Re-bottling from pressure barrel

[richT]

Hello all,

First post here so I'd like to start by thanking everyone for the fantastic advice on these forums!

I have recently completed my first brew with the "Beginners Favourite" Woodforde's Wherry. It all went very well and tastes magic, so I'm happy.

Here's the question: I'm going to a family wedding some distance away and was hoping to take some of the beer up there for all to enjoy. The beer is currently in a keg where it is happily keeping up pressure despite being over half empty. Would I be able to transfer some into 2 litre PET bottles, seal them up and drive them across the country and still have them in a drinkable state? Would it be better to bottle now and give the beer time to re-pressurize in the bottles, or should I do it at the last minute (which will still be around 24 hours before drinky time)? Or should I not bother as I will end up with undrinkable slurry?

Cheers

Rich

[jonnyv]

The problem you have is that when you tap the beer from the barrel it will potentially lose carbonation going into the bottle. Ways to avoid this are:

1) Chill the keg as much as possible
2) Chill you beer lines as much as possible (i.e. freeze)
3) Chill your bottles as much as possible (i.e. freeze)
4) Finally - syphon the beer and avoid any splashing or unnecessary contact with oxygen.

Chilling everything will help to keep the CO2 in solution and not create massive amounts of head when you transfer. But you will still lose some carbonation.

IMO you have three options:

1. You bottle a few days before and hope there's enough yeast in suspension to carbonate a bit more in the bottle and eat up any oxygen (to prevent oxidation).

2. You bottle 24 hours before but you take the risk that if everything wasn't chilled enough your beer might be a bit flat.

3. Bottle now and add a tiny amount of sugar (1/4 teaspoon) and a few grains of fresh dried yeast to each bottle to aid carbonation (keep them in the warm to help carbonate a bit - the bottles will have sediment though).

Last point - sample before serving to your guests

Jonny

[ashbyp]

Graham Wheeler (home brewing author) recommends bottling from cask(keg in your case) after the beer has reached condition.

So you are in good shape, i think. Bottle now to allow the beer to gain conditon again before you need it.

[ashbyp]

don't think gw mentions the chilling to be honest. it seemed odd to me to bottle already conditioned beer, but i'm sure that was the advice.

[Waffty]

I usually bottle a batch of 12 bottles after my beer has had time to condition in my corny (& drink the rest via tap).

All I do with my glass bottles is wash them & pop on one of those reusable snap on bottle tops & pop them in the freeze for an hour.

I remove the cap, drop a blast of Co2 into the bottle, fill the bottle with a bottle filler (at low Co2 pressure) & top off with another blast of Co2 & a crown cap.

I've got a beer gun now which should help + I may well pop the beer line (3/16) into my flash cooler as well.

When I first tried this, I didn't cool the bottles (or the beer for that matter) & the beer lost pretty much all of it's Co2 during the process.

If you can live with the sediment, then conditioning in the bottles is still an excellent way of carbonising your beer.

Darren.

[richT]

Thanks for all the help but I've bottled it (pun very much intended). I don't have a hose to fit on my keg (siphoning hose doesn't fit the tap), I haven't yet adapted my fridge for keg size / weight so can't chill it, and worst of all if it all goes wrong I can't even drink it as I have to drive up there tonight!

If I filled the bottles from the tap it would lose all the CO2. If I opened the keg and siphoned from it I run the risk of spoiling the remainder.

I think next time after the primary I will siphon some into PET bottles for taking around and put the rest in the keg. I'll just have to accept that I have to drink the rest of this one myself

[stevezx7r]

If you have a funnel, you can stick your siphon hose onto the bottom of that, pop it into you PET bottle, open the tap on your keg and fill the bottle up. If your drinking within 24 hours it will be ok, just flat. You can "create" a head on your pint by shaking the bejesus out of the PET bottle and pour into a pint glass

If you have a Widget World system (gas gun) you get three caps which fit onto PET bottles so you can instantly carbonate them too

I use them and they're one of the most useful bits of gear I've ever bought.