[jeffy]

I do not normally bottle beers unless I am entering a competition or sending a bottle or two to friends and relatives.  I have been tasked to brew and bottle for a friend's wedding party, which is in three and a half weeks.  The party is at a bar and they don't allow outside kegs, so these bottles will be given away to the participants, assuming at the end of the afternoon.  Right now the ten gallons of beer is cold crashing and will be dry hopped cold for a few days.  I plan to fill bottles this weekend, but I always lose some carbonation when I bottle from a carbed keg. 
The questions I have are, rather than use a beer gun and try to fill four cases of 12 ounce bottles with carbonated beer, should I just add sugar to the kegs and only force carb the kegs up slightly?  Will three weeks be enough time?

[goose]

I turn the CO2 pressure up from my serving pressure of 8 PSI to around 15 PSI the night before I bottle. This preserves most of the carbonation in the bottle.  You might give this a try.

Remember to turn the keg pressure back down again after you are done and bleed off the excess pressure so you don't over carbonate the beer and create excessive foaming!

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[fredthecat]

I do not normally bottle beers unless I am entering a competition or sending a bottle or two to friends and relatives.  I have been tasked to brew and bottle for a friend's wedding party, which is in three and a half weeks.  The party is at a bar and they don't allow outside kegs, so these bottles will be given away to the participants, assuming at the end of the afternoon.  Right now the ten gallons of beer is cold crashing and will be dry hopped cold for a few days.  I plan to fill bottles this weekend, but I always lose some carbonation when I bottle from a carbed keg. 
The questions I have are, rather than use a beer gun and try to fill four cases of 12 ounce bottles with carbonated beer, should I just add sugar to the kegs and only force carb the kegs up slightly?  Will three weeks be enough time?

if time is a factor, you might force carb.

i have a lot of experience bottling, no experience with forced CO2 admittedly.

but depending on to what volume you carbonate it, good head formation that demonstrates how the beer really ought to look just barely starts at 3 weeks bottled.

[jeffy]

Thanks for the replies and suggestions.  Since time is a factor, I will force carb and try to bottle with my beer gun.

[smkranz]

You’re a good man to sweat this project out.  I did it a few years ago for my nephew’s wedding, where each guest got a bottle as a wedding favor.  Bottling with the beer gun is def the way to go.

The groom selected the beer style, and I directed the bride to GrogTag to help design the label and matching crowns.  She was so excited to do that, it helped turn it into a pretty fun project.


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[jeffy]

We have an artist friend who has designed a label and will also be ordering from grogtag.

[Lazy Ant Brewing]

I turn the CO2 pressure up from my serving pressure of 8 PSI to around 15 PSI the night before I bottle. This preserves most of the carbonation in the bottle.  You might give this a try.

Remember to turn the keg pressure back down again after you are done and bleed off the excess pressure so you don't over carbonate the beer and create excessive foaming!

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With the pressure turned up to 15 PSI, don't you get excessive foam in the bottles and then have to wait for it to settle before adding more beer to each bottle and repeat that process a couple of times before you can cap each bottle?  If I correctly remember what Denny has written, he keeps only enough pressure going to gently fill the bottles when starting from the keg.

I could see your point about doubling up on the pressure the night before, but don't you then have to reduce the pressure before dispensing into the bottles?

Thanks in advance for your reply.

[goose]

Yes, I reduce the pressure before filling the bottles to 8 PSI

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[jeffy]

We transferred the beer into bottles from the two corny kegs yesterday and things went very smoothly.  I had the kegs and sanitized bottles at 40-42 F and coiled the beer hose and kept it in ice water as well.  I calculated 2.6 volumes of CO2 and pushed the beer to the beer gun with about 6psi.  There was just enough foam to fill the bottle neck and cap on foam.  We had a little assembly line set up to fill, cap, clean and label the bottles so it went pretty quickly.
Grogtag was very efficient with the labels.
The happy couple seemed pleased with the way the beer turned out.  It was 80% pils, 20% corn grits, split with Diamond Lager and BRY-97, hopped with Mosaic and Citra to about 65 IBUs.  Some brewers are calling this a "Cold IPA" but I call mine "Gulf Coast IPA."  I think I'll make it again partly because I didn't get to drink much of this batch.