We no need no stinking beer gun...

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haven't posted on here in a while, mainly lurking for the past few years. haha!
the OP is right...we do not need a freaking beer gun!
my first attempt at bottling was successful, no issues with foaming whatsoever.
i made the bottling wand a bit longer for growler fills.

BkoeqOpCAAEcGi9.jpg:large


if you're having issues with foaming...its either from not fully purging the keg first (before lowering the PSI), over-carbed beer or the serving pressure is too high.

5PSI worked perfectly!
 
1. Will the spring loaded bottle filler work just as well as his racking cane with the #2 stopper ? (I have both, just feel the filler would be more suited)

2. I'll be bottling from a warm 2.5 gal keg at only serving pressure as I have no CO2 tank, only the C02 cartridge gun. Should I get the Keg cold before bottling, or does it matter ?

3. My goal is 24 beers that stay carbed with little or no bottle residue. Will this be doable ?.........


I currently have the keg full of a stout that is carbing naturally, only 1 week in, need another 3 weeks before I do this.
 
I use the spring loaded tip on my bmbf. But I do not use the stopper. Works for me. Are you bottling this way to avoid sediment?
 
dstranger99 said:
1. Will the spring loaded bottle filler work just as well as his racking cane with the #2 stopper ? (I have both, just feel the filler would be more suited)

2. I'll be bottling from a warm 2.5 gal keg at only serving pressure as I have no CO2 tank, only the C02 cartridge gun. Should I get the Keg cold before bottling, or does it matter ?

3. My goal is 24 beers that stay carbed with little or no bottle residue. Will this be doable ?.........


I currently have the keg full of a stout that is carbing naturally, only 1 week in, need another 3 weeks before I do this.
Click to expand...

You can remove the spring loaded portion of the filler on some brands or leave it attached I dont think it matters. alot of people will cut the filler at a an angle 20-45 degrees, but this makes it so the spring loaded portion cant be re-installed.
I use the bottle filler with the stopper, havnt had sucess without the stopper, I think the reason is that the pressure is needed to bring as much o2 to the top for a few seconds, this eventually removes all o2 from bottle,

How are you naturally carbing? do you rack the finished beer ontop of 2.5 oz of corn sugar? If so It should be ready in a week to 10 days, The problem I see with this method is that there is noway to regulate psi and the beer should be finished in a few days. the displaced co2 will be replaced by o2 giving a flat cardboard taste.

I could be wrong, but thats my take on this
 
yewtah-brewha said:
How are you naturally carbing? do you rack the finished beer ontop of 2.5 oz of corn sugar? If so It should be ready in a week to 10 days, The problem I see with this method is that there is noway to regulate psi and the beer should be finished in a few days. the displaced co2 will be replaced by o2 giving a flat cardboard taste.

I could be wrong, but thats my take on this
Click to expand...


Yep, natural carb with 2.5 of sugar.

I do have the C02 cartridge gun that will give me the serving pressure to fill the bottles. Wouldn't that work ?
 
Thanks, I just googled beer gun to look at prices and found this instead. Definitely going to try it before spending all that money on the beer gun.
 
dstranger99 said:
Yep, natural carb with 2.5 of sugar.

I do have the C02 cartridge gun that will give me the serving pressure to fill the bottles. Wouldn't that work ?
Click to expand...


Quoting myself now, but this did work, 2 shots of the gun produced alot of foam, but 1 shot was perfect for serving pressure. I did this several weeks ago now, and the bottles are still carbed, albeit not heavily, but there is a "pssss" when you uncap.
 
Is this a good method for beer you plan to age in the bottle such as an oak barrel imperial stout? Any disadvantage of this method over priming sugar and bottle conditioning?

I haven't read the whole thread and I wouldn't be surprised if this has already been answered but there is alot of posts to read through.

Any help is appreciated.
 
Sorry if this has been covered already, but this is a LOONNNGGG thread.

I just started kegging but I'd like to bottle a gallon or two of some batches to age/share. Is this good enough to let a beer age (at room or cellar temps) for an extended period of time and not lose carb, or should I stick with the traditional bottling method for what I'd like to age for extended periods of time?
 
