Bottles from counterpressure filler not very carbonated

[jceg316]

I finally set up my keezer and it includes a boel iTap counterpressure bottle filler. I tried it out and filled a few bottles and it worked fine. I just cracked one open and it's almost flat, way flatter than from the keg. Definitely got a seal on the bottle. When I took it out the itap it made that hiss and I immediately capped it. Do I need to wait a few days for the CO2 do dissolve back into the beer?

 

[hoppyscotty]

Are you bottling directly from the Keezer...i.e. nice and cold? what pressure are you carbonating at and is the beer nicely carbonated before you bottle?

I've only got a cheap counter pressure bottle filler but it works just fine and beer is nicely carbonated so cant imagine its anything to do. with the iTap.

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

Likewise: I’ve just got a cheap counter pressure filler but it works fine and the beer is nicely carbonated. I don’t find there is any need to wait for the gas to be reabsorbed or anything like that. Don’t be put off though because there is maybe a bit of a knack to it.
For what it’s worth I always make sure the beer is well carbonated in the keg, and that the beer and the bottle are well chilled down. I also let it condition in the keg a few weeks before doing any bottles.

 

[jceg316]

Thanks for your replies. How important is temperature? It's a bit hard to remember the order of events now but I think I connected it all up, turned on the thermostat, set it to 4°C then started playing around with my itap. The ambient temperature in my home brewery is ~14°c, the beer would not have been much cooler than that. Now it's been sitting for a few days at 4C maybe it's worth trying again.

Even if I turned the thermostat on long before I played around with the itap, the beer definitely would not be at 4C.

 

[DocAnna]

Thanks for your replies. How important is temperature? It's a bit hard to remember the order of events now but I think I connected it all up, turned on the thermostat, set it to 4°C then started playing around with my itap. The ambient temperature in my home brewery is ~14°c, the beer would not have been much cooler than that. Now it's been sitting for a few days at 4C maybe it's worth trying again.

Even if I turned the thermostat on long before I played around with the itap, the beer definitely would not be at 4C.

Temperature is really important for bottling with a counterpressure filler, you need the beer as cold as possible to reduce foaming and loss of carbonation when you remove the pressure after filling. You do need to be careful though not to keep the beer under pressure from your CO2 supply if you are chilling it further than planned as you can over carbonate that way. Though when counterpressure filling I do try to slightly overshoot on carbonation being aware I'll lose some carbonation volume in the process.

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

The thing is that gas is quite a lot more soluble in cold liquids; so when you're bottling you really want the beer, the filler and the bottles to all be quite cold.
It's particularly important that the bottles are not warmer than the beer - otherwise when the carbonated beer comes into contact with them some of the CO2 will come out of solution and cause foaming (and loss of carbonation).
With the cheap counter pressure fillers it also helps to purge and then pressurise the bottle with just gas first, before starting to fill.

 

[peebee]

... Do I need to wait a few days for the CO2 do dissolve back into the beer?

What CO2, where, is doing the dissolving?

If you're using solid (glass) bottles you get a few seconds to get a cap on (even loosely) as the CO2 won't have dissipated enough to worry about. If you use PET bottle, squeeze the airspace out before tightening the cap. Either way, you can reduce the airspace above the beer to the minimum you are comfortable with. If there is foam, it will be mainly CO2 anyway, so no need to purge.

Gas will come out of the beer until there is enough pressure in the airspace to hold the remainder in solution (this is what those "kegging" and "carbonation" tables are telling you ... e.g. if the beer is holding 1.7 "volumes" at 7°C there will be 4.9psi of CO2 in the airspace). It's not going to need much of the gas already dissolved to reach this "equilibrium", so no worries.

Just keep the beer cooled and get the cap on asap.

@DocAnna suggests slightly over-carbonating the beer prior to bottling, which is sound. But it shouldn't really be necessary if you're reasonably quick about the job.

 

[jceg316]

I was gonna give this another go but I have run out gas! I'll get some more and then I can fill some bottles. Beers are at 4c now.