Blichmann Beer Gun

General Homebrew Discussion
1

greetings!

i just got done with an extremely frustrating session with my newly purchased blichmann beer gun.  somehow, i’m getting air bubbles in the line right at where the beverage ball lock attaches to my keg.  i’m certain that all my connections are tight (hose clamps, etc.), i let all the pressure off the keg and am pushing the beer into the bottles with minimal pressure (~3 psi).

for the life of me, i can’t find out where the air is coming from.  any tips/ideas would be immensely appreciated.

thanks much!

2

you are under pressure (3psi), you CANNOT be getting air in.
Likely you are seeing CO2 degassing.

3

That or your lines are very warm, but that should stop pretty quickly when they cool down. Are you using the recommended 10’, small diameter line?

4

I agree. You are seeing CO2 outgassing from the keg/beer. This is normal and can be expected when operating the beer valve.

5

ya, i’m using the smaller diameter, 10’ line that the gun came with.

is it possible that my source kegged beer is overly carbonated?  i’m having trouble filling bottles without getting a ridiculous amount of foam.

6

Very Possible. Try tasting the beer. If it’s overcarbonated, warm up the keg while releasing the pressure every half hour until it reaches a desired carbonation level.

7

What temp is your beer and what PSI was it carbonated at?  I find the beer gun works best when I have conditioned the beer on the cold side and the PSI a little lower than I normally like to serve at.

8

Did you chill down the bottles to at least the temperature of the beer before filling?

9

i did pre-chill the bottles.  also, i’m not sure that would explain why air is being introduced at the keg.

from consulting a carbonation chart, my guess is that i’m carbonating my beers to an excessive level, which brings up another question: how do you achieve your (proper) desired carbonation level quickly?  my sense is that the crank-and-shake method would result in an excessive (and unpredictable) amount of carbonation.

10

Yeah it does.

I use to shake and bake my kegs into oblivion until I decided that was nonsense. Since I’m a busy guy and a hell of a procrastinator I need some way to get these done in a hurry.

So I set my regulator to the appropriate PSI for temp and desired carbonation (+1 psi), connect the gas and then rock it back and forth for ~10 minutes.

Works like a charm and not overcarbed.

11

The Beer Gun works, IMHO, best when the beer is cold (the colder the better) and delivered at a pressure that is just enough to move the beer.  You got the right idea with 3psi.
The first bottle, maybe 2 foam while the lines and gun are cooling, but after that no problem.  I also do not chill my bottles, but that would not hurt.

12

As bonjour said, air is not being introduced, CO2 is coming out of solution.

13

And you prevent this two ways:

  1. Keep as much of the line cold (in the fridge) as possible.
  2. Go fast, this involves a second person to do everything other than filling so you are basically filling constantly.
14

This is sound advice.  I’ve also found that by minimizing the time delay from bottle to bottle filling there will be less foaming. Also, the colder the beer the more soluble the CO2 will be in the beer which in turn will lead to less foaming.

15

I would add that “Go fast” should not inlcude the actual fill of individual bottles.  Filling slowly will minimize CO2 outgassing.

16

Yes, I should have been more clear. Time to fill a bottle is slow and time between bottles is minimized. With two people you can go immediately from bottle to bottle.

I’ll start at 2 PSI. Often this results in a “cap on beer” situation which I don’t like because it freaks out judges and is awkward to pour. I’ll turn it up until I get about have an inch of headspace, but capping on foam. Once I have that dialed in, I fill a bottle, hand to wife, fill a bottle etc. Maybe 2 seconds that the beer isn’t flowing. That keeps it from warming in the line and keeps you from losing c02 there. We have a good rhythm. She’ll have bottles in sanitizer, move them to the freezer, move the ones that have been in the freezer longest out to use etc. I think her job is much harder than mine. We will about once a month just bottle off a few partial kegs. So it ends up being 3-5 cases in around 90 minutes start to finish. Pretty efficient.