I have kegged a nut brown ale and it turned out awesome. I would like to put some of it in bottles to save it and ship to friends. Is that possible? Would I need to do anything to it before putting it in the bottle?
2 Answers
Use a beer gun, growler filler tube, or bottle filler attachment. Release keg pressure and reduce PSI to barley push the beer. 1-2 psi. Chill sanitized bottles, fill and cap.
Beer guns are nice because they have the option of purging the bottle of air with cO2.
answered Jun 6, 2017 at 14:29
-
-
@Two2one66 there is always some cO2 loss unless you have a counter pressure bottling system. Just do a slow fill and you won't have issues. Jun 6, 2017 at 21:33
-
Apparently there is not a lot of difference between using a tube on a cobra head tap and a counter pressure filler. Good thing I never bought a counter pressure filler! brulosophy.com/2017/06/05/… Jun 7, 2017 at 16:38
-
@SteveS. Indeed, the main advantage of counter pressure is bottling speed. If you take your time and do it right you will have minimal cO2 loss in bottling just using simple equipment. Jun 7, 2017 at 16:47
While a beer gun is not the only weapon of choice, counterpressure filling is definitely the way to go. Whatever you do, purge your bottles of CO2 first in order to keep as much oxygen out of the bottle once you cap it; oxygen will oxidize your beer over time (and more quickly if it gets shaken up during shipping) and produce "wet cardboard" aromas. Also keep in mind that even with proper purging you won't have any appreciable amounts of yeast left in the beer to act as an oxygen scavenger, so your shelf life will be limited.
During shipping your beer will be exposed to adverse conditions. Depending on the stability of the beer higher temperatures may shorten the shelf life, and depending on sterility higher temperatures may promote bacterial spoilage. So the advice would be to ship and drink fairly quickly.
answered Jun 8, 2017 at 10:36
-
If one bottles a "live" beer than contains yeast (if it wasn't cold filtered) then oxygen is not so much of a problem as it is used almost exclusively by the yeast and not to oxygenate the various beer compounds. Jun 8, 2017 at 12:18
-
Oxidation from head space has been fixed with O2 absorbing caps. Most commercial counter pressure fillers don't even purge the bottle first. They seal down and add cO2 making an air/cO2 blend equal to tank pressure, then vacate volume for volume as the beer enters the bottle. Jun 8, 2017 at 13:07