Force Carbonation in keg, straight into bottles?

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mrskittle

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I'm still pretty new to kegging, having only kegged 3 batches so far. I've figured out how to force carbonate and all is well on that front. And do I ever appreciate not dealing with bottling day!!!

So here's my issued today. I volunteered to bring some beer to a 4th of July celebration. At this moment about 3.5 gallons of a wheat beer are happily fermenting. It's due to be done on Thursday, and we are leaving on Friday morning for the festivities. My hope is to keg and force carbonate it Thursday morning and bottle it Friday morning.

I'm wondering if there's any issue bottling so quickly after putting beer into the keg. I'm worried that the bottled beer won't have the right carbonation. What you all think?
 
Taste it a head of time, 48 hours or so. The carbonation should slightly higher then you intend. The beer will foam and lose a little carbonation from bottling.

If you need a little more carbonation in a short period of time, crank to pressure to 20-25 and shake it a couple of minutes. Let it set for a couple of hours and test again. There is no harm in bottling a beer from a keg a little early as long as the carbonation level is good.
 
Yeast don't have a schedule. I'd make real sure fermentation is indeed done before packaging.
There's no harm in bottling off the keg right away, other than the carbonation may be a bit wonky in such a short period of time, but I've certainly pulled plenty off my kegs right away!:D
 
Not going to happen. First thing to know is that all gasses seek equilibrium. If you force carb it in one day, you'll have to set it at 30 psi at 40 degrees for 36 hours to get it carbed up. Oh, sure, you can shake it to hurry it along, but then you'll try to bottle a foamy mess.
To bottle it, you'll want to have it stable and carbonated which you really can't do in one day. When you try to bottle it after being held at 30 psi or whatever, and then reduce the pressure to put it in bottles, you'll get a foamy mess.
What you may be able to do is to use long tubing and get it into growlers but it'll still foam. It still make only fill half a growler, and then you can fill some more, etc, and lose a lot of carbonation but individual bottles won't work.
 
I'd bring the whole keg to the party and skip bottling all together! I took a square garbage bin, mounted a piece of wood across the front and put a tap right on it. Party ready!
20190718_182630.jpg
 
Blackmuse, how do you carbonate once at the party?
 
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Yooper clearly lays out exactly what I'm concerned about, a foamy mess!

Since I started brewing, the goal has been to have the next batch ready by the time the previous one is gone. I assume that's everybody's goal. So far I've not quite been able to hit that brew schedule every time. Hence I've taken to force carbonating to avoid having to buy more commercial beer. Inevitably, the carbonation level of the first few pints out of the keg are quite variable. As some folks have already mentioned, it takes a couple of days for the gas to permeate and settle into the beer.

The problem then becomes how to carbonate the keg at the party because I'm not willing to haul my CO2 equipment on the 175 mile road trip. It's starting to sound like someone at our destination needs to supply the CO2 tank.
 
mrskittle said:
Blackmuse, how do you carbonate once at the party?
Click to expand...
I force carbonate before and I actually bring a co2 tank with me. Fits right inside next to the keg on ice.
 
mrskittle said:
I'm not willing to haul my CO2 equipment on the 175 mile road trip. It's starting to sound like someone at our destination needs to supply the CO2 tank.
Click to expand...
That is within reason. They may even be able to rent one....
 
Yooper said:
Not going to happen. First thing to know is that all gasses seek equilibrium. If you force carb it in one day, you'll have to set it at 30 psi at 40 degrees for 36 hours to get it carbed up. Oh, sure, you can shake it to hurry it along, but then you'll try to bottle a foamy mess.
To bottle it, you'll want to have it stable and carbonated which you really can't do in one day. When you try to bottle it after being held at 30 psi or whatever, and then reduce the pressure to put it in bottles, you'll get a foamy mess.
What you may be able to do is to use long tubing and get it into growlers but it'll still foam. It still make only fill half a growler, and then you can fill some more, etc, and lose a lot of carbonation but individual bottles won't work.
Click to expand...
I think it can be done, in fact I have done it. You can force carb a beer by shaking it for 5 minutes at 25 PSI ( beer needs to cold 32-33F). let it set an hour at that temp to let it settle down, taste it and if it needs more bump the pressure up to 30 or whatever it needs. By the next day it can be bottled. I have done that with beers for competition and won gold, but it's best to have 36 hours to crash cool it, carb it and bottle it. In a pinch, it could be done in 24 hours.

