I went to bottle my saison from the keg last night, and was having a hell of a time getting my Blingmann beergun to pour without foaming up the neck of the bottle. Most of the bottles I filled would be considered “low pours.” Not ideal, to say the least. I’m sure others have run into this problem, and hopefully someone has a good solution – I’m thinking something in my process should be adjusted. Here’s some of the info from my procedure last night:
Saison carbbed @ 3.5 volumes
CO2 input to beergun @ 3psi
CO2 input to keg @ 3psi
6 ft. line b/w keg and beergun - the one that came w/ the gun (should it be longer?)
I did notice that a lot of co2 was coming out of solution in the line between the keg and the beergun, and I tried to fill the bottles quickly to limit the accumulation of foam in the line.
So, what are some of your strategies for bottling highly carbbed beer with the beer gun?
I think the line is longer than 6 ft on mine, more like 10 IIRC. Edit - it is 10 Ft.
Is the beer cold and are the bottles cold? It also helps to run beer through the beer gun to get it cold. I pour a pint through the beer gun to to cool it, then drink when done with the bottling.
+1 on cold bottles. Also make sure the bottles are very clean - any residue in the bottles will create nucleation sites for the CO2 to come out of solution. For super high carbonation beers I would consider using brand new bottles that have been rinsed and sanitized just before bottling.
Cold beer. Cold bottles. Yes to both. 10’ or more of line. Again, yes.
I’ve found that if I dial the serving pressure down to the lowest it can go helps reduce the amount of foaming. Also, if you can cap as soon as you’ve purged the headspace, you’ll be able to capture any gas coming out of solution.
Thanks for the feedback guys. I’m guessing the combination of line length and warm bottles did me in. After checking, my line was 10 feet (it was included with the gun or the accessory kit, I can’t remember). I’ll probably buy a longer line (15 ft. or so) to use with these highly carbbed beers.
Yup. It’s a simple matter of resistance. The 10’ of 3/16" ID hose is designed to absorb the pressure from the CO2 in solution, so that the beer coming out of the bottle is under fairly low pressure. For higher-than-normal carbonation more beer line (or beer line with higher resistance) is in order. One other tip not mentioned is that breakout inline is unavoidable; try to line your (cold and dry) bottles up and have an assistant to cap as you go. Keeping the beer flowing will greatly reduce the foam from breakout - worse the more line you use.
I haven’t tried it myself, but it would be awesome to see someone’s experience using less length of a higher resistance versus a long line.