Screw Bottle Carbing!

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SkiNuke

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Sorry for the lengthy post, skip to the end for my questions and midway for my plan.

So, I have been kegging for around 2 years, and unfortunately I just don't drink enough beer or throw enough parties to get rid of the beer! The kegs typically sit at 1/4 to 1/2 filled waiting to be bottled (which never happens because I have new beer on tap to keep me distracted). Right now all of my 8 kegs have some amount of beer that needs to get bottled.

As such, I have been mulling over the decision to go back to almost entirely bottles, which would allow me to pawn off my extra beer to friends and family. Unfortunately, I really dislike the idea of bottle carbing and I have been thinking about starting to filter my beers.

MY PLAN:
1) Ferment in buckets (as normal)
2) Condition in kegs at room temperature (as normal)
3) Filter from keg to keg (either gravity fed or CO2 pressured)
4) Carbonate in keg (either diffusing stone, or let the keg sit for a few days)
5) Bottle from keg when carbonated

I would also get rid of my kegerator, and then do everything at room temperature except for the ferment which would be done in my fermentation chamber.

MY QUESTIONS:
1) Will I run into any issues doing this process at room temperature (not really asking about taste, mostly about logistics)? Will the kegs and bottles be fine with the increased temperature and pressure? Will the bottles be under carbed due to loss of CO2 during the bottling procedure?
2) How should I go about carbonating? Should I just let it sit, or should I do the shake method, or use a diffusing stone (the Breckenridge Brewery tour got me excited about carbing with a diffuser, it also might be nice to bottle the same day as carbing and filtering)?
3) What sort of filtering options are there available? My GF says her lab filters by creating a vacuum on the destination side, but I think they have more expensive equipment than I am willing to buy.
4) Any other suggestions?
 
Why not bottle right off the carbed kegs? I do that all the time with flip top bottles. If they have sat for that long, I cannot believe they would need filtering. I cannot fathom the idea of getting rid of a keggerator so maybe you should ignore my post;)
 
When it comes down to it, I'm in a bit of a brewing rut and I am trying to make things simpler in order to make it more enjoyable. Unfortunately, the kegerator just adds one more thing to maintain and clean. Right now I am planning on leaving it unused as I try out this new method, and if I get back into the grove maybe i'll stick a keg in and use it, or maybe use it for parties. Mostly I want to focus on getting beer to bottles for my friends.
 
Bottling from the keg is super easy- but it has to be cold. Warm beer foams like a son of a gun and bottling carbed, warm beer is a disaster. It'll foam and lose carbonation, so you'd have flat beer in the end.

If you're going to bottle from the keg, the keg (and beer, and bottles) really should be as cold as possible.
 
Yooper's right and there's another factor to consider as well. CO2 doesn't dissolve near as easily into warm beer as it does cold.
 
Yooper is very good with beer logistics. I would and do listen to her.

LOL at "beer logistics". :D

I only know most of the stuff I do from experience. I"ve done so many dumb things, from eating hop pellets because they smelled good to painting my ceiling with counterpressure bottling techniques. As an aside, the reason that the word "pressure" is in counterpressure is because there is an amazing distance and volume acheived when beer under pressure is bottled and a moron doesn't hold the gun down. I happen to love my ceiling and walls the color of beer, but others may not.

I have painted my kitchen cabinets in beer and root beer, flooded my kitchen, blasted the white ceilings and walls in the office with beer, and more. Experience is the best teacher, I guess, but most people are smarter than I am and can figure out those sort of things for themselves. :drunk:

In any case, warm carbonated beer going into bottles does NOT work. I can attest to that, unfortunately.
 
I had forgotten about the foaming issue. I guess in that case I might just relegate my kegerator to a cold storage for my kegs to get them to bottling temp.
 
Yooper is very good with beer logistics. I would and do listen to her.

+1 When Yooper speaks...I listen. I have used her advice on many thoughts and problems and she has never steered me wrong!! I have also seen her posts on other threads and followed. Thanks Yooper!

I had forgotten about the foaming issue. I guess in that case I might just relegate my kegerator to a cold storage for my kegs to get them to bottling temp.

Just a thought. I know they make adapters that hook up to your tap to fill growlers which may be of some use to you as well.
 
Just a thought. I know they make adapters that hook up to your tap to fill growlers which may be of some use to you as well.

Great for growlers and larger plastic soda bottles that can use the wonderful (albeit expensive) "carbonator cap", but not at all good for filling 12oz bottles.

For that, I have grown to appreciate the simplicity and effectiveness of the Biermuncher setup described and discussed in the "We no need no stinking beer gun" sticky thread. Once you practice a few times and get the hang of it, it's very useful.
 
I've posted this here before - my homemade carb caps:

carbcap.jpg


Take a clean 2 liter bottle, drill a hole in the cap, and screw in a schrader valve (auto parts stores have them for about a buck)

Nice part is, you can fill directly from the tap. The beer will foam, but simply squeeze the bottle until the foam hits the top, and cap on foam. Then, hit the valve with 20 PSI CO2 via a tire chuck on the end of a CO2 line.

You can also fill with flat beer, hit with 40 PSI CO2 shake, and repeat until properly carbed, to quickly force carb beer to test.

Lots of uses...

--Duck911
 
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