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Bottling from a pressure barrel

Z

zigga

Hi All,

I have a Coopers Pale Ale in my pressure barrel at the moment - looking good  ;D, clearing nicely and tasting great (good carbonation), but I am wondering if I can move some of the beer into bottles from this point without destroying it.

Will I lose the carbonation?
Will it aerate too much and spoil the beer when transferring?

Thanks
 
If you fill the bottles with co2 before filling it and drop in a sugar tablet (cartabs?) or two you should be fine. If you can't fill with co2 first. Just fill the bottle from the bottom without splashing and fill the neck with foam. Add a tablet or two and cap right away. Maybe the (Coopers Carbonation Drops?) should go in first? Anyway, make sure you have foam in the neck to force out the air and cap immediately, Don't do ten bottles first to be efficient. The beer is precarbonated so it should not lose all the gas and should foam nicely.

I did this once and it worked. I placed third in a competition. One note though. I had to much pressure in the bottles because I went by the directions on the sugar drops and forgot I already had some co2. If I had the proper pressure I might have taken first?
 
Cheers for the advice.

What I forgot to mention is that I added 115g of dextrose to the 5 gallon mix before putting the fermented beer in the pressure barrel, so would it make a huge difference if I then dropped more sugar in the beer?

Would there be enough yeasties left to convert that or will I have too sweet a beer 'cos the sugar's just dissolved in the liquid?

Ta
 
zigga said:
Cheers for the advice.

What I forgot to mention is that I added 115g of dextrose to the 5 gallon mix before putting the fermented beer in the pressure barrel, so would it make a huge difference if I then dropped more sugar in the beer?

Would there be enough yeasties left to convert that or will I have too sweet a beer 'cos the sugar's just dissolved in the liquid?

Ta

I'm unfamiliar with your set up, but there are counter-pressure systems out there for bottling beer form the keg.  The important part is that the beer must be as cold as you can get it to maintain carbonation.  Check out this site, it might help you out.

http://www.blichmannengineering.com/beergun/beergun.html
 
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