I think most of the value in bottle aging is in having the yeast carbonate and enhance flavors... I could be very wrong about that. The character will change to some extent, but not to the same degree as bottle conditioning.


Sent from my iPad using Home Brew
 
Skipped pages 40-110 so forgive me if this has been covered, but I am thinking of doing this with a large amount of bottles (125). I had an idea that I wonder if there is any issues with. Instead of putting 10-15 bottles at a time in my freezer to pre-cool them, could I instead freeze some star san, then put those cubes in a bucket of cold star san and just rinse my bottles in that as I go, combining the sanitizing and cooling process into one? Basically setting up a bottling assembly line to get all of these done in one sitting.

Are there any issues with freezing star san?

I know its not all the necessary to sanitize perfectly if they are going to be drank in a few days, or to pre-cool the bottles, but I would rather make sure everything goes well, plus I got nothing else to do, ha.
 
Thanks_Yeasties said:
Skipped pages 40-110 so forgive me if this has been covered, but I am thinking of doing this with a large amount of bottles (125). I had an idea that I wonder if there is any issues with. Instead of putting 10-15 bottles at a time in my freezer to pre-cool them, could I instead freeze some star san, then put those cubes in a bucket of cold star san and just rinse my bottles in that as I go, combining the sanitizing and cooling process into one? Basically setting up a bottling assembly line to get all of these done in one sitting.

Are there any issues with freezing star san?

I know its not all the necessary to sanitize perfectly if they are going to be drank in a few days, or to pre-cool the bottles, but I would rather make sure everything goes well, plus I got nothing else to do, ha.
Click to expand...
I stopped freezing my bottles some time ago.

I find that a simple rinse in cold tap water is sufficient to cool the bottles and reduce foaming. I found that doing a case at a time on my own was a reasonable task. Any more than that and I would definitely want additional hands to make the process more of an assembly line. :mug:
 
Yes, additional hands will be on deck for sure, I just thought combining the sanitizing and cooling process could be a time saver. Suppose if all of the brews are drank within a few weeks, it wouldn't really matter all that much. Seems like cooling the bottles doesn't have as much of an effect on releasing carbonation as does lowering your keg psi to the right levels and using the stopper to equalizer the pressure in the bottle. Will be trying this in about 2 weeks.
 
So i'm definitely trying to perfect my technique, but it seems to be working very well. Except the last time I tried to fill a bottle and the keg blew right while I was filling, but I didn't notice that the bottle was filling up with CO2/foam and then all of the sudden, foam exploded all over my face, shooting my zombie dust clone right in my eye! I probably should have rinsed my eye as it was irritated the rest of the night, from all those hops, I'm sure.
 
I tested this out today and have an issue with foaming that I cannot pinpoint. When I am dispensing the beer there is no foam but once I shut off the picnic tap to move to the next bottle the top of the racking cane fills with foam which is discharged into the next bottle.

I think that the racking cane may not be an air tight seal in the picnic tap that is causing this, but I am wondering if anyone else has had a similar issue.
 
Heavywalker said:
I tested this out today and have an issue with foaming that I cannot pinpoint. When I am dispensing the beer there is no foam but once I shut off the picnic tap to move to the next bottle the top of the racking cane fills with foam which is discharged into the next bottle.

I think that the racking cane may not be an air tight seal in the picnic tap that is causing this, but I am wondering if anyone else has had a similar issue.
Click to expand...

Yeah, this will happen because when the cane is in the bottle, the contents in the cane are under pressure. When you remove the cane from the bottle, since there is no cap on the end of the cane to prevent losing pressure, the contents in the cane will foam up, just like the contents in the bottle will foam. The quicker you move, the more you can minimize loss due to this foaming.
 
As a side note, I skip the cane altogether. The hose that fits into the picnic tap also fits perfectly through the bung, and creates an air tight seal. So I just plug the hose into the tap, run the hose through the bung and into the bottle. I first tried this since I didn't have an extra cane on hand, and it works flawlessly.
 
