So you want to share some of your beer or send some out to a competition but you only have beer in a keg. No problem. You just take out your handy Counter-Pressure bottle filler, fill a few bottles and you are done. What's that? You don't have a CP bottle filler. You're screwed, right? Wrong! Filling bottles from a keg is a very simple process and it doesn't take any other equipment than what you have on-hand already.

Setup:

You should already have everything you need for bottling from the keg. I'm sure you have the cobra tap, bottles, capper, caps, co2 tank with regulator and obviously the keg. The only extra piece of equipment that you need is either a length of vinyl tubing or a length of plastic racking cane. Once you have everything gathered together it's a good idea to setup in an order that allows you to fill and cap the bottle as quickly as possible. Having everything setup in order is key to a smooth session of bottling.

Once things are in place you need to decide how many bottles you are going to fill and sanitize them. I use Starsan for sanitation. Once they are sanitized I drain them and cap them with small pieces of aluminum foil. After they are sanitized and covered I put them in my chest freezer to chill. Having everything chilled keeps the beer from foaming up and losing all it's carbonation. The filling process is less messy with everything chilled.

While the bottles are chilling I sanitize the piece of tubing and a small bucket/container to catch overflow. Having a sanitized bucket/tub is great because it is not only a place to catch any over-flows and spills but it is a handy place to be able to put the cobra tap down while capping or switching kegs. For the filler I use a small piece of 3/8 ID vinyl racking hose instead of using the hard plastic racking cane. It fits right over the end of the cobra tap. I haven't had any plastic racking canes around for years since I switched to SS racking canes. The hose works fine. I'm sure the hard racking canes works just as well so use whatever you have on hand. If you use the plastic racking cane then you just jam it inside the end of the cobra tap. Regardless of which you use the length needs to be long enough for the end to reach the bottom of the bottle easily.

Next you need to set the pressure of your regulator for pushing the beer. The pressure you need to use is going to depend on your setup. How long the hose is, the ID of the hose, etc. With my setup I like to set my CO2 regulator to 5 psi. This is just enough pressure to push the beer out smoothly without foaming. Any more or any less than this and I get a bottle full of foam. A lot of foaming is bad while bottling. If you get a lot of foaming you are going to end up with a lot of wasted beer trying to fill the bottle fully and a flat beer in the bottle.

Once you have determined the pressure needed you need to bleed off the pressure in the keg and attach the co2 line to it.

Now that everything is sanitized and setup you are ready to fill.

Filling:

Picture 1: The first step to the filling process is to take a sample of the beer to make sure the pressure is set correctly. It's also nice to have something to drink during the filling process.





Picture 2: Start with the tube at the bottom of the bottle. Open the cobra tap all the way and let the beer start flowing in.







Pictures 3, 4 & 5: As the bottle is filling slowly pull the tubing out keeping the end just below the level of beer.























Picture 6 ,7 & 8: When you get to the top of the bottle close the tap and let the remaining beer in the tubing fill the bottle the rest of the way. At this point I like to lift the end slightly above the beer to let it foam up a bit and fill the neck with foam. I usually try to fill the bottle to where the liquid level of the beer settles out anywhere between 1/2 to 1" from the top. It may take a few times to get the process down but once you do it's really easy.

If you end up with more than 1" headspace then you may end up with less carbonation than intended. If you end up with less than 1/2" of headspace the carbonation will be fine but you may get comments on scoresheets about over-fill. They shouldn't deduct points for this. A good, even fill just makes the bottles look better.

Capping:

Once the bottle is filled and the neck is filled with foam drop the tap in the sanitized tub and place a cap on the bottle. Quickly move over to the capper and seal that thing up. Obviously if you take too much time before capping you are going to lose carbonation and the beer may end up less carbonated than you intented.

Now the bottles are filled and ready to share or ship out.