Beer Forum

So for all those of you out there that bottle with the picnic tap:

I put some rigid tube into the tap so I could fill the bottle from the bottom. I chilled the bottles (and the sanitizer). I ran the pressure down on the keg to about 5psi. And man that stuff foamed like somebody dropped a froth grenade into my bottles. Is there a secret to keeping the foam down or is it just bound to happen? Thanks in advance for all your opinions.

Take your pressure even lower. You don't need much to push the beer. 3psi will suffice. What I've been doing lately is I'll take my keg pressure up to 15-18psi for a few days prior to bottling, then on bottle day I'll take my keg out of the fridge and elevate it, then open the release valve all the way, totally depressurizing the keg. Then I fill with the picnic tap using only gravity. The bottles fill slowly, and don't foam much at all. I usually have to give them a little shake to get some foam going. (I like to cap on foam, it helps drive the O2 out.) I don't know if there are any downsides to this, but so far I haven't found any.