Beer Forum

Well I tried filling some bottles today with a black saison and ended up getting as much beer in the bottles as I did in the overflow bucket. Anyone figure out a way to reduce foaming when bottling high carb beers? I set the regulator to ~3psi and drain the keg before starting, bottles are chilled also.

The only thing that seems to work at all (and there are still challenges) is to use a real counter pressure filler so that the beer flows into the bottle against a differential pressure of one psi or less. Under these conditions the beer will not foam as it enters the bottle. Once the bottle is full, however, you have a tiger by the tail. You have to bleed the pressure off, remove the filler and get the cap on. Having the beer very cold and the bottle very cold seems to help some and you absolutely must bleed the pressure off very slowly. For some reason it seems you have to have a couple of bombs before you start cranking out properly filled bottles (relearn the process?) but it is possible to bottle reasonably highly carbonated beers this way.

Obvious answer: Sounds as if you used room temperature bottles, instead of putting them in the kegerator first...

I will mirror a lot of what AJ said. I acually use a cold bucket of starsan to immerse the bottles in prior to bottling as well as getting the beer under 30 degrees too. That is the main thing. Believe me, we have all been there with tons of foam flowing out of the bottle. Not fun. You will get the hang of it though.

PS: Bring me a bottle

Mills

It sounds like your beer is overcarbonated in the keg. Been there done that! You can't put beer that was carbonateded quickly (over 10-12 psi) through the beer gun. You have to let it set a few days while bleeding of excess. Cold bottles will help but if it is foam coming out of the gun you are overcarbonated. Good luck!

I get the feeling spiders are always watching. Maybe that's cause they have so many eyes?

I have found that cold isn't enough. Wet is just as important. Reduces the friction in the bottle. Like Mills I submerge the bottles in cold starsan just before filling.