How to bottle soda from a keg?

[DrakeDredgewater]

Hi guys,

I am trying to make sparkling water at 45-60 psi with a keg. However, I am running into difficulties with the bottling part; the water comes out of my picnic tap in burst which causes the carbonation to drop significantly and the water to come out too flat. Does anyone have an idea how to get the carbonated water from a keg into a bottle in a simple way without the water losing its carbonation?

I have used about 75 feet of line with a diameter of 4mm (a bit smaller than 3/16") and the water temperature was about 3 degrees Celsius (38&#8457. I would think the line is more than long enough and the water temperature should be okay too, but any suggestions are more than welcome.

Thank you guys in advance!

Drake

 

[Yooper]

That's a tough one. I can't imagine how to do it without losing carbonation, if you tried that much line and it didn't work.

You could make sure the bottles are super cold (keep them in the freezer first), and then have a helper to cap them immediately.

 

[IslandLizard]

With 75' of 4mm line there may be issues we've never seen before. Lots of resistance for 75' then suddenly a wide open tap...

There must be some info somewhere on bottling and canning soda, the way they do it at soda plants. From what I understand, the (sugary) flavored syrup is added separately from the near freezing carbonated water [Edit].

On a side note, my 2% Oat Mild (Ale) is behaving like soda. Impossible to get any form of carbonation under 40 psi.

 

[NeoBrew]

It might help to describe your process a little bit.

Are you using low pressure to push the water out when you bottle? You could try setting your regulator to 5 psi, purging your keg, then bottling. With this you would not want 75' of line. Too much resistance.

That long line might be an issue. As the water warms it is going to be able to hold less co2. So if the line is warmer than the water, by the time it gets to the tap it is going to foam. When I use my beer gun I set all the excess line in the keezer to keep it cool. Are you using a wand in the tap or just letting it run in the bottle? A wand might help the flow be more stable and loose less carbonation.

Depending on how much water you want to make. You might also try carbonation caps. You can get caps that fit on PET bottles and have a gas disconnect on them. Check Amazon. I got a pair of stainless ones for pretty cheap.

 

[ba-brewer]

If you have not tried this yet, it might give OK results if you take your time.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=24678

 

[DrakeDredgewater]

That's a tough one. I can't imagine how to do it without losing carbonation, if you tried that much line and it didn't work.

You could make sure the bottles are super cold (keep them in the freezer first), and then have a helper to cap them immediately.

Hi Yooper,

Ur right, I don't expect to lose any carbonation at all, however I am losing too much I feel. I tried a very long line (cooled the line too) and it didnt work.

A good suggestion about keeping the bottles cold and having a helper; ill keep that in mind and will apply that once I understand how to actually bottle the carbonated water.

Thanks for your thoughts so far, appreciate it!

 

[DrakeDredgewater]

With 75' of 4mm line there may be issues we've never seen before. Lots of resistance for 75' then suddenly a wide open tap...

There must be some info somewhere on bottling and canning soda, the way they do it at soda plants. From what I understand, the (sugary) flavored syrup is added separately from the near freezing carbonated water [Edit].

On a side note, my 2% Oat Mild (Ale) is behaving like soda. Impossible to get any form of carbonation under 40 psi.

I also think its strange; I would have expected that the line and cold temperature would have made bottling easier. Don't quite understand what I am doing wrong....

As for the bottling at soda plants; I found it difficult to find any useful information on that on the internet. Soda plants have really expensive machinery for bottling which makes it hardly insightful for a hobby brewer like me since I dont have the resources to do smth similar. Perhaps you know of a video or site that could be helpful though?

And wow; interesting that Ale also needs more psi for carbonation; didnt know that.

 

[DrakeDredgewater]

It might help to describe your process a little bit.

Are you using low pressure to push the water out when you bottle? You could try setting your regulator to 5 psi, purging your keg, then bottling. With this you would not want 75' of line. Too much resistance.

That long line might be an issue. As the water warms it is going to be able to hold less co2. So if the line is warmer than the water, by the time it gets to the tap it is going to foam. When I use my beer gun I set all the excess line in the keezer to keep it cool. Are you using a wand in the tap or just letting it run in the bottle? A wand might help the flow be more stable and loose less carbonation.

Depending on how much water you want to make. You might also try carbonation caps. You can get caps that fit on PET bottles and have a gas disconnect on them. Check Amazon. I got a pair of stainless ones for pretty cheap.

