Cask conditioning and then into the bottle ...

[Roberts7]

Hello all

I have 2 pressure barrels full of beer. One IPA and the other dark ale. The dark ale has been maturing for almost 2 months and the IPA just coming up for a month in the barrel. I have just found out I need to move house soon and don't want to waste all of the beer. It was originally meant for a bbq that is no longer happening.

My question is ... should I bottle it all? And how to go about it as it's been in the barrel for a while now. I've not bottled before so was hoping some advice might be forthcoming about exactly how to transfer from pressure barrel to bottle without ruining my beer.

Your help, as always, is much appreciated!

[timbo41]

Hi you dont mention whether you had primed either beer for carbonation. I often use one or other of my 2 pb to mature beer before bottling with no probs. I use a bottleing wand connected to pb tap and to be honest its a doddle to bottle up, can do 40 pts in about an hour. You may find it a bit messy if the beer has a good degree of carbonation, although this can easily be replaced by priming the pb or individual bottles. I am essentially lazy so now just tend to add a sugar cube to each bottle prior to filling.. works for me. If your worry is that by moving the pbs on your house move you will stir up the sediment i can only suggest you go easy on them... stirring them up a bit seems inevitable. I have heard of some brewers adding gelatine to the brew to firm up the yeast cake but i dont know if this could be used in this situation, think its normally done early in the brewing process.

[Roberts7]

I primed both of the pressure barrels with 50gs of brewer's sugar. I will have to carefully move the PBs into a convenient place for bottling. My thinking was that I would move them to the right place carefully and leave them there for a couple of days to settle back down. I did add Irish Moss to the boil and then some Issinglass to the secondary. Once they've settled down I will rig up a tube from the PB taps and bottle. Would you prime the bottles or would the fact I primed the PB be enough?

[Befuddler]

Bottling conditioned beer is going to be really difficult with a standard bottling stick. The drop in pressure as the beer leaves the barrel will cause the co2 to come out of solution and foam like mad - that's what creates the head on your beer. There's also a very strong chance of oxidating the beer, so the bottles wont last long anyway.

If I were you, I'd just firmly tape the taps in place with some blocks of polystyrene or something and keep the beer in the barrels. It'll take a while to clear again at the other end, but it will harm the beer less than trying to bottle it at this stage.

[Roberts7]

That's what I feared. Normally I just keg and drink everything. How about if I carefully release the cap on the pressure barrel to release the pressure, leave the beer to settle for a few hours and then bottle it through a tube either attached to the tap or through a standard syphon. I could then prime the bottles with a quarter of a teaspoon full of brewer's sugar. What do you think of that?

[kane]

Bottling conditioned beer is going to be really difficult with a standard bottling stick. The drop in pressure as the beer leaves the barrel will cause the co2 to come out of solution and foam like mad - that's what creates the head on your beer. There's also a very strong chance of oxidating the beer, so the bottles wont last long anyway.

Is there a reason the beer would oxidise more easily at this stage, compared to bottling before being put in a barrel?
I would have thought the CO2 coming out of solution would help prevent oxidisation by essentially purging the bottles with co2?

[Befuddler]

Bottling conditioned beer is going to be really difficult with a standard bottling stick. The drop in pressure as the beer leaves the barrel will cause the co2 to come out of solution and foam like mad - that's what creates the head on your beer. There's also a very strong chance of oxidating the beer, so the bottles wont last long anyway.

Is there a reason the beer would oxidise more easily at this stage, compared to bottling before being put in a barrel?
I would have thought the CO2 coming out of solution would help prevent oxidisation by essentially purging the bottles with co2?

It's not that it happens more easily, just that it matters more. The yeast will clean up a bit of oxygen during conditioning, but at this stage they don't have anything left to ferment so the oxygen will spoil the beer instead. The co2 coming out of solution might help but it would also leave the beer flat, and you'd end up wasting half the batch on foam.

The best bet might be to attempt something like this: Ghetto counter-pressure bottle filler.

[Kelbrew]

quote "My question is ... should I bottle it all?"

Are you ok for bottles? I have loadsa green ones (Wolverhampton) not required, could do you for temporary?

[Roberts7]

Hi there mate. What sort of size are they? And, how much would you want for them?

[fego]

I wouldn't bother bottling. I'd just move them with you. In fact, I did that last time I moved house. I moved 7 pressure barrels full of beer and the worst that happened was I had to wait a few days for them to drop bright again.

Just be careful that the taps can't be knocked on during transit and you'll be fine.

[Cazamodo]

Ive just bottled a batch from a jerrycan it was carbing in. I had to put the beer in the jerrycan when my keg failed while sealing it, so for some reason I primed it and left it... Now a week later I realised it wouldnt hold too much pressure, and I cant dispense out of it easily, so I bottled it this morning. Not sure how it will come out, as I dont know if any of the priming sugar is left to ferment out, but time will tell. Worst off I will have flat beer!

As for the it not lasting as long, It was slightly carbed, and I capped on the foam for each bottle. So sureley there is minimal O2 in the bottles?

[Roberts7]

In the end I decided to bottle the beer. I cleaned up all the gear and bottles, gently removed the cap from the pressure barrel and then syphoned it all out into the bottles. There was a bit of fizz but I found that keeping the syphone tube submerged in the bottle minimised this. 28 bottles all capped and conditioning await me!! I primed with a 1/4tsp of brewer's sugar. Will let you all know how they turned out.

At the very worst it should make a few entertaining pictures for my nanobrewery project facebook page lol.

Thanks all for your comments.