Bottling Cider off of a Keg

[AndMan3030]

I recently fermented 15 Gallons of cider in 3 different corny kegs. My idea was to carb them up in the keg and use my beer gun to fill bottles. My thought was this would help me to avoid bottle bombs created by priming the cider with more juice concentrate or priming sugar.

My problem was the cider seemed to behave a bit differently that beer with the beer gun. Lots of foam runoff while bottling. not worried about losing a few pints while bottling, I just am wondering if others have had success carbing in the keg and bottling off of it.

What are your methods for bottling cider that have worked well??

I still have 2 full kegs of delicious cider to carb and bottle...

 

[hunter_le five]

How many volumes did you carb the cider at?

What pressure are you pushing the cider at?

Did you chill the bottles first?

 

[AndMan3030]

2.5 volumes
3-4 psi
bottles were NOT chilled

Thought about the bottles not being chilled right away. However, this has not been a problem when bottle filling beer.

 

[hunter_le five]

Chilling the bottles helps, in my experience.

Maybe try turning the pressure down lower if you can? Just barely enough to push the liquid.

Not sure why you are having this problem with cider but not beer, I've never noticed a difference all else being equal. 2.5 volumes is not a particularly high-carb cider, so THAT wouldn't make it different than beer. Weird...

 

[j1n]

ive bottled cider from the keg with the beer gun. it was no different than bottling beer from the keg. No foam issues.

 

[AndMan3030]

good to know there is success with this method. I'd like to use the gun and avoid priming and carbing in the bottle. I hear Cider's can be dicey when done that way. I will try again with my next two kegs..