Force Carb in Keg txfr to 330ml/12oz bottles=under carbonated

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radial67

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Some time ago i gave away bottling and went to kegs, however for a multitude of reasons (keeping justification short) Ive decided to go back to bottles but 330ml/12oz in size but keep fining/dryhopping/force carbing the beer in cornys.

The problems im facing is that once the beer is carb'd up in the corny, when i go to the small bottle, after a day or two, the beer in the bottle seems to lose a bit of carbonation and is flatter than the keg. Also, 640ml bottles (bomber) seem a little less carbonated than the keg, but more carbonated than the 330's

At bottling time the Keg is perfectly carbonated.

My bottling rig is a picnic tap on a very short line (12 inches) with a diptube on the end. When i go to bottle, I drop the pressure in the keg to a miniscule amount to push the beer out. I flush the bottles with co2 (from a different regulator) and then fill from the bottom up one bottle at a time.

All bottles are capped on foam and then each bottle gets dunked in a bucket of clean water to rinse it and check that the crown is on securely.

Now i can only assume that there is a reason for this, and im guessing and am looking for some confirmation from you guys, that the cause might be that the headspace by percentage to volume of liquid (and therefore dissolved co2) is greater in a 330ml than in a 640ml bottle, so therefore when the partial pressures equalize by virtue of co2 coming out of solution and into the 1atm headspace at capping, im effectively flattening the beer. In the case of a 640ml, the headspace is the same as a 330ml but by percentage there is more dissolved co2 (because of the higher volume of beer) and therefore is less carbod than the keg but better than the 640ml.

Has anyone found this as well???? If you have, what sort of suggestions (other than overcarbing the keg) would you have?

Alternately, is it possible that because i am dropping my keg pressure because of my short bottling line, im creating some other sort of problem downstream?

Thanks for the help fellas n gals
 
Yes, the CO2 in the beer will equalize with the head space. To alleviate this, I up the psi on my kegs a few days before bottling by a few points. Also, leave the head space to a minimum (read: almost none). This should help immensely.
 
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