Kegging and Bottling

[DrDaz]

Hi all, my first brew is ready for kegging/bottling. What I've decided to do is to transfer it all into the keg and batch prime with a sugar solution, but I also want to bottle around half. My "grand plan" is to keep a few of each different of my brews in bottles so that I can have a choice of beers to drink and a healthy stock pile for when friends turn up.

I've been reading Graham Wheelers "Brew your own British beer" (a Christmas pressie from my dear missus, bless her), which suggests always putting brews into a keg prior to bottling.

I was thinking a week in the keg in the warm to carbonate and then two in the cold to start conditioning. After that I will bottle half of the brew and leave to condition. The rest I will then drink at my leisure.

I guess after emptying half of the keg I'll have to add some CO2 to re pressurize and keep the beer covered with a protective blanket.

Does this seem like a reasonable thing to do? Would you leave it longer before bottling?

[mickhew]

Seems a bit pointless to me, why does he recommend it ? If you keg a brew, then leave for a week, you will have a pressurised barrel. trying to get this into bottles will be difficult, as the bottles will probably half fill with head.
I like to keep things simple. Batch prime, then bottle immediately, 1 week in the warm, then somewhere cooler. Keeping it in the barrel for a week just makes the barrel unavailable. I've done countless kits this way, all turned out fine.
Also, don't tell your mates you homebrew! There's always mates that are happy to turn up, and drink free beer!

[DrDaz]

From memory (don't have the book with me ATM), he was saying that the priming is a volatile process and could create "bottle bombs".

[BazC]

I've just read the relevant section and it seems an odd way to bottle. Basically he's suggesting you keg (no priming sugar presumably) and allow the beer to mature so that it's fully conditioned and dropped clear. Then you loosen the cap to release the pressure and leave it for a day or so to go flat. Then you bottle it and leave it to condition and mature all over again. The thinking seems to be that you avoid bottling a brew that hasn't finished fermenting and thus avoid over pressurising the bottles which can be avoided by careful use of the hydrometer anyway and it adds weeks the conditioning/maturing process. I can't imagine many people going to all that time and trouble.

If Graham still drops by here I'd love to hear his thoughts on this!

[DrDaz]

Hi Baz, when I read it a couple of days ago I thought it was added to the barrel along with a priming solution and releasing the pressure before bottling was to avoid the beer foaming up in the bottles. I thought he meant open the top to release the pressure and then close it again so that the gas that's already in the beer wouldn't dissipate.

I may have got this all wrong as I'm just starting out on my home brew journey.

[BazC]

It's certainly open to interpretation! I think if you primed the barrels though you'd potentially have more problems. Firstly the fizzy beer would certainly froth up as you bottle it causing problems plus the priming sugar could be used up so the bottles never get properly pressurised. I can't be sure though!

[Monkeybrew]

This is what works for me...........

If I am going to bottle and keg a brew, I syphon all of the brew into my bottling FV that is fitted with a little bottler tap/stick and batch prime the lot.

I then bottle 'X' amount of bottles and then syphon the remainder of the brew into my keg.

Job done

[DrDaz]

Thanks for the advice guys. Think I'll follow you method Monkeybrew.

[duffymoon]

I've followed Graham's method several times & it does produce really clear beer with hardly any sediment. I prime with 50g dissolved sugar in the keg, give it a couple of weeks to mature then add the same amount of dissolved sugar again just before bottling. Sometimes for time reasons I just bottle straight away & there is definitely a difference. Whataver works for you!

[DrDaz]

Does the beer left in the barrel after bottling keep okay. I guess it's still maturing at this stage, does it last for a few weeks to fully mature with all the empty space above it or do you add CO2 to help preserve it

Also when you add your second batch of sugar how do you mix this in without disturbing the sediment on the bottom of the barrel?

[ajclarkson]

I'm struggling to see how this would produce clearer beer than racking to a secondary without priming for a few weeks to batch mature and clear, then rack to bottling bucket with priming sugar and going to bottles / kegs from there?

This interests me though:

I've followed Graham's method several times & it does produce really clear beer with hardly any sediment. I prime with 50g dissolved sugar in the keg, give it a couple of weeks to mature then add the same amount of dissolved sugar again just before bottling. Sometimes for time reasons I just bottle straight away & there is definitely a difference. Whataver works for you!

I assume you add the second amount of sugar to the keg, and bottle from there? That means you almost do a two stage carbonation if I'm understanding it right? I can see why it would clear more (same reasons as doing a secondary / leaving in primary for longer depending on your persuasion) and I'm now wondering whether there would be any benefit to adding half of the priming sugar to a secondary...

[duffymoon]

I do add a squirt of CO2 when it first goes in the barrel, then after it settles on top of the beer I vent the keg. Yes this is a 2 stage carbonation I suppose, but I actually leave the top off the keg overnight before adding the second lot of priming sugar to the keg & bottling direct from the keg - otherwise it's foam city. maybe i'm just over-complicating things but certainly a good deal of sediment settles on the bottom of the keg which i guess would have otherwise turned up in bottles.