[rbowers]

I have a beer gun given to me as a gift that I have never used (pretty much keg everything).  However now I have a brett saison that I have been watching the last few months, now dry hopped, and ready to go.  I would like to bottle this: 1) to keep brett out of my keg lines and 2) would like to see what it does over a bit of time.

The beer has been in a 2.5gal keg under a little pressure.  The gravity has been relatively stable at 1.003-1.002 the last 2 months.  That being said, the beer is not entirely flat.  It probably finished a few points in the keg. 

Not knowing what carbonation level exists currently I am a little leery of priming with sugar and bottling.  The other option would be to put some CO2 on it for 2 weeks and force carb it.  I would like it to be fairly carbonated (around 3 vol CO2). 

Questions:
1) Will force carbed beer at 3 volumes present significant problems with beer gun?
2) Would it be better to try and flatten the beer out over the next week or two by releasing pressure then prime with sugar?  Will this cause significant loss of dry hop flavor?
3) Any reason to worry about bottle bomb with a stable gravity as described above?

Thanks.

[braufessor]

Personally, I would think 3 volumes is going to give you a lot of foaming and problems when bottling.

I have been in the same situation you are in.  What I would recommend is to let the beer flatten out as much as possible, like you said.   I then make a priming solution on the very low end of my desired range (realizing that there could be CO2 in solution as well as a couple extra points from brett).  So, if the range I am shooting for is 2.8-3.2 volumes.... I will prime based on the 2.8 with the knowledge that the low end will be just fine, and even if I get a bit more than I thought, it still is not going to make bombs or be way over carbed.

I mix the priming solution and put it in a purged keg.  I jump the beer from the current keg down the dip tube of the empty keg with priming solution.  This helps to mix it up pretty well in my experience.  Then I use a beer gun with CO2 pressure to fill bottles and cap.

[rbowers]

Will give it a whirl.  I always thought that would be easier than dealing with all the foam in non-brett beers- just mix it all up and fill bottles with flat beer to bottle condition.  Of course I have never had a big need to bottle non-brett beers....so here I am.

Brett was pitched 4 and a half months ago (dregs from a bottle were cultured up several weeks in advance from a bottle of Haw River Farmhouse IPA).  I assume plenty of it should be around still to ferment out priming sugar, right?  Does brett bottle condition slower than normal yeast?  There could still be some French saison yeast floating around but not sure how viable it'll be this far out. 

[braufessor]

I have done quite a few different versions of saisons, hoppy saisons, fruited saisons, brett saisons, etc. over the past year or two.  I find that they really start to hit their stride 3-4-5-6 months after bottling.  I just keep mine at room temp. and put some in the fridge every now and then so I always have a few to choose from.  Giving them some time really seems to make them come together.