Maintaining Carbonation

[renegade]

I am in the process of putting together a holiday 4 pack sample of beers to give out to family and friends.

It will contain:
1 Dry Irish Stout
1 Dead Ringer IPA
1 Palmer's Elevenses
1 Nut Brown Ale

The Stout and the Palmer's Elevenses are bottle conditioned so I have nothing to worry about there.

I am worried that the Dead Ringer and Nut Brown Ale (both on tap) will be under carbonated when people go to open them.

I read somewhere that some people add priming sugar directly to the bottle instead of making a batch when bottling recipes. I think they generally recommend somewhere around 1/2 tsp of corn sugar per bottle.

Being how these beers are already force carb'ed I am thinking to add half of that or 1/4 tsp per bottle. Will this maintain proper carbonation, or do you think I run the risk of creating bottle bombs?

Thanks in advance for your replies!

 

[MachineShopBrewing]

You need to counter pressure fill them. There are many ways, and a good cheap way is to search BMBF on the forum here. I use that method for bottling my kegged beer for competition and it works great.

Adding sugar now will only make your beer sweet.

 

[renegade]

I'll stop by my local hardware store tonight and see if they have any drilled stoppers that look like they would work for me

 

[eluterio]

I would agree not to add sugar to the bottle. If you do make a poor mans beer gun make sure you turn up the pressure a bit like 2 more psi. This way when you fill the bottles you wont be too far off from the original psi. Ive done this tons of times and works out great. But to be honest most people wont be able to notice the loss of CO2 after you cap it.

One thing to note, Make a bottle holder or rack to hold the bottles in place. If you have a partner helping you that will help. Ive lost many of bottles with leaving the filler in the empty bottles and them falling over because of filling and capping.

Good Luck!

 

[BryceL]

I use a slightly modified version of what you will see on the BMBF thread. I use a spring loaded bottle filler attached to the picnic tap instead of the racking cane. This way when I lift it out of the bottle it cuts off the flow of beer without having to flip the picnic tap off. I also cap after each bottle. I've had bottles last well over a year with this method with zero problems or loss of carbonation.

 

[renegade]

I use a slightly modified version of what you will see on the BMBF thread. I use a spring loaded bottle filler attached to the picnic tap instead of the racking cane. This way when I lift it out of the bottle it cuts off the flow of beer without having to flip the picnic tap off. I also cap after each bottle. I've had bottles last well over a year with this method with zero problems or loss of carbonation.

I like that idea!

and I happen to have a bottle filler that never gets used anymore.

 

[eluterio]

I like that idea!

and I happen to have a bottle filler that never gets used anymore.

Ive done this before as well it does work just dont use too much PSI or youll end up pouring out beer to get filler.

 

[BryceL]

Ive done this before as well it does work just dont use too much PSI or youll end up pouring out beer to get filler.

Agreed. I always purge my keg and reset between 2 and 4 psi for filling.

 

[renegade]

Hardware store didn't have any drilled stoppers. I might have an opportunity to get to a homebrew shop tonight though, they should have them in stock.

 

[dinnerstick]

i am not sure i understand what you're asking, but in case it involves adding dry sugar crystals or powder to carbonated beer, or partially carbonated beer to a bottle containing dry sugar, don't do it. dissolve first in water or you will have a foam rocket. if you weren't intending on doing that, then please ignore.

 

[BigFloyd]

Do this. It works great and is cheap to set up. - https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/we-no-need-no-stinking-beer-gun-24678/

Do not add priming sugar to beer that's already been carbonated with CO2. Your presents may go "boom" under the tree.

 

[renegade]

Got to the homebrew shop last night and got some #2 drilled stoppers, plan on assembling the Biermuncher-BryceL hybrid bottle filler tonight.

 

[BryceL]

Nice, good luck with it. It might take a few tries to get the hang of it, but should be pretty easy after that.

 

[renegade]

The hybrid bottle filler idea worked really well
I'll definitely be using this from now on!

Bottled a sixer of the Dead Ringer and started putting together my holiday packs last night

 

[BigFloyd]

The hybrid bottle filler idea worked really well
I'll definitely be using this from now on!

Bottled a sixer of the Dead Ringer and started putting together my holiday packs last night

Good to hear.

Now you'll probably experience the same temptation that I have to keg everything and fill bottles off the carbonated keg to share (with the exception of beers that need months of aging). I like not having to give folks special instructions about refrigerating 3+ days and then pouring so as to not get the yeast trub in their glasses.

 

[renegade]

Good to hear.

Now you'll probably experience the same temptation that I have to keg everything and fill bottles off the carbonated keg to share (with the exception of beers that need months of aging). I like not having to give folks special instructions about refrigerating 3+ days and then pouring so as to not get the yeast trub in their glasses.

Seems like the way to go for sure!

The last couple of batches that I have bottled, I mixed my priming sugar and beer in an empty keg and used CO2 pressure and a picnic tap to fill the bottles. Saved me time and effort over gravity filling from a bottling bucket. This seems like the next logical step.

 

[eluterio]

Seems like the way to go for sure!

The last couple of batches that I have bottled, I mixed my priming sugar and beer in an empty keg and used CO2 pressure and a picnic tap to fill the bottles. Saved me time and effort over gravity filling from a bottling bucket. This seems like the next logical step.

Ive done this helps with oxidation if you can go directly from carboy to keg with keg under co2 and use co2 to push from carboy.

 

[MachineShopBrewing]

Seems like the way to go for sure!

The last couple of batches that I have bottled, I mixed my priming sugar and beer in an empty keg and used CO2 pressure and a picnic tap to fill the bottles. Saved me time and effort over gravity filling from a bottling bucket. This seems like the next logical step.

This is exactly how I do my bottle conditioned beers. I stick a spring loaded bottling wand in the picnic tap to fill from the bottom. I also have a splitter on my gas line and purge each bottle with CO2 before filling. One of my friends has a beer gun and I have done it with that also. The beer gun works great for filling bottle for bottle conditioning as it has the purge and beer in one hand.