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Author Topic: Bottling from keg  (Read 2557 times)

Offline chemman14

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Bottling from keg
« on: March 03, 2012, 11:09:39 am »
I am planning to enter my Belgian Strong Dark in the national homebrew competition. The beer is currently in a keg with great carbonation. I test bottled a couple of bottles and it was slightly lower carbonation. I assume this is because the c02 must fill the head space and thus the beer loses carbonation.  I was wondering if anyone has experience with this? Should I turn my regulator up for a few days and then bottle? If so how much? I don't want to over carbonate this beer. It is very delicious.  I plan on bottling the rest of the keg once I get this dialed in.
Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
« Last Edit: March 03, 2012, 11:11:15 am by chemman14 »

Offline weithman5

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Re: Bottling from keg
« Reply #1 on: March 03, 2012, 11:54:20 am »
there are several other threads on this, but yes, just boost your caronation in the keg a pound or two and i thik you would be fine.
Don AHA member

Offline chemman14

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Re: Bottling from keg
« Reply #2 on: March 03, 2012, 12:16:45 pm »
I tried searching but could not find the answer to my question.

Offline tschmidlin

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Re: Bottling from keg
« Reply #3 on: March 03, 2012, 04:32:23 pm »
How are you bottling?  The beer will lose some CO2 on the way to the bottle, so typically you bump it up a bit.  How much is a bit of trial and error until you dial in your system, but 2 psi is a good starting point.  Also remember to vent the keg and just use a tiny bit of gas to push the beer into the bottle while filling or it will come out way too fast at the higher pressure.  You want slow and gentle.
Tom Schmidlin

Offline bluesman

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Re: Bottling from keg
« Reply #4 on: March 03, 2012, 07:43:33 pm »
There will be some loss of CO2 during the bottling process. The amount of CO2 loss is dependent upon your specific process. I use the beer gun and chill the beer down as low as possible without freezing. I leave about two inches of headspace and overcarbonate the beer by about 10%. This typically gets me in the ballpark of where I would like to be in the end product. As Tom indicated, try overcarbonating your beer to make up for your process losses.
Ron Price