Hi NeoBrew,

Havent actually considered lowering the pressure and purging the keg; could be interesting! However, I am worried that employing low pressure and bleeding the keg, by definition will cause the carbonation of the water in the keg to drop. Is this a wrong assumption?
Thats why I use high pressure to push the water out; I reasoned that since i carbonate at around 45psi, I also have to set my regulator at 45psi to push the water out.

You are right on the cold lines; I keep my line also in the fridge so that it has the same temperature as the keg with carbonated water exactly to prevent the carbonation to drop as much as possible.

I actually just use a regular picnic tap; I like your suggestion to try a wand am going to try that, maybe it will help.

The carbonation caps are a good option ( I actually have several), however I would like to move away from plastic bottles so thats why I switched to kegs.

Thanks so far for your help, appreciate it a lot!

 

[DrakeDredgewater]

If you have not tried this yet, it might give OK results if you take your time.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=24678

Hi!

Thanks for the thread suggestion. I have read this a while ago and wonder if this would be helpful for soda though. However I could definitely try it.

 

[NeoBrew]

Hi NeoBrew,

Havent actually considered lowering the pressure and purging the keg; could be interesting! However, I am worried that employing low pressure and bleeding the keg, by definition will cause the carbonation of the water in the keg to drop. Is this a wrong assumption?
Thats why I use high pressure to push the water out; I reasoned that since i carbonate at around 45psi, I also have to set my regulator at 45psi to push the water out.

Lowering the pressure will help a lot. The carbonation doesn't just come bubbling out instantly when you lower the pressure. Just like when you pour a soda into a glass, the bubbles come out over time. It takes a half hour or so for a glass of soda to become totally flat.

One of the key things is to disturb the keg as little as possible. Like shaking a pop, it will cause the co2 to bubble out more. The carbonation will last for a while during the time that you are bottling.

You DO need to keep the pressure at 45 for long term storage however. When you lower the pressure down, there is SOME co2 being lost from your water, but it's just not enough to de-carbonate right away. If you left it that way for a few days, you would certainly start going flat. Especially if you were serving out of the keg and taking pressure off.

 

[IslandLizard]

Just thought of something. Is it possible for the line to be too long (or too narrow for the length), causing the problems you're experiencing? Foaming is controlled through adequate back pressure. Maybe there's no pressure left after so many feet.

At beer serving temps 1 ft of 3/16" per psi seems to work fine, 20-30% longer gives a little extra resistance some of us like.

Is it possible the line stratifies inside your keezer/kegerator?

Have you tried using a different tap, or a beer tap? Picnic taps may not be ideal, possibly causing nucleation? Grasping at straws obviously.

 

[ba-brewer]

Hi!

Thanks for the thread suggestion. I have read this a while ago and wonder if this would be helpful for soda though. However I could definitely try it.

The stopper hold pressure in the bottle which helps to control foaming. When you first start filling there is some foam but it stops when pressure builds up in the bottle. If you wait a little bit and allow the foam to fall back some there is less foam if you fill slowly after that. Some people purge and lower the pressure in the keg for doing the transfer to help keeping carbonation in solution.

 

[DrakeDredgewater]

Lowering the pressure will help a lot. The carbonation doesn't just come bubbling out instantly when you lower the pressure. Just like when you pour a soda into a glass, the bubbles come out over time. It takes a half hour or so for a glass of soda to become totally flat.

One of the key things is to disturb the keg as little as possible. Like shaking a pop, it will cause the co2 to bubble out more. The carbonation will last for a while during the time that you are bottling.

You DO need to keep the pressure at 45 for long term storage however. When you lower the pressure down, there is SOME co2 being lost from your water, but it's just not enough to de-carbonate right away. If you left it that way for a few days, you would certainly start going flat. Especially if you were serving out of the keg and taking pressure off.

Hi NeoBrew,

This is really helpful! I am going to employ this technique. I am really curious if this will do the trick; I have searched so much for finding a solution and this could finally be it. Thank you and all the others for their help so far; will let u know how it went

 

[DrakeDredgewater]

Just thought of something. Is it possible for the line to be too long (or too narrow for the length), causing the problems you're experiencing? Foaming is controlled through adequate back pressure. Maybe there's no pressure left after so many feet.

At beer serving temps 1 ft of 3/16" per psi seems to work fine, 20-30% longer gives a little extra resistance some of us like.

Is it possible the line stratifies inside your keezer/kegerator?

Have you tried using a different tap, or a beer tap? Picnic taps may not be ideal, possibly causing nucleation? Grasping at straws obviously.

