beer gun

[greatplainsbrewer]

Trying (and failing) to bottle a Grodziskie today using a Blichmann beer gun.  I bottled a few bottle of witbier (same freezer/bottles) first-no problem.  CO2 regulator is new. Beer is at 34F and 3.5 volumes of CO2.  Bottles have been in a 34F freezer for 3 days.  10 ft of the small diameter (1/8") line.  Vented keg.  Poured 3 qts of foam.

Any thoughts?  Off to bottle Oktoberfest now.

[goschman (Iliff Ave)]

@greatplainsbrewer

Trying (and failing) to bottle a Grodziskie today using a Blichmann beer gun.  I bottled a few bottle of witbier (same freezer/bottles) first-no problem.  CO2 regulator is new. Beer is at 34F and 3.5 volumes of CO2.  Bottles have been in a 34F freezer for 3 days.  10 ft of the small diameter (1/8") line.  Vented keg.  Poured 3 qts of foam.

Any thoughts?  Off to bottle Oktoberfest now.

Ugh. I usually end up undercarbing my beers with the gun leaving a lot more foam than I see on videos. I would love to help but considering I have my own problems…

3.5 volumes is obviously a lot of carb. What PSI are you keeping the regulator at when filling? I think the recommendation is under 5. Maybe keep venting and bring down your regulator?

[jonhughey_att.net (HoosierBrew)]

I’ve never tried to beer gun a 3.5 volume beer. Seems like the foam would be excessive regardless. But getting the beer and bottles cold helps - not sure if it would help enough.  And FWIW, I never fill with more than 3-4 psi, to keep foaming down.

[greatplainsbrewer]

Started the pressure at 4psi.  Backed it down to nothing, vented, and increased it slowly until i could just barely get CO2 through the beergun.  Tried from there all the way to 10 psi.  Supposedly it should bottle at this pressure.  Wonder if I need a really long beer hose for this.

[skatz (Stevie)]

At that amount of co2, I’d for sure think more line is needed.

[blair.streit]

I can’t say I’ve done 3.5 volumes before, but I’ve bottled plenty of beers using my beer gun with such minimal foaming that I often “finish” the bottle with a blast of CO2 to create some foam for capping.

Cold, speed and gravity are your friends here. You mentioned chilling the bottles, but to maximize impact I’d recommend getting the beer, the line, the gun and the bottles to 34F. Also chill a pint glass and run some off into the glass for yourself. This helps equilibrate everything (including you)

Once things are cold and flowing, pay attention to keeping things cold and flowing. If you set the gun down for a few minutes to get more bottles or caps, the beer in the line will warm up. Pumping beer that’s warmed in the line into a colder bottle will produce foam. Pumping cold beer into a warm bottle will produce foam. Yes, there are a lot of ways to screw this up.

Also, pay attention to the impact of gravity. Blichmann mentioned this on an old episode of Brew Strong. Just like draft serving setups, you can drop pressure either by adding more line or by adding a vertical rise. I tend to bottle on a desk with the keg sitting on the floor, so that vertical rise is probably helping me out there.

Hope this helps!

[greatplainsbrewer]

@blair.streit

I can’t say I’ve done 3.5 volumes before, but I’ve bottled plenty of beers using my beer gun with such minimal foaming that I often “finish” the bottle with a blast of CO2 to create some foam for capping.

Cold, speed and gravity are your friends here. You mentioned chilling the bottles, but to maximize impact I’d recommend getting the beer, the line, the gun and the bottles to 34F. Also chill a pint glass and run some off into the glass for yourself. This helps equilibrate everything (including you)

Once things are cold and flowing, pay attention to keeping things cold and flowing. If you set the gun down for a few minutes to get more bottles or caps, the beer in the line will warm up. Pumping beer that’s warmed in the line into a colder bottle will produce foam. Pumping cold beer into a warm bottle will produce foam. Yes, there are a lot of ways to screw this up.

Also, pay attention to the impact of gravity. Blichmann mentioned this on an old episode of Brew Strong. Just like draft serving setups, you can drop pressure either by adding more line or by adding a vertical rise. I tend to bottle on a desk with the keg sitting on the floor, so that vertical rise is probably helping me out there.

Hope this helps!
Gravity helped.  Bottling at the ceiling got the job done.  It’s a low fill but it’s still a fill.  Thanks

[brewinhard]

I have bottled a lot of brews that were fairly highly carbed, like in the 3-4 vol range with the beer gun (gueuze, saison, hefeweizen, berliner weisse, just to name a few). The bottles do foam like crazy and it takes 2-3 x as long to get a proper fill in a single bottle with lots of loss of beer and foam. It can be done, but is a pain in the ass.
Longer line would probably help, but I do it with my 10ft line only.

[jeffjm]

@brewinhard

I have bottled a lot of brews that were fairly highly carbed, like in the 3-4 vol range with the beer gun (gueuze, saison, hefeweizen, berliner weisse, just to name a few). The bottles do foam like crazy and it takes 2-3 x as long to get a proper fill in a single bottle with lots of loss of beer and foam. It can be done, but is a pain in the ass.
Longer line would probably help, but I do it with my 10ft line only.

This is why I bottle condition such styles. That, and I don’t want to fiddle with balancing my draft system for a few outliers.

[jonhughey_att.net (HoosierBrew)]

@jeffjm

This is why I bottle condition such styles. That, and I don’t want to fiddle with balancing my draft system for a few outliers.

Yep, exactly.

[raventor]

Have one of these…never worked right…gave ups using it, wish i have never bought it…best of luck in figuring it out, and if you do, please let the world know!