Kegging and then into bottles

[cjdj]

I am pretty new to this kegging, but I have a few questions that I have been wondering about.

I have 5 gallon kegs and want to naturally carbonate my beer in the kegs, but on the same note I would like to have a 12 pack or so of the beer that I just made for later dates.

My thoughts are, and correct me if I am wrong, I am going to use a beer gun to fill the bottles and then since the beer is already cold I would like to set the 12 pack aside in my basement. I am just not sure if the beer will last for up to a year let alone be ok when transitioning from the cold keg and back to a 60-70 degree environment?

I am naturally carbonating due to lack of CO2 hook ups and to have a large variety of beers for my parties.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

 

[MyNameIsPaul]

There's a great thread on this. Do a search for "we don't need no stinkin beergun"

it really is the way to go! It's easy, cheap, and the beers last just as long if you cap on foam. Check it out!

 

[Magua]

It's actually a sticky on this forum. Strangely stickies seem easier to miss than normal threads.

 

[ThatGuyRyan]

So you have a CO2 system but just not enough connectors so you want to naturally carb first then bottle using CO2 to push and a beer gun to fill correct? If so I don’t see an issue just letting it carb then chill it for a few days release the extra pressure at botteling to the recommended level for the beer gun and bottle. I force carb all my beers then level out the keg and then use my beer gun to fill a few bottles and have had bottles sit for a year or more in room temp and chilled with no issues.

I also started with the homemade beer gun but found the real thing to be easier to use plus I like to purge my bottles with CO2 which the beer gun will due. But what I am currently doing over the last 2-3 batches is filling my keg with the fresh flat beer then I use my beer gun to fill a dozen or so bottles and then use the sugar tabs to carbonate them and then force carb the rest of the keg. To me this is the best way since I don’t have to worry about any foaming issues since the beer is flat and I feel the carbonation in the bottle using sugar just gives my beer a better head than the bottles filled with the gun. You could do this as well but you would have to recalculate the amount of sugar to naturally carb the rest of keg since you would be a gallon or so short. I don’t know how you would calculate that but maybe others would know.

 

[elproducto]

I was actually thinking of this the other day. I have an upcoming beer that I want to bottle half. I might rack into the keg on the priming sugar, and then bottle half right there, and naturally carb the other in the keg.

 

[ThatGuyRyan]

I was actually thinking of this the other day. I have an upcoming beer that I want to bottle half. I might rack into the keg on the priming sugar, and then bottle half right there, and naturally carb the other in the keg.

I have thought of this as well but I am unsure how much sugar to use. I know you use less sugar to carbonate in the keg since the overall head space is less but when you remove 1/2 the beer that changes everything. I suppose you could just use the regular amount of sugar for bottling to be safe and if the keg doesn’t fully carbonate naturally you could just gas it for a few days to finish up. I may try this since I am using so much CO2 pushing, filtering, carbing, bottling and transferring that I had to get a second 10# tank just to keep everything going.

 

[cjdj]

Yeah I want to naturally carbonate my beer and then push it out thru a beer gun to get cleaner sediment free beer (I know that there will be some, but atleast it will do away with the majority of it).

BTW...thanks for the input. It is making me think about some other things to try.

As of right now I have a Belgian Quad sitting in a keg and I filled it with about 5 psi of CO2 to seal it off. I did this a couple of weeks ago and I have been monitoring it with a head pressure gauge. It has risen to 20 psi and has held there pretty steady for the past couple of weeks. Is this common? I still have a few more weeks to let it smooth out since it is supposed to be a 10-1/2%. Now my next question would be when I place this in the fridge I am assuming it will drop in pressure. I will be hooking the CO2 up to it as well and put about 10 psi on it. Am I going down the right road on this??