I misread the post thinking mskettle had several days. If you want to do it, you will need to crash cool it in the keg Wednesday night for 12 hours (if it hit final gravity, it doesn't hurt to crash 12 hours earlier), then Thursday morning burst carbonate it. Taste it Thursday night and bottle it Friday morning, or if it's good Thursday night, bottle it then.
 
A bad idea normally, and I wouldn't normally suggest it, but....
if you have to serve the beer the next day after you keg it... with the caveat that the entire keg will be consumed within a day or two... you can burst carbonate (co2) it.. pressurize and shake and roll, etc.. and you can carry the keg to the party chilled and fully pressurized... 20+ psi... it'll absorb a lot during a long road trip from the shaking it'll get on the road.
once there and chilled, or kept on ice during the trip... you can bleed the pressure down to the normal serving pressure you would use for the length of tubing you will use. and use 'air' from a small air tank (or portable compressor) to act as the serving pressure source throughout the weekend festivities. the air that is being introduced will not affect the flavor as long as you kick the keg within a couple days.
I'll probably get my bum kicked for suggesting it, but.. there it is.
 
BrewPatgonia said:
A bad idea normally, and I wouldn't normally suggest it, but....
if you have to serve the beer the next day after you keg it... with the caveat that the entire keg will be consumed within a day or two... you can burst carbonate (co2) it.. pressurize and shake and roll, etc.. and you can carry the keg to the party chilled and fully pressurized... 20+ psi... it'll absorb a lot during a long road trip from the shaking it'll get on the road.
once there and chilled, or kept on ice during the trip... you can bleed the pressure down to the normal serving pressure you would use for the length of tubing you will use. and use 'air' from a small air tank (or portable compressor) to act as the serving pressure source throughout the weekend festivities. the air that is being introduced will not affect the flavor as long as you kick the keg within a couple days.
I'll probably get my bum kicked for suggesting it, but.. there it is.
Click to expand...

I agree. Back in the day I played a lot of what we called, "Beer League Baseball". The losing team bought a keg to be consumed after the game. We used an air pump to maintain serving pressure and sometimes didn't finish the keg that day. I can remember going to BBQs the next day where we'd finish the keg. It was almost always Bud, Miller or PBR (this was in the early 70s) and never showed ill effects from the oxygen exposure.

Not sure how an NEIPA would fare.
I don't drink them, so don't really care.

Just a bit poor poetry :D
 
Didn't some keg taps used to have pumps right on the top? I seem to remember pumping a few times as we drank from a keg.
 
west1m said:
Didn't some keg taps used to have pumps right on the top? I seem to remember pumping a few times as we drank from a keg.
Click to expand...

Most party taps have an air pump on the top.
 
Just make up a ball lock fitting (or whatever you use) bring along a bicycle tire pump.
 
Oh I never even thought about that but yeah you could make an adapter for that and just pump air in that way.
 
Thanks for all the ideas folks. One way or the other I'll be sharing my homeberw. For this week's festivities, we'll just be parking the camper at a friend's lake house so I can manage the little extra hassle of getting this beer served. For our true camping trips this summer I'm going to need to come up with a different, no-hassle plan. After a little browsing, I've discovered some nice little 3 gallon set-ups with a tap and the little CO2 charger that Yooper linked to. Great, there goes another $100. Every time I get something for brewing I say, "now I'm set and don't need to buy anything else". I said it after I got 2 kegs, then again after I got a 3 gallon carboy. I'm sure I'll say it again after I get a 3 gallon keg.

But you know what? Being the guy at the campground with a keg in the camper is worth it.
 
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