I have a Belgian golden strong ale ready for packaging that I would like to bottle for Xmas presents. It was fined with gelatin and it’s been cold conditioning for over a month and the clarity is absolutely brilliant and I want to keep it that way. I would like to carbonate it to ~3.5 volumes. Normally I would prime it and bottle condition it and be done, but I would like to keep it as polished as possible and I’m wondering if I can bottle it with a high degree of carbonation with the beergun. Has anyone used it this way with good success? Could I do it by simply adding a longer or smaller diameter liquid line to keep the foaming down?
If not, I’m wondering if I can force carb it to say, 3 volumes and then bottle with a bit of priming sugar to get it the rest of the way there. I recently had a Victory saison. It was highly carbed and the label said it was bottle conditioned, but upon inspection of the sediment, all I could find was crystal clear beer with 2 flocs of yeast rolling around the bottom of the bottle. I’m guessing this was accomplished with a partial force carbonation/bottle conditioning? I’ve bottle conditioned many beers and refined my process to where I had a very thin layer of sediment,but 2 flocs?
It’ll work fine. Before you Beergun it, chill the keg as close to freezing as you can, release the pressure from the keg, and then use about 2-3 psi to push the beer. It’ll help if the bottles are very cold also. The extreme cold will help keep the CO2 in solution.
Carbinate your keg to your desired level. Use your beer gun at 1.5-2 and you will be fine.
I’ve never used the beer gun above 3 volumes because I heard it foams and loses too much gas at higher carbonation levels. I guess those people just misused it. Excellent.
Still curious as to how a highly carbonated bottle conditioned beer could have such little sediment. It was almost like 2 individual colonies grown from two cells.
+1, I also keep my beer gun in the fridge. And, it helps if the keg is above the bottles. I don’t know why, but my own experience is my guide here.
Most breweries bottle with way too much yeast, at least according to a pro brewer from Quebec who bottle conditions. I talked to him about it a bit one night during Hop and Brew School in 2012, but I don’t know the details of how many cells you need to do the job (it was loud, he had a thick accent, there was a little beer involved). He said he presented the info at a conference, somewhere in Canada I think. That’s all I’ve got - I can’t even remember his name. But given time I’d like to do some testing and see how many cells/ml you actually need to get adequate carbonation.
This is interesting. I just tried bottling a cider i FCd at around 3 volumes. i lost alot of cider due to foaming over. I tried it at 8psi and tried it at next to nothing. Still got alot of blowoff till the last few bottles, it seemed to settle down. Getting ready to force a Gratzer at 3.5 volumes. what the heck?
hmmmm. I’ve never really had a problem like this with my beergun. is everything cold? When I first got mine a few years ago, that is what caused me problems.
Bottles, everything was cold. Like 35+F. I am using about 6’ of hose. How do you bottle 3+ volumes without getting a bunch of foam in the line? I MUST be doing something wrong.
Don’t those come with 10’ of low dia hose? that is one feature that helps it work.
You beat to the punch on this one. Yes, the Beer gun comes with 10’ 3/8 ID hose. The manual says “Always use a 10ft length of 3/16” ID hose to reduce the pressure of the beer as it flows to the filler”
Sorry if this is too obvious, but did you blow off the excess pressure when you set the gauge for bottling? Mine has a one-way valve, so I need to use the PRV to vent the headspace, the pressure in the keg won’t leak out through the gauge. It would explain why it settled down when you got to the bottom of the keg.
OK, Gotta go. I’m on my way to go get a 10’ piece of hose! Thanks.
+1 I was thinking the same thing