What do you do with "extra" beer?

[bpgreen]

Since I've switched to all grain brewing, I sometimes end up with more in the fermenter than I planned.

If I were bottling, I'd transfer to the bottling bucket with the priming sugar, then start filling bottles and stop when there's no more to fill. But when I'm kegging, I just use the autosiphon, which isn't really a good option for bottling (unless there's a good way to clamp it off).

Today, when my keg was full, I still had about a half gallon left (that's unusual). I just transferred to some sanitized quart canning jars. I'll pour some into the glass and fill with beer (of the same style) on tap until it's gone.

As I'm typing this, I think I've already come up with a better solution if this happens in the future.

I've been naturally carbonating by adding some sugar to the keg as I do the transfer. If I have an overfilled fermenter, I should just treat it as a big batch prime. Transfer to the bottling bucket with the priming sugar, transfer to the keg until full, then use the bottling want to fill bottles. If I have/can find a bottling wand. I don't remember when I last used one.

[John Sand]

Your solution makes sense to me.
The one time I tried to bottle the remaining beer after kegging didn't go well. I was working outside, with a siphon in one hand and a bottle in the other. Full bottles were standing close by. My Dear Wife came over to kiss me, (I'm irresistible) knocking over a bottle and causing me to lose the bottling tip too. Since I had apparently to choose between bottling and kissing, I gave up bottling, but it was close. Now I just dump whatever is left.

[BlackDuck]

I usually have a quarter to half gallon left also. I just dump it too. I plan to have that much left in fact, this ensures that I don’t transfer a bunch of crud into the keg. Helps the beer to clear quicker in the keg.


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[mashani]

With the mash & boil there is 1/2 gallon below the spigot. So I brew 1/2 gallon more volume then I am targeting, so I don't have to tip it and get kettle trub. But if I want / need to (IE my boil off was a bit too much) I can get ~1/4 gallon more out if I really want to. But normally I just dump it, I have already considered it "loss".

[Beer-lord]

After having my E-system for almost 2 years, I'm usually pretty much right on but I do brew 6 gallons. I usually use lots of hops and like to overpitch to get a fast ferment going so I have lots of funk in the bottom of my fermenter and get a full keg with mostly funk to pitch. If I brewed a 5 gallon batch, I'd not be able to fill a keg.
The few times I've not been that accurate, I'd taken a 16 oz plastic bottle, filled it and put a carbonation cap on it and flash carbed it to test the beer.