I'm sure this has been asked before, but I couldn't find any history. My question is, When bottling a whole batch of beer is it good to use priming sugar, Or should I force carbonate and use a beer gun. I know for shorter term bottling and comp. beers a beer gun is great. What about long term bottled beers or just the whole batch in general.
I relativity new at kegging. When I tried my home made beer gun (racking cane in the picnic tap) I wasted too much beer and ended up making a mess. So for my last 3 batches, I used a variation of the method than Gordon Strong talks about in his Zymurgy "Think Like a judge" article.
Chill 2 liter bottle, dispense beer from keg into 2 liter. Using a carbonator cap, up the carbonation a few psi to adjust for CO2 loss in the transfers. Pour beer from 2 liter into freezer cold bottles ( pre purges with CO2), cap on the foam.
I am only kegging 2 6-packs, so maybe not good for large scale, but pretty smooth and clean operation for my needs.