Transferring to bottling bucket & Oxidation/Infection

[JCasey1992]

I apologize if this is a stupid question but I'm a little unsure on this.

I keg the majority of what I brew but I also enjoy sharing with others and hope to start entering competitions which obviously requires me to bottle a bit. I hope to eventually compliment my grainfather with their conical but for the time being I'm using plastic buckets. In the past, I've just kegged directly from the primary fermenter but I know to bottle, I also need to transfer to another vessel first.

As an example, let's say I have a final volume of six gallons. How difficult would it be to avoid oxidizing and/or infecting my beer if I first transferred to a bottling bucket, kegged five gallons to be force carbonated, added priming sugar mixture to the remaining gallon and bottled that?

Like I said, I usually package straight from the primary but I know this is not possible if I bottle. Will the above method work or does anyone have another suggestion? Thanks in advance.

 

[Transamguy77]

I apologize if this is a stupid question but I'm a little unsure on this.

I keg the majority of what I brew but I also enjoy sharing with others and hope to start entering competitions which obviously requires me to bottle a bit. I hope to eventually compliment my grainfather with their conical but for the time being I'm using plastic buckets. In the past, I've just kegged directly from the primary fermenter but I know to bottle, I also need to transfer to another vessel first.

As an example, let's say I have a final volume of six gallons. How difficult would it be to avoid oxidizing and/or infecting my beer if I first transferred to a bottling bucket, kegged five gallons to be force carbonated, added priming sugar mixture to the remaining gallon and bottled that?

Like I said, I usually package straight from the primary but I know this is not possible if I bottle. Will the above method work or does anyone have another suggestion? Thanks in advance.

I would just keg the 5 gallons and use carb drops for the remaining bottles then you don't have to worry about mixing up priming sugar in what's left.

 

[JCasey1992]

I would just keg the 5 gallons and use carb drops for the remaining bottles then you don't have to worry about mixing up priming sugar in what's left.

Thanks for the feedback! I considered carb drops as I have some left over from my Mr. Beer days. Unfortunately, I haven't been impressed with their consistency from bottle to bottle. Is it doable to carbonate a single gallon with sugar or is it simply not possible? Also, my main concern was oxidation. Do you think that would be a concern with the method I outlined above?

 

[JCasey1992]

Additionally, the 6 gallons was just an example. I may brew even more if it makes it more worth my while.

 

[beermanpete]

I think you could transfer the 1 gallon into small bucket with a spigot and keg the rest as usual. Alternately, keg all the beer and bottle from the keg after carbonating the beer.

 

[Jtk78]

What I've done is gone straight from primary to bottle and used the Domino sugar cubes with good results. I will fill some bottles before I keg which allows me to siphon from the middle of the carboy for the bottles. I am doing a pressurized closed transfer, and rigged up a hose with a bottling wand on the end it works great. You could make the same setup on an auto siphon as well.

 

[FloppyKnockers]

You could also transfer to a bottling bucket, prime the entire batch, keg what you can, and bottle the rest. Then set the keg aside to naturally carb.

 

[JCasey1992]

You could also transfer to a bottling bucket, prime the entire batch, keg what you can, and bottle the rest. Then set the keg aside to naturally carb.

I considered this but doesn't it take less sugar in a keg than in a bottle? If I can use the same amount without risking overcarbonation, I definitely believe this is my best option.

 

[flars]

A Domino Dot™ will yield about 2.4 to 2.5 volumes of CO2 in a 12 ounce bottle. You could also use a beer gun to fill bottles with carbonated beer from your keg. Extra expense!

 

[z-bob]

Like I said, I usually package straight from the primary but I know this is not possible if I bottle. Will the above method work or does anyone have another suggestion? Thanks in advance.

Sure it's possible. That's how I do it most of the time. For 11 or 12 ounce bottles, I use Domino Dots sugar cubes. For larger bottles, I weigh the sugar for each one on a cheap digital scale with 1/10 gram resolution.

 

[MrBJones]

Why not get a beer gun?

 

[FloppyKnockers]

I considered this but doesn't it take less sugar in a keg than in a bottle? If I can use the same amount without risking overcarbonation, I definitely believe this is my best option.

I have successfully primed a batch using this method. I added enough sugar for a 5-gallon batch, but the volume was closer to 6. I didn't notice any overcarbing in the bottle or the keg.