Kegging question - bottling from kegs

[RustyBeer]

Hi Guys,

 

Need some help.... I want reduce bottle space. Thought I might use kegs to store beer and carbonate with gas and then tap off with pressure filler gun. I can store kegs at about 21 Deg.

 

I could possibly put the keg in the second fridge now and again but not always going to possible. mmmm third fridge - don't know yet :)

 

Can anyone see an issue with temp and co2, keeping carbed.. Once the beer is carbed can I disconnect it and leaving it pressurized until bottling, then setting to serving psi to bottle, as required . The plan is to tap off say 4 or 6 at time and put in fridge. I did see a doco about a brewery and saw them tapping off growlers for take aways, gave me the idea. But those are coming from the fridge. Just wondering about room temp, would you use a lot of C02?

 

Normal brew about 23 lt, I thought I might bottle 4 lt (bottle condition) and keg the rest...tap off into bottles when needed (keg carbed) and then put into fridge.

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Thanks

 

[Hairy]

You may need to counter pressure bottle fill if you want to keep them for a while.

 

If you aren't bottling a whole batch, why don't you just fill a glass from the keg when desired?

[Otto Von Blotto]

You will need a lot more CO2 to keep them carbonated at room temp than at chilled temps in the fridge.

 

If it was me I'd just get a third fridge and set up some taps and do it that way, then you don't have to faff about with bottles at all, except the surplus ones. You'll use less CO2 and have cold beer available all the time. Win win in my books. At the end of the day, if you're going to the trouble of kegging it and carbing it ... you may as well just serve them from the keg as well.

[Mark D Pirate]

What about the 5 litre mini kegs ?

I don't have the space for kegs either and for me they're great , saves on bottles and they fit in fridge easily .....biggest downside is buying the CO2 bulbs and they're plastic

 

 

P.S. congrats on hitting 6000 posts Otto

[Otto Von Blotto]

Ha, didn't even notice. Cheers mate!

[Hairy]

Sorry, I didn't realise you were talking about storing the kegs outside the fridge.

 

Just get a third fridge.

[RustyBeer]

Thanks Guys, re mini kegs bulbs

Could there be an adapter to use co2 tank or use co2 tank to fill bulbs, some sort of adapter?

Or refillable bulbs with co2 tank you can already buy ? I will check with my friend Google :)... so I always found something someone has already thought about :)

 

Thanks

[James Lao]

Resurrecting an old thread to hopefully get an answer to my questions.

Just got the KegKing series 4 last week, love it.

Want to bottle a few PET long necks on the weekend, and have looked on the net and the low tech way is to turn off gas and bleed pressure off the keg, then set gas in reg to 4psi.

Then connect flexible tubing from tap nozzle to bottom of bottle and fill.

 

Can I remove the gas in quick disconnects with the gas bottle on?

If I remove it with the gas bottle on, will I lose a shed load of gas?

 

I was thinking of only filling from one of the 2 kegs, so my idea was to shutoff the gas supply, remove the QD fittings on both kegs,then burp/ bleed the keg that I wish to fill from, set the reg to 4psi and fill.

Once the bottles are filled, I would re-connect the gas in fittings and return pressure to 12 psi.

All the Vids on YouTube I have seen have the gas manifold with valves to give the ability to do this easier, but I just have a 3 way tee piece for the gas in to the 2 kegs.

KegKing sell the Intertap growler adapters for the taps, will probably order a couple, but main concern is stuffing the gas up, damaging the QDs and losing gas etc..

Any advice welcome, as I want to take a draft stout or 2 to my Dads on Sunday.

Only been kegged for less than a week but I am surprised how good it is already.

 

Cheers

 

James

[Otto Von Blotto]

You can remove the disconnects with the gas on without losing gas, I do it all the time. They don't allow any gas (or liquid) through unless the little "pole" in the centre of them is pushed up.

 

There isn't much point in setting the regulator to any pressure if the gas disconnects aren't connected to the kegs because how is the gas pressure gonna get into the keg to push the beer out?

 

What you do is leave the disconnects in place, turn the gas bottle off, bleed the pressure from the kegs, drop the regulator to zero, turn the gas bottle back on then bring the pressure back up to 4PSI or whatever you use, and then pour the beer out into the bottles.

 

Another way would be to leave the disconnects in place, turn the gas off completely, leave the regulator alone, bleed the kegs, turn the gas on for about a second then off again, then pour. That method is a hell of a lot easier with a manifold though. I've used it in the past to be able to pour and drink over carbed kegs while de-gassing them at the same time.

 

 

[James Lao]

Thanks Otto.

 

I kind of thought that would be the idea with the QDs.

But would rather ask a stupid question than do some something stupid and regret not asking the question!

I was hoping to bleed / burp only one keg to save on gas.

But I suppose it will only be a little bit lost and it is the price to pay if I want to transport the beer.

Off to Bunnings to get some 13mm ID flexible tube to fit over outside ofthe tap spout today.

 

Cheers

 

James

[Beerlust]

Hi James.

 

If you like to take your own beer out with you from time to time you can avoid this hassle very easily in future. Simply brew a slightly larger batch size than your keg holds each time you brew, & then bottle a few directly from the fermenter from each batch after the keg is filled.

 

I usually bottle a couple of longnecks from each batch for this very reason.

 

Cheers,

 

Lusty.

[James Lao]

Thanks Lusty,

 

That's what I did this time, my first time kegging.

I made the normal 23 litre batch but the bottles weren't ready yet, and I was interested to see if I could transport the 'draft' beer in bottles.

I got some 13 mm ID vinyl tube (food grade), from Bunnings and shoved that onto the end of the keg tap and the tube was long enough to reach the bottom of the bottle (all starsanned etc).

Kegs gas was turned off, kegs were burped and reg set to 4-5 psi, gas turned back on obviously

Filled the PET bottle slowly and capped as per normal.

The bottle didn't feel pressurised like when a bottle conditioned beer is ready, but a couple of hours later it poured fine.

Little bit of messing around, and tiny bit of spillage, but good to know I can have draft beer for the road if I need it!

 

Cheers

 

James

 

[Otto Von Blotto]

I've done the bottling excess thing too but usually I bottle them first and then keg the main portion second. I still bulk prime even for the 5 litres or so excess, so I take that first which also clears the tap of gunk, so the keg gets 'cleaner' beer, and the gunk tends to settle in the bulk priming vessel while I fill the keg so it doesn't end up in the bottles either.

 

That said, I rarely bottle anything anymore because I have a 10L keg for putting surplus into. Eventually I plan to make a "kegski" from an esky tall enough to fit the little keg in, with one tap on it so I can take that to parties and when the keg runs out the esky can be used for bottled drinks. The keg will have to be carbonated via the main cylinder but I can probably use bulbs or something to dispense it in that instance. Normally I just whack it in the kegerator when one of the big ones runs out.