A few questions:
1. If I natural carb at room temp, is it ok to hook up gas and fill bottles before chilling keg? Will I even need to chill lines and bottles? Any changes to the "cap on foam"

2. What if I natural carb at room temp and fill bottles under pressure right away BEFORE it is carbonated.

Thoughts?
 
budaboff said:
A few questions:

1. If I natural carb at room temp, is it ok to hook up gas and fill bottles before chilling keg? Will I even need to chill lines and bottles? Any changes to the "cap on foam"



2. What if I natural carb at room temp and fill bottles under pressure right away BEFORE it is carbonated.



Thoughts?
Click to expand...


1. No. It will be at a higher PSI at room temp and will foam everywhere. It has to be cold. You can naturally carb, but then you have to chill before filling bottles.

2. This would be fine, but it is basically just using a keg as a bottling bucket.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
Ok. I am doing something incorrectly. Every beer I have tried with this method has come out flat in the bottles. Not sure what I am doing wrong. It's a shame because these are competition worthy beers that I cannot send off like this. I am following instructions to the letter without (to my knowledge) error. Can someone tell me the areas that might be causing the most difficulty? The beer comes out of the tap perfectly carbed, yet is flat with this bottling method. Do I need to turn up the carbonation for a few days prior to attempting this?


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
Are you removing the spring loaded tip from the bottle wand. I found mine was knocking a lot of co2 out of the beer when I filled. So I remove that and usually get good results.


Sent from somewhere to someone
 
GilSwillBasementBrews said:
Are you removing the spring loaded tip from the bottle wand. I found mine was knocking a lot of co2 out of the beer when I filled. So I remove that and usually get good results.


Sent from somewhere to someone
Click to expand...


I have been using a racking cane like the original post. It isn't a foaming issue as near as I can tell, it's just co2 retention. Maybe I need to make sure the cane is touching the bottom or very nearly doing so.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
drthrob said:
I have been using a racking cane like the original post. It isn't a foaming issue as near as I can tell, it's just co2 retention. Maybe I need to make sure the cane is touching the bottom or very nearly doing so.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
Click to expand...

Have you tried testing the bottles at intervals after bottling? Like immediately after, an hour after, then 3 hours after, next day? If they taste fine just after being capped, then maybe it's a cap/capping issue and you are leaking co2 out.
 
I cap them then usually wait a day or two at room temp to let co2 come out of solution. I get a fizz when I open the bottle and I have never had a problem bottling the old fashioned way. There is just no head on the beer itself. Very frustrating. I do not think it is an issue with the beer itself because it is fine in the keg.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
While I have used Biermuncher's idea/setup successfully many times in the past for beer, it did not work out so well for a sparkling white wine that I tried to bottle on Friday night. Of course I thought I'd go for a force carbed "lite" champagne level carbonation (4.5 vols) on my elderflower wine.

I was just about to "burp" the stopper after the champagne bottle was 1/3 full and the stopper blew. Now I know why baseball players wear goggles after winning a pennant when they have champagne fights. It stings...Oh the humanity. I did end up laughing at myself for being pretty stupid in this endeavor.

Anyway the whole thing was a mess. I ended up bottling on Sunday after relieving most of the pressure. Still was a mess, but kept it out of my eyes. We'll have to comsume those 8 bottles in the next few months as I'm sure they got pretty oxidized. Guess if I ever do it again I will probably bottle carb and deal with the sediment.
 
drthrob said:
I cap them then usually wait a day or two at room temp to let co2 come out of solution. I get a fizz when I open the bottle and I have never had a problem bottling the old fashioned way. There is just no head on the beer itself. Very frustrating. I do not think it is an issue with the beer itself because it is fine in the keg.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
Click to expand...

I don't understand the bold part. Let CO2 come out of solution?? Why? You should cap on foam and not need CO2 to come out of solution over a day or two. I don't get what that step is supposed to accomplish.

IF you are having capping issues and letting the beer warm up you will lose CO2 (from solution) faster at room temp than fridge temp. That's if you are having a real issue with carbonation. Do you have access to another capper to try? Is there any real reason to let the beer warm up?(the answer is NO)

IF it's a head retention thing then maybe we need to ask about you bottle cleaning practices. Could be that you are using dish soap and the residues could be causing the issue like a surfactant.

