[weiht]

I will be bottling my beers from the keg for the nhc competition, I am wondering should I bottle it just before I ship it so that it conditions in the keg with the rest of the beer or it would not make a difference if I bottle it now and let it condition in the bottle. Is there a difference in the result?

[jeffy]

I will be bottling my beers from the keg for the nhc competition, I am wondering should I bottle it just before I ship it so that it conditions in the keg with the rest of the beer or it would not make a difference if I bottle it now and let it condition in the bottle. Is there a difference in the result?

The longer you save it in the keg, the clearer it will be.  I leave mine there until the last minute.  You can also adjust the carbonation over time to get exactly what you want, whereas if you bottle from the keg earlier and there is some unfermented sugar, you could get too much CO2 in the bottles.

[weiht]

Jeffy that's just what I thought as well. I figured that I will get better clarity towards the end, but I am just wondering should I bottled them as well for 2nd round just in case rather than a rebrew. Also I once thought I had enough beer in the keg until I started filling the bottle, and all I got was about half!!!! So I just thinking if j should just bottle them all early and drink the rest without worrying lol

[bluesman]

For most beers, I like to bottle right before I'm ready to ship for the first round. Then if I move on to the second round I'll bottle the remaining bottles at that point. This allows the beer to continue to bulk condition and clarify in the keg plus it minimizes any potential bottling transfer and stoage effects like oxidation, carbonation, etc..

Good Luck!

[tumarkin]

seems like you could hedge your bets and bottle enough for both first & second round. then if you are lucky enough to make it on to the second round and the keg isn't empty yet, you could then rebottle. but if the keg has emptied,  you'd still have the bottles you'd done earlier. if the keg hasn't kicked, well you'd just have to drink those extras.

[tschmidlin]

I like Mark's idea, be prepared to do both.  I think you'd want to save some in the keg, just in case you move forward to the 2nd round with comments like "carbonation is a touch too low".

[jdvisger123]

I bottled mine yesterday. I went ahead and bottled more than I need for the comp because I have not been drinking off that tap for fear of drinking too much just in case I go to second round. I do plan on trying a few of the bottles just before round one to make sure that they have retained the carbonation level.