Can I bottle a bit and keg the rest?

[BeerBailey]

Hi all,

My first ever go at homebrew (the Woodforde's Wherry two-can kit) has had a week in my primary fermentation bin at 18-20deg C in my kitchen. It is less than 1017 SG when I checked a day ago, so I am thinking it is time to transfer it to the pressure barrel with some sugar for the secondary fermentation...

However, I have saved up 10 brown beer bottles (Hobgoblin, Badger First Gold etc...) which I would like to use to bottle some of the Wherry, just to see what that comes out like after some storage, and to learn about bottling and capping etc.

But, am I breaking some unwritten rule of homebrew? i.e. can I put 3/4 of the Wherry in the pressure barrel with some sugar, then put the remaining 1/4 into my 10 bottles with half a teaspoon of sugar per bottle? Or will this leave too much air in the pressure barrel!? In other words, should I bottle the whole lot, or keg it, but not a combination of both?

Any advice welcome, I know this is probably a dumb question, but at the moment homebrew seems more like alchemy than science to me!


Cheers,
Oli.

[Bobba]

Hey Oli,
Yeah that's no problem. In fact, you can make bottling easier this way, by adding all the priming sugar to the keg, transfer all of the beer from the fermenter to the keg, and from there, syphon the beer into as many bottles as required. That way, all of the beer receives exactly the same amount of priming sugar.
I would say however, that 1017 seems quite high still, and there's no harm in leaving it in the fermenter for 2 weeks to let is fully ferment out. At 1017 I'd be worried the beer would start fermenting again once in the keg and bottle, and with the extra priming sugar it could end up very fizzy. Alternatively, you could keg and bottle now, without adding any priming sugar at all - I've done this a lot and it always works out great, with less yeast at the bottom of the bottle.

[gti1x]

Quick answer is yes you can - it's what I do.

Slightly longer answer - you need to be a little careful with the barrel, as you don't want air in there if possible and you now have a large (over 1 gallon) airspace. Either give it a quick blast from a CO2 cylinder before sealing the barrel, or do as I did before I had a CO2 cylinder, and just vent the barrel every so often for the first 2-3 days of conditioning. The CO2 produced tends to stay at the bottom (if you don't disturb it), so what you are venting is mainly the air from the barrel leaving CO2.

Hope this helps

GTI

[BeerBailey]

GTI, Bobba,

Thanks for your replies. I have transferred the (hopefully soon to be drinkable) beer to my pressure barrel, and added white granulated sugar dissolved in some hot kettle water (I went for 13 teaspoonfulls for 36pints, bit cautious...) and the SG was 1011 or 1012 on my cheapo hydrometer. The SG has dropped quickly fom 1017 in a day or two!

So now the pressure barrel is in the airing cupboard till tomorrow. Forgot to buy the caps and capping tool, so will have to bottle in to my 10 beer bottles tomorrow, and add CO2 to the top of my barrel.

Cheers for the tips,
Oli.

[Bobba]

Good luck!