I use this method regularly now and it's definitely something you have to work the bugs out of.
 
Dolomieu said:
I don't understand the bold part. Let CO2 come out of solution?? Why? You should cap on foam and not need CO2 to come out of solution over a day or two. I don't get what that step is supposed to accomplish.

IF you are having capping issues and letting the beer warm up you will lose CO2 (from solution) faster at room temp than fridge temp. That's if you are having a real issue with carbonation. Do you have access to another capper to try? Is there any real reason to let the beer warm up?(the answer is NO)

IF it's a head retention thing then maybe we need to ask about you bottle cleaning practices. Could be that you are using dish soap and the residues could be causing the issue like a surfactant.

I use this method regularly now and it's definitely something you have to work the bugs out of.
Click to expand...


Let me clarify. I bottle at 33 degrees. As the bottle warms, the CO2 dissolved in solution should come out some into the headspace. The reason I allow this is because these bottles are going to be shipped and then cooled at a distant location (competition site) so I need to know if they will be properly pressurized at their destination. I DO cap on foam. That is the reason for the method. I am confirming they will be as I want them come competition time.

As to bottle cleanliness, these are brand new bottles bought for the express purpose of sending off to competitions. I use either star san or the iodine one (green and white bottle, can't recall name off hand) mixed in solution and coat the bottles inside after rinsing with a spray bottle. These are placed in the freezer before attempting the bottling then given a spritz with solution right before I fill.


Sent from my iPad using Home Brew
 
drthrob said:
I cap them then usually wait a day or two at room temp to let co2 come out of solution. I get a fizz when I open the bottle and I have never had a problem bottling the old fashioned way. There is just no head on the beer itself. Very frustrating. I do not think it is an issue with the beer itself because it is fine in the keg.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
Click to expand...

I'd taste taste a cold beer you bottled next to one right from the keg after a few hours. If the carbonation tastes different, ie: the bottle taste under carbed by comparison then you are losing carbonation during the bottling. If it tastes the same, then test another bottle at a longer interval to see if it's the cap/bottle leaking.
 
Is there any reason a bottling wand couldn't be used rather than the racking cane? I admit I have not read the entire thread.
 
therackman said:
Is there any reason a bottling wand couldn't be used rather than the racking cane? I admit I have not read the entire thread.
Click to expand...

I haven't tried it, but it's reported that it could lead to foaming. Some have used the bottling wand with the head removed to allow a free flow. Others, IIRC, have used a bottling wand intact with no issues.
 
Ive tried this and down that if to work but if you have too much pressure from the keg it willl blow the tip.
 
When I decrease the keg pressure do I need to purge the keg or can I just turn down the pressure and fill?
 
Purge the keg to get it down to the new pressure, fill your bottles, then increase back to your normal pressure. I use this method regularly, it works very well, I generally find the pressure for trouble free filling is about 4-5 PSI. YMMV.
 
Others have mentioned not dropping the pressure, so I have been keeping it around 11-12 psi that I keep it at and filling has been fine. In fact I get so little foam that I find I have to swirl the bottle a bit to get some foam to come up so that I can cap on the foam. Maybe unnecessary, but it makes me feel better.
 
drthrob said:
Let me clarify. I bottle at 33 degrees. As the bottle warms, the CO2 dissolved in solution should come out some into the headspace. The reason I allow this is because these bottles are going to be shipped and then cooled at a distant location (competition site) so I need to know if they will be properly pressurized at their destination. I DO cap on foam. That is the reason for the method. I am confirming they will be as I want them come competition time.

As to bottle cleanliness, these are brand new bottles bought for the express purpose of sending off to competitions. I use either star san or the iodine one (green and white bottle, can't recall name off hand) mixed in solution and coat the bottles inside after rinsing with a spray bottle. These are placed in the freezer before attempting the bottling then given a spritz with solution right before I fill.


Sent from my iPad using Home Brew
Click to expand...


Are you re-chilling the beer before sampling?
 
Quick Question

I was going to bottle a few bombers tonight. After doing so, can the bottles sit at room temp until a get the to there destination? I'm driving from Colorado to California.

Cheers
 

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