Competition Bottling from cold kegs

[smcluskey]

i store and force carb my beers in a chest freezer at 38-40F. When it comes to bottling and entering comps is it okay to bottle cold and send or drop em' off?

[kcschmitt]

yep.

[snowcapt]

yep.

+1
Short and sweet!

[spiderwrangler]

Bottling cold is necessary to keep the CO2 dissolved in the beer. If you were trying to bottle warm, you'd end up with a flat beer. Make sure the bottles are cold too.

If you are asking because you are worried about the beer warming up, that's bullshit in my opinion. I work at a beer shop and people come in looking to buy warm beer, as if that magically protects it from heat damage more than one that's been kept cold. If it's warm at the shop, it's be cause we pulled it out and let it warm up... doesn't matter if we do it or they do it..

[Kbar]

So, to expand the questionm;

What are people's procedures for bottling keg beer?? I have not entered any contests, but with the new 5 keg kegerator, I seem to have the beer to do so, just to get some feedback on what I make.

Assume;
1- Clean bottles free of detergent
2- purge bottle with CO2
3- fill bottle directly from Keg
4- cap

?? Thanks!

[MikeB]

To expand a bit further you may want to consider these things (maybe 1b is obvious?):

1b. Sanitize bottles
1c. Chill sanitized bottles

What are you using to fill the bottles? Counter pressure bottle filler? Picnic Tap with a racking cane shoved in it? Blichmann Beer Gun? Something else?

[mordantly]

use just enough psi to push the beer and run down the side or bottling cane shoved in.

[TheDarkSide]

For competition or long term storage - Blichmann Beer gun
To fill bottles to take to club meeting same day - racking cane in picnic tap and fill from the bottom.

I clean the bottles, sanitize them and cover with tin foil, chill them, fill and cap.