Beer Forum

What's the best way? I hear that it's the way Tasty does it all the time, but can't find a good explanation or video.

I use my beer gun for comps or for long terms storage, but if I just want to fill a few bottles to give to some friends or bring to a party here is what I do. This does not include a way to purge your bottles of CO2, but I have found with practice that these bottles stay fresh for at least 2-3 wks this way when kept cold.

1. carb up your beer a few psi higher than normal in keg.
2. remove the end piece of a plastic bottling wand (I used the white one with the spring in it, easier to remove) and grind it down to a 45 deg. angle
3. buy a small one-holed rubber stopper that fits in bottles
4. soak clean bottles in starsan and cover with sanitized aluminum foil, chill bottles to keg temps or cooler
5. sanitize both wand and stopper
6. adjust stopper on wand so wand will touch bottom of bottle and stopper fits snugly in bottle
7. push wand/stopper contraption into picnic tap end
8. pull pressure relief valve on keg and adjust psi to around 3-4 (or whatever works best for you)
9. stick wand/stopper contraction into bottle and open picnic tap
10. Watch beer flow in wand, and when the flow starts to reverse back towards tap, then quickly pull out the stopper/wand out of bottle just for a second to continue the flow.
11. repeat step 10 until just above top of narrowing bottle neck
12. close picnic tap, and gently remove wand/stopper leaving tip just above beer level.
13. gently open picnic tap to squirt some foam on top of beer and then quickly cap with sanitized caps on foam.

With practice this technique will become second nature to you and bottles can be filled very quickly. Hope this helps....

Cheers -
Brewinhard

Thats how I do it, too.
Im a little more reckless, though. I use the black tipped wand, that uses pressure to push the tip open for flow.
I overcarb a bit and fill.
After the wand is out, I put the cap on it and give it a quick shake, creating some foam, then I crimp the cap.
Similar to above, but a bit more bareback.
Cheers, and happy bottling.