Transferring beer between bottles

[King Ruddager]

I'm pretty sure this has been asked before but I couldn't find any threads on it and Google wasn't much help.

 

For reasons including "Christmas", "preciousness" and "presentation" I'd like to try transferring some of my beer from plastic PET bottles to swing-top glass bottles. Using my amazing powers of foresight, however, I can already see a couple of problems. Firstly, when transferring it there's going to be a lot of foaming (a LOT in some cases) to deal with. Following this, problem number two is that the beer will lose a lot of carbonation.

 

So ...

 

- Is there a way to transfer it with minimal foaming?

- Is it ok to re-prime to make up for lost carbonation (and how much)?

- Will there be any side effects? (obviously re-priming would increase the ABV accordingly)

[Hairy]

1. Foaming - make sure your beer and the empty bottles are as cold as you can get them.

 

2. Yes you can re-prime but who knows how much. Probably best just to leave it and have lower carbed beer.

 

3. Side effect - oxidation. But if you are drinking them fairly soon then it isn't a big deal.

 

Good luck with it.

[Biermoasta]

just throwing an idea out there, you might want to try wetting the inside of the bottles you're going to transfer to. As I've noticed that if I pour a beer into a wet glass I get no where near as much foam as in a dry glass. It might make the transfer a little easier [unsure]

[King Ruddager]

Ran a few experiments today - had the most success pouring warm beer straight into warm bottles.

[PhilboBaggins]

I salute you mate, and your determination. When I pour a beer for guests or myself it's done in the kitchen, so no one sees the bottle anyway, could this be an easier way to go? I could go on about how drinking from the bottle won't give your beer the same nose as if it's allowed to breathe in the glass, but that would be pretentious. (Insert innocent emoticon.)

[Nick]

Ran a few experiments today - had the most success pouring warm beer straight into warm bottles.

 

This make a bit of sense Ruddy, I always found that pouring cold beer into a chilled glass would make the head very large and frothy if it wasnt done carefully. I store my glasses in a cupboard now and find pouring the perfect beer is much easier if the glasses are at room temps

[King Ruddager]

Well in the end the re-bottled ones worked pretty well. Some of the beers seemed to foam a bit more out of the original bottle when opening them warm, however it was nothing compared to the difficulty I had trying to pour cold beer into cold bottles.