I have a kolsch that I bottled about 3 months ago and it never fully carbed up, kind of flat tasting. Could I Dump these into a keg get the carbonation up or would this somehow spoil it or have negative affects?
Bottles to Keg
- Thread starter bellsbrat
- Start date
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I don't see any issue with this.
As always be sure to clean and sanitize everything very well, including a quick soak of the bottles in a bucket of StarSan as well as the bottle opener (keg, obviously), pour the bottles in and force carb.
If the issue is with there not being enough residual yeast in the bottles and after tasting one there is still the sweetness of the priming sugar, I would recommend adding a pinch or two of dry yeast to the keg and let it naturally carbonate.
Good luck!
As always be sure to clean and sanitize everything very well, including a quick soak of the bottles in a bucket of StarSan as well as the bottle opener (keg, obviously), pour the bottles in and force carb.
If the issue is with there not being enough residual yeast in the bottles and after tasting one there is still the sweetness of the priming sugar, I would recommend adding a pinch or two of dry yeast to the keg and let it naturally carbonate.
Good luck!
shuggy
Active Member
There's going to be more to it than just dumping bottles into a keg. You'll want to purge the keg of oxygen before filling it. Also, you'll want to be as careful as possible getting the beer into the keg. Minimize splashing or any kind of agitation to the beer and purge the headspace when it's filled. No matter how careful you are the beer is going to be exposed to oxygen to some degree so the oxidation clock will be ticking. Get it in the keg as fast and as neatly as possible, purge the headspace once filled, get it carbed, and plan on drinking it fairly quickly before you end up with a keg of wet cardboard.
JonK331
Well-Known Member
Wet cardboard is the flavor associated with oxydation. I don't think there's any way around oxydation if you try to do this. That said, you could try it and have a party to drink it up.
I don't think you would have too much of a problem with oxidation. I think the way I would do it is use a sanitized fermenting bucket as a giant beer glass and pour all the bottles into it (while holding the bucket at a 45 degree angle and pouring down the side of it to minimize any splashing/head build-up), and then rack to a sanitized keg.
