bung. Cheap, easy, and just as effective as the beer gun.

 

[ThorGodOfThunder]

Thor, A picture would be great. However, I am pretty sure hard apple cider should never be in contact with copper and certain other metals (other than SS), as the acids in cider break down some of the copper which then seriously screws up the taste of your cider. Maybe okay for beer or maybe its makeable with stainless steel?

I'll get you a pic later, I'm already warm an cozy in my PJs

The cider is in contact with the copper for only a few seconds; I haven't noticed any off-flavors from the bottling. It still tastes as fresh as the day I kegged it. I'll make sure I inspect the inside of the tube and see if anything looks like it is rubbing off or degrading in any way.

I have some aluminum tubing, but I'm not too sure about that... You can always get a chrome toilet connector at a hardware store; you can attach them to a valve with a compression fitting (3/8" usually), and since they are plated they are pretty sturdy. I'd use stainless but that costs money and I'm a stingy old bastard. SS is also pretty hard to flare. And I also don't know where to find any ss tubing.

My rig is really similar to BierMuncher's, but mine is built a little better. Its the same principal at least.