bottling pre-carbonated beer

[pcrofts27]

Hi Everyone,
i read somewhere that you can bottle beer that has been carbonated in a keg by using a blichmann beer gun. Seems the main thing is cooling the keg and bottles down to 3 or 4 degrees C and the fact that the gun fills from the bottom of the bottle which keeps disturbance to a minimum. Well, I might be wrong, but does this mean you could do the same thing with a 'little bottler' bottling wand? Cooling the beer and bottles is no problem with a beer fridge (not actually got one yet, but it's on the wish list) so it's just the gun that makes the difference.
Has anyone tried this before?
I did a batch of lager for some friends which I thought was pretty good, but I doubt if they poured it properly, so they weren't impressed. I might do it again (Better Brew Czech Pilsner with a Saaz hop sachet) and keg it, then try this bottling method. Once it's carbonated in the keg I can try a few bottles to see if it works and if not, at least i've a keg full of nice lager to drink. I was just looking for a bit of advice before i start really.
cheers
paul

[gnutz2]

I've tried it and it works, mine was an ale so I only carbed the beer to about 8 psi at about 2-3c, rolled the keg around on the floor for about 20 mins (couldn't be botherd waiting) with the gas still connected then bottled as normal but with no priming sugar.

Some people will say you need the top of the bottle purged with co2 ( which is what the blichman gun does) but mine were fine, you'll most likely be capping on foam anyway.

[Nofolkandchance]

Ive done this with a tube attached to the tap on the keg tap but the beer temp needs to be down to zero degrees as turbulence in the tube starts it frothing. Ifs the beers around around 4-5% youll be fine and it wont freeze but itll keep the CO2 in solution and wont froth all over the place. Having said that, it really depends on how much CO2 is already disolved in your beer?

Ive got a Blichmann Beer Gun now and the principle is still the same. Only difference is the beers pressured to the end of the gun and you can purge with CO2

[Kev888]

I've got said beer gun and its convenient to use which helps quite a bit, but otherwise it doesn't do anything magic and I have had similar results with bottling sticks.

The key thing is to chill the beer right down - after carbonating (and without the gas connected) as cool beer retains the CO2 much better. In fact chill everything if you can, including the bottles. I squirt CO2 into the bottles before filling to prevent oxidising, then fill to the right level under low dispensing pressure and squirt a bit more CO2 into the headspace. The blichmann makes this easy but before that I'd just do it in batches - say squirt CO2 into six bottles, fill them all, purge all their headspaces and cap them all. The beer gun instructions also say to turn on the beer suddenly each time; I do but I can't really say that I've noticed a lot of difference from that.

But there are limits - if you have an over-carbonated beer then you still get mostly foam even with the beer gun, and I've not tried fizzy lagers. I believe a counterflow bottler is supposed to prevent foaming more by maintaining pressure in the bottle whilst you fill, but they are also quite costly and I couldn't find any on sale in this country when I looked.

Cheers
Kev

[Twistedfinger]

I've seen youtube videos of this being done.. do a search.