BeerBorg

I'm planning on bottling a NEIPA that is in my fermenter right now. I usually keg. I want to give this beer as a gift to my nieces and nephews in 30 days. I probably should have waited another week and a half before brewing this beer so that it would be as fresh as possible.
I have been reading that cold side O2 really hurts this style. I cap on the foam when I bottle but I will be introducing a lot of O2 just by filling the bottles.
Short of buying a Blichman Beer gun how should I package this beer? I use the "I don't need no stinking' beer gun" method now. Any tips about reducing oxygen exposure?

Nothing tastes fresher than a week old NEIPA poured from the tap. I brewed a batch of NEIPA and bottled it in late November 2017. Opening a bottle earlier this week, the beer poured light in color, full of hop aroma and very hazy. As fresh tasting as a week old beer, no way, but definitely delicious. Adding priming sugar to carbonate your beer gives the yeast time to scavenge O2. Filling the bottles using a bottling wand and a keg of beer already force carbonated, and capping on foam does eliminate O2.

A Beer Gun lets you purge the bottles with Co2 before filling them, and to purge the neck of the bottle with Co2 before capping. Preventing oxidation for 30 days, using any of the methods above would not be a problem for me. As for buying a Beer Gun, no one needs one until they buy one. Once they buy one they're glad they did.

FWIW, the ones I've made and bottled so far were best at ~2-3 weeks in the bottle, but even at 6-8 weeks were still pretty damn good. I don't know beyond that because they were gone diddly on by then.

All of them, I bottle primed them with Dots. From a bottling wand direct from the fermenter. Without a spring/end bit, just a straight tube. So, basically I wasn't super paranoid about oxidation, and didn't get bit by it. I do fill bottles all the way to the top, then pull the wand. What headspace remains after that is what there is. Works for me.

ScrewyBrewer wrote:Adding priming sugar to carbonate your beer gives the yeast time to scavenge O2. Filling the bottles using a bottling wand and a keg of beer already force carbonated, and capping on foam does eliminate O2.

Do you us the Blchman Been gun? It sounds like you do and that you like it. I have a birthday coming up and my wife wants to buy me a beer gadget. I never used a counter pressure beer gun but I think it shoots Co2 into the empty bottle before the beer is added eliminating or greatly reducing oxygen exposure.

Bottle priming to carbonate has been mentioned as a good method to enter beers in competitions because of reduced oxygen exposure.

Banjo-guy wrote:Do you us the Blchman Been gun? It sounds like you do and that you like it. I have a birthday coming up and my wife wants to buy me a beer gadget. I never used a counter pressure beer gun but I think it shoots Co2 into the empty bottle before the beer is added eliminating or greatly reducing oxygen exposure.

I do like using a Beer Gun and force carbonation for a few reasons. When force carbonating beer prior to bottling, the amount of carbonation can be set by adjusting the Co2 regulator. Think consistency and repeatability. Carbonating with Co2 eliminates sediment in the bottle that's associated with bottle priming. Something to think about when transporting beer to a party or brewing competition. And when you need beer to be ready in a hurry, cranking the Co2 regulator up to 35 psi can carbonate beer in about 24 hours.

As for bottle priming and long term conditioning, I have had excellent results when bottle carbonating beer with cane sugar. I brewed an 8% alcohol Wee Heavy that was bottle primed and carbonated, then stored in a refrigerator for two years. The beer continued to change and improve season after season until the last bottle was gone. Both methods of carbonation have their own benefits. If you have the time then bottle prime. If not, force carbonate and use a Beer Gun. At the end of the day you will have delicious beer to drink and you will be happy.

Thanks Screwy,
I use force carbonation off of a keg. I haven’t bottle carbed for a few years.
I was actually asking if it’s worth it to buy the 100.00 Blichmann beer gun or if it’s basically the same as using a lower tech method of method that uses a bottle wand and a stopper and capping on foam.
I just insert my bottling wand tube into the end of a picnic tap.

Banjo-guy wrote: I was actually asking if it’s worth it to buy the 100.00 Blichmann beer gun or if it’s basically the same as using a lower tech method of method that uses a bottle wand and a stopper and capping on foam.

I mentioned in another thread that I have a Blichmann Beer Gun and I use the bottle wand and cap on foam more than I use the beer gun. In fact, I think I used the beer gun a few times right after I bought it, and haven't used it since. I even use the bottling wand method when I send bottles to competition, and have won medals using this method.

So, in my opinion, it's not worth the $100. My $100 beer gun sits in its box on my equipment table. But, to each his own.

I don't use mine as much as I probably should either. It does take some work to get it setup, and unless I have several cases to bottle I won't use it. Am sorry I bought one, not really. After using it to fill 250 bottles for a wedding, I feel like I got my money's worth out of it already. It's your money and it's really up to you if it'll be worth it.

Cold side O2 exposure hurts all beers, but I think the NEIPA fan boys have really blown it out of proportion. Here's my line of thinking.

Most normal folks don't know how to properly pour a bottle conditioned beer and this a NEIPA so I just don't think thats the way to go. I feel you'd have better results by kegging it, set and forget it on gas 25+ days and bottle it using no stinking beer gun just before giving it to them.

The real life experience that leads me this way was a Pliny the Elder clone I entered in a competition a few years ago. The beer had already been in the keg for 4 months and I bottled it using the NSBG method 3 weeks prior to the judging. Not one note in the score sheets that mentioned any off flavors due to oxidation and the beer scored a 44. No beer I've entered has it be noted that there was oxidation.