Thinking about bottling some Belgian Golden Ale I currently have in the keg fully carbed to compare with future brewings of the same recipe. I've done it before to just take to a party and it gets consumed within a few hours, but if I intend to keep it in the bottle for longer (few weeks to months) should I add some priming sugar to keep the carbonation level up? If you think so, then the real question is: how much per bottle?
Definitely don't add sugar! Purge bottles with CO2, then cap on foam. How long it will keep will depend on the style of beer. Have you ever gone to a craft brewery and had, or seen a growler being filled? Any time I have they usually suggest that you consume it within a couple of weeks.
If its kegged and charged you don't need more sugar! If you are storing it for a while, use a counter pressure filler
You need to overcarbonate the beer slightly. Then you can take the stem from a bottling wand (the hard plastic tube), stuff that into a picnic tap and fill your bottles. After overcarbonating, run the pressure down to about 5 PSI or lower, fill the bottles slowly using the picnic tap then, when you hit the proper fill level, pull the wand out of the beer and hit the beer with a bit more. It'll foam. Put your cap on the foam to keep oxygen to a minimum. I have the fancy Blichmann beer gun, the picnic tap wand is my go-to.
I use this and love it! takes 15 secs to setup and you dont have to be an engineer to figure it out. Tapcooler counterpressure filler
As @Nosybear notes, overcarbing beforehand is important. Boost the CO2 at least a couple of pounds over your normal holding pressure for a couple of days. It'll definitely want to foam up while filling so drop the pressure very low so that the beer just flows out. It may still foam a little so do the whole operation over a generous drip pan to catch the overflow.
it sounds like the objective here is to keep out as much air out to minimize any oxidation...capping on the foam...brilliant!
Any time I transferred to a growler I disconnected the gas, relieved all of the pressure and let the beer flow as it wished. My theory there was the the CO2 coming out of solution created some pressure. Good idea to increase pressure a couple days before the transfer as well.
ya i've tried special attachments, guns, taps, and these days I just poor right from my tap at low pressure into a bottle and cap on the foam. But I'm not sure how long it co2 will last. I Too am going to be setting aside a few beers for taste comparisons for about 4 months from my Keg so I guess I'll let you know in 4 months if they are still well carbonated lol
Carbonation is dependent in cap seal. I put my caps in hot StarSan, then cap while it is hot. The heat makes the sealant compliant, works better.
Thanks for all your suggestions!!!! I overcarbed for 1 day, dropped the pressure, filled my bottles, and then capped on the foam - as suggested by Craigerrr and Nosybear. Four days later the growler was still nicely carbed. I kept a couple of cap sealed bottles for later comparison so we'll see how those have faired with a longer time lapse. I like Donoroto's suggestion to sanitize the caps in a hot solution - I'll do that next time.
