How do commercial breweries bottle

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FiskBrews

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I used to bottle from the keg. It was a less than fun process doing the counterpressure process. So I wondered how commercial breweries bottle. I am sure they are not doing any kind of counterpressure method. How do they carbonate the beer, and then pump it into a bottle without losing the carbonation? Do they overcarbonate and when they bottle the carbonation loss makes it the proper level?
 
I grew up in your zip code (recognized it right way). You really don't lose carbonation bottling. It takes a while for beer to go flat. They bottle and cap in nano seconds. The foam in the headspace becomes the CO2 to maintain carbonation level. They fill from the bottom. The amount of foam that becomes the headspace is pretty predictable.
 
I grew up in your zip code (recognized it right way). You really don't lose carbonation bottling. It takes a while for beer to go flat. They bottle and cap in nano seconds. The foam in the headspace becomes the CO2 to maintain carbonation level. They fill from the bottom. The amount of foam that becomes the headspace is pretty predictable.
If the beer foams, it is because CO2 is coming out of the beer and creating the bubbles. If CO2 is coming out of the beer, you are losing some of the carbonation.

A commercial bottling line creates an extremely consistent process, so the loss would be pretty much the same for every bottle (not necessarily the case for bottling manually.) I would bet money that the commercial brewers measure the CO2 loss (or the equipment suppliers do it for them), and then compensate by overcarbing before bottling.

Side note: If CO2 comes out of the beer slowly, foam will not form. So, lack of foam does not mean that no CO2 is being lost. You lose CO2 whenever the partial pressure of CO2 in the gas above the beer is lower than the equilibrium partial pressure for the current carbonation level and temperature of the beer.

Brew on :mug:
 
Bottles are evacuated, purged with CO2, and then — indeed — they are filled against counterpressure. It takes a few seconds on the conveyor belt before they can be capped, so they’re then fobbed — intentionally foamed up — to expel air from the headspace. A little bit of CO2 is lost in the process, though it’s dialed in so that it foams just enough; if no foam is lost the CO2 in it will make its way back into solution. And @doug293cz would keep the money he bet: the cellar overcarbonates the beer to compensate for any losses in the bottling process. Bottling is easier than canning, though.
 
So if I just overcarb a bit and fill the bottle without counterpressure, it would give me a good bottle?
 
yeah, in theory it would work, but I don't know if it would be any easier or more fun. You would be exposing the beer to more air for a short period of time, (counter pressure uses CO2 to purge the bottle). And then there is trying to dial in the CO2 pressure to account for any loss.

I know some folks (award winning brewers) will just simply hook to a vinyl tube to a tap and fill bottles or growlers for same day use, while using counter pressure set up for bottles they send to competitions.

I think it all comes down to how many bottles you want to fill and for how long. I have a few 2 qt ceramic cap bottles, a large growler and a 1.75 mini keg. Beer stays in the keg until the day I want to bring some with me and then chose a container sized accordingly with the vinyl tube method. I suppose if I was to bottle to submit to competitions or give away, I'd spend the time and invest in a counter pressure method.

I'm thinking aloud here, but if I was ending up bottling a portion of my 5 gal brews on a regular basis. I'd use say a 3 gal keg and force carb , while bottling the other 2 gals and naturally carb for predictable quality and ease. The availability of different size kegs gives us more options to accommodate out needs and uses.
 
I used to bottle from the keg. It was a less than fun process doing the counterpressure process. So I wondered how commercial breweries bottle. I am sure they are not doing any kind of counterpressure method. How do they carbonate the beer, and then pump it into a bottle without losing the carbonation? Do they overcarbonate and when they bottle the carbonation loss makes it the proper level?
If you want to see how Sierra Nevada does it on a massive scale! You don't get a good view of the actually bottle filling though. You see the empty bottles got into a circular machine in the background and come up with a cap and some foam visible around the cap. I am pretty sure they flush the bottles with CO2, fill with counter pressure, and then inject a small stream of water to force foaming before capping. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is "bottle conditioned" but the beer is partially (mostly?) carbonated when it goes into the bottles.
 
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