Hi IslandLizard,

I really appreciate your help and that you are trying to think with me. The strange thing is, that even with such a long line, the water comes out too fast. So if anything, I would think that the line would need to be even longer; shorter would cause water to come out with even more pressure. However, NeoBrew suggested bleeding the keg and then putting the keg under low pressure; I am going to try that. If that doesnt work, I might have to look into a different tap as you suggested or other options.

Again, appreciate your help!

 

[DrakeDredgewater]

The stopper hold pressure in the bottle which helps to control foaming. When you first start filling there is some foam but it stops when pressure builds up in the bottle. If you wait a little bit and allow the foam to fall back some there is less foam if you fill slowly after that. Some people purge and lower the pressure in the keg for doing the transfer to help keeping carbonation in solution.

Hi Ba-brewer,

Thanks! I actually went to my supply store yesterday and got a stopper in reaction to your suggestion to try this method. Am gonna combine this method with lowering the pressure and purging the keg (in line with NeoBrew's suggestion) and see how it works and will definitely let you guys know!

 

[DrakeDredgewater]

Hi NeoBrew,

This is really helpful! I am going to employ this technique. I am really curious if this will do the trick; I have searched so much for finding a solution and this could finally be it. Thank you and all the others for their help so far; will let u know how it went

Hi NeoBrew, Yooper, IslandWizard, Ba-Brewer and of course all others,

I promised to get back on how the process of bottling from the keg went. Today was the big day. I tried to take into account all the suggestions in the thread and I let the carbonated water settle in the keg for a week at 45psi (in the fridge). Right before bottling I set my regulator to 5psi and purged the keg. Then I attached a very short line (about 3 to 5 feet) to a picnic tap and let the water come out using a wand in combination with the stopper.

Even though the water is definitely better carbonated than before, its not close to the carbonation level I would expect with the pressure in the keg. The water comes out too fast in the bottle which causes the carbonation to drop I think. I felt I followed the instructions as close as possible, does anyone have an idea on what I seem to have missed?

Thanks alot for your help guys so far.

 

[ba-brewer]

If you are only using the keg for short term carbonation and plan to move to bottles maybe one of these?
https://www.amazon.com/FizzBlaster-Carbonation-Adapter-Carbonator-Carbonated/dp/B016WOJ7C4/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1502141973&sr=8-11&keywords=carbonation+cap

You can force carb a 2litre of cold water pretty fast by shaking

 

[DrakeDredgewater]

If you are only using the keg for short term carbonation and plan to move to bottles maybe one of these?
https://www.amazon.com/FizzBlaster-Carbonation-Adapter-Carbonator-Carbonated/dp/B016WOJ7C4/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1502141973&sr=8-11&keywords=carbonation+cap

You can force carb a 2litre of cold water pretty fast by shaking

I have several carbonation caps, however I want to move away from plastic so therefore this would not be a real solution for me; you need to attach the carbonation cap to a PET bottle.

 

[ba-brewer]

OK I get you. I am trying to remove as much plastic from by brew process as practical.

maybe try a length of hose between your old and new length with the lower pressure and a purge.

For beer I stopped lowering the pressure on transfers as I was getting extra foam, so just use the serving pressure.

 

[ericbw]

Lower the pressure even more. 2psi. Longer lines.

It's tricky. Water doesn't want to hold carbonation well.

 

[DrakeDredgewater]

OK I get you. I am trying to remove as much plastic from by brew process as practical.

maybe try a length of hose between your old and new length with the lower pressure and a purge.

For beer I stopped lowering the pressure on transfers as I was getting extra foam, so just use the serving pressure.

I could defintely try a longer hose. Will do that. Kind of amazes me that this bottling part seems to be so hard though....

 

[DrakeDredgewater]

Lower the pressure even more. 2psi. Longer lines.

It's tricky. Water doesn't want to hold carbonation well.

Thanks; am going to try to use a longer line; however the first time i used a long line, there were a lot of 'open areas' in the line that seemed to be filled with co2; I noticed that i could not get the water to stay relatively constant in the line (i.e. prevent pockets of co2 from developing). The consequence was that by the time the water reached the picnic tap, the CO2 was escaping very fastly before i could even bottle..... dont know how to solve this problem.

 

[jacoblees]

Thanks; am going to try to use a longer line; however the first time i used a long line, there were a lot of 'open areas' in the line that seemed to be filled with co2; I noticed that i could not get the water to stay relatively constant in the line (i.e. prevent pockets of co2 from developing). The consequence was that by the time the water reached the picnic tap, the CO2 was escaping very fastly before i could even bottle..... dont know how to solve this problem.

Hi DrakeDredgewater,

Did any of those solutions end up working for you?