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Author Topic: Carbonation loss during bottling?  (Read 545 times)

Offline Bel Air Brewing

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Carbonation loss during bottling?
« on: January 27, 2022, 12:03:28 pm »
As we fine tune our beer entries, can anyone tell me how much carbonation is lost during bottling? My beer is in kegs, and yesterday we used the Beer Gun V2.
30 total bottles will be entered, so with 9 bottles yesterday, only 21 more to go.

I had a fair amount of foaming with my first 6 bottles. Checked the beers in the keg just now, and they are perfect for CO2 level, so I hope the bottled beer is fine.

Not so with my Schwarzbier...too much CO2! It was a huge mess! Wasted a lot of good beer, and might have to re-do this one.

Entries are:
German Pilsner
Festbier
Vienna Lager
Schwarzbier
English Barleywine
English Imperial Stout

Offline HighVoltageMan!

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Re: Carbonation loss during bottling?
« Reply #1 on: January 27, 2022, 12:40:19 pm »
Beer should be slightly over carb'd in the keg. I usually fill a couple of dummy bottles to get the foam right. Lowering the pressure in the keg helps a lot, but too low you you won't get the foam necessary to avoid oxygen ingress (cap on foam). I fill at 4-6 PSI with a Blichmann gun. The other thing that helps is to fill the bottle so the beer is about 1/2" from the cap. This will reduce the carbonation loss when the beer and headspace equalize.

The test bottles are good to check the carb level. Leaving it set overnight or even a couple of hours will allow the headspace and beer to equalize and you will get a good indication as far as carbonation level.

Edit: I'm guessing you lose .25 or so volumes. It depends on how fast you fill them. Faster fill means more loss in foam.
« Last Edit: January 27, 2022, 12:55:06 pm by HighVoltageMan! »

Offline Bel Air Brewing

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Re: Carbonation loss during bottling?
« Reply #2 on: January 27, 2022, 12:50:48 pm »
Beer should be slightly over carb'd in the keg. I usually fill a couple of dummy bottles to get the foam right. Lowering the pressure in the keg helps a lot, but too low you you won't get the foam necessary to avoid oxygen ingress (cap on foam). I fill at 4-6 PSI with a Blichmann gun. The other thing that helps is to fill the bottle so the beer is about 1/2" from the cap. This will reduce the carbonation loss when the beer and headspace equalize.

The test bottles are good to check the carb level. Leaving it set overnight or even a couple of hours will allow the headspace and beer to equalize and you will get a good indication as far as carbonation level.

Thanks! Yes, the beer in the keg is just a bit over on CO2. Doing some testing now…yes, it’s early but someone has to do it!

Offline Bob357

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Re: Carbonation loss during bottling?
« Reply #3 on: January 27, 2022, 12:52:32 pm »
How much carbonation is lost depends on your procedure. 
Beer is my bucket list,

Bob357
Fallon, NV

Offline Bel Air Brewing

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Re: Carbonation loss during bottling?
« Reply #4 on: January 27, 2022, 01:26:26 pm »
How much carbonation is lost depends on your procedure.

Beer Gun V2. Had some foaming on all the beers. Just opened a bottle of “Dark Knight”, a Schwarbier. This is the one that was way over carbed yesterday, and had major foaming issues. But the bottle was spot on perfect! What a shocker!