So I bottled up a serious Imperial Stout (14.5%) about 6 months ago, and upon opening one last night it was flat as a board. Tasted great, but a little carbonation would go a long way in helping it out. At the time I didn't have kegging equipment, but I do now. I want to empty the bottles into a keg, carb the beer, and re-bottle. Are there any best practices for making this happen?
Bottles to keg
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I wouldn't do it, personally. I would suggest popping each cap and squirting a bit of fresh yeast in there, preferably one that is ok with higher alcohol levels.
It would be hard to keg from the bottle without risking severely oxygenating the beer now. And since it's an imperial stout, it *might* take a while to drink it all, meaning there is a good chance that oxygenation would be noticeable before too long.
If the beer was flat and sweet, it means the yeast either died, or there wasn't enough of them to give carbonate the beer. Or possible that they were stored at a temperature too high or too low for fermenting.
If it was not sweet, then you either didn't get good mixing when bottling, or the beer fermented in the bottle but the CO2 leaked out.
If you are set on kegging, then I would carefully pour the beer in a bucket to limit the splashing, and then siphon gently into the keg. I'm afraid that trying to pour each bottle into the keg would cause a LOT of splashing.
It would be hard to keg from the bottle without risking severely oxygenating the beer now. And since it's an imperial stout, it *might* take a while to drink it all, meaning there is a good chance that oxygenation would be noticeable before too long.
If the beer was flat and sweet, it means the yeast either died, or there wasn't enough of them to give carbonate the beer. Or possible that they were stored at a temperature too high or too low for fermenting.
If it was not sweet, then you either didn't get good mixing when bottling, or the beer fermented in the bottle but the CO2 leaked out.
If you are set on kegging, then I would carefully pour the beer in a bucket to limit the splashing, and then siphon gently into the keg. I'm afraid that trying to pour each bottle into the keg would cause a LOT of splashing.
I like the idea of carefully and slowly pouring each bottle into a bottling bucket and siphon that into the keg. From there, carb and drink. If you want to bottle, bottle with it already carbed from the keg and recap. I wouldn't try and screw with adding yeast/sugar, potential oxygenating or infection by transferring. Just use KISS, Keep It Stupid Simple.
Yeah, but how simpler can it be then: pop cap, squirt yeast, recap??
Carbing from the keg would be the worst way to prevent infection/oxygenation...
Carbing from the keg would be the worst way to prevent infection/oxygenation...
People bottle from the keg all the time....so not sure I follow you on that one.
To each their own I guess. I'm lazy, so therefore pouring gently into a bucket and siphoning into a keg would be easier than opening all the bottles, getting the right amount of yeast in there...then what if there isn't enough sugar to carb? To me, that's too much work if you have a kegging system. But again, do whatever works for you and your system. Just be careful doing whatever you choose to do to avoid infection and oxygenation.
To each their own I guess. I'm lazy, so therefore pouring gently into a bucket and siphoning into a keg would be easier than opening all the bottles, getting the right amount of yeast in there...then what if there isn't enough sugar to carb? To me, that's too much work if you have a kegging system. But again, do whatever works for you and your system. Just be careful doing whatever you choose to do to avoid infection and oxygenation.
If there is still sugar from the previous priming, then when he kegs it it will still be in there and the beer will be too sweet.
Uncapping, squirting yeast and recapping avoids pouring from bottles into keg and exposing the beer to O2. That's all there is to follow. It's not like you have to measure your yeast additions. Just squirt some in there.
I'd prefer to handle the beer as little as possible, no matter what.
Uncapping, squirting yeast and recapping avoids pouring from bottles into keg and exposing the beer to O2. That's all there is to follow. It's not like you have to measure your yeast additions. Just squirt some in there.
I'd prefer to handle the beer as little as possible, no matter what.
Good idea. To follow up on this and give some better context, this beer finished dry, about 1.010, and when I bottled I added half a vial of champagne yeast along with the priming sugar. I've been patient with it, but after 6 months and literally no carbonation (not even a nice little 'psst' when removing the cap), I may try to force carb and re-bottle. I'll probably hang on to a 6-er of the original bottles to see if it ever carbs. If nothing else lessons like these (along with bottle bombs) make me happy I'm now kegging (can thanks SWMBO for that :rockin
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If you've already added fresh yeast, then there is nothing to do for it, although why it hasn't carbed is still a mystery. 6 months is more than enough time for it to do it's thing.
If that priming sugar is still in the beer, then it will be sweet (not necessarily all that bad in an Imperial Stout if it's roasty enough...)
Good luck!
If that priming sugar is still in the beer, then it will be sweet (not necessarily all that bad in an Imperial Stout if it's roasty enough...)
Good luck!
You shouldn't have a problem getting it into the keg and force carbing if you're careful.
I under shot my priming sugar on a Scottish 80/-, and doing that on a beer that's only minimally carbed when done to style anyway, my beer was essentially flat. Like you, I got kegging equipment in the meantime and I saw some people on the boards said they'd successfully gone from bottle to keg, so I gave it a shot a few weeks ago. Now I've been enjoying perfectly carbed and tasty beer every night for the past week.
You can skip the bottling bucket if you're careful. I purged the keg with co2, tilted it slightly, and poured the beer. I've been pleasantly surprised with the results.
Oh, and another heads up. I think the pressure in the keg makes the beer shrink. It seems to be disappearing way faster than usual...
I under shot my priming sugar on a Scottish 80/-, and doing that on a beer that's only minimally carbed when done to style anyway, my beer was essentially flat. Like you, I got kegging equipment in the meantime and I saw some people on the boards said they'd successfully gone from bottle to keg, so I gave it a shot a few weeks ago. Now I've been enjoying perfectly carbed and tasty beer every night for the past week.
You can skip the bottling bucket if you're careful. I purged the keg with co2, tilted it slightly, and poured the beer. I've been pleasantly surprised with the results.
Oh, and another heads up. I think the pressure in the keg makes the beer shrink. It seems to be disappearing way faster than usual...
