Need a little advise on Bottling/Kegging

You can bottle from a keg. But if the bottles won't be consumed fairly quickly, you should sanitize them and use a counter pressure filler, beergun, or equivalent to minimize oxygen pickup in the bottles.

Even for bottles that will be consumed fairly quickly, I'd recommend using a growler fill hose (if it will fit the bottles) or rigging up a bottling wand. You don't want to be splashing beer into the bottles.

 

After kegging and carbonating, you can bottle from there. I took a bottle wand and removed the spring tip. It fits perfectly in my picnic tap so I can fill from the bottom up.

Depending on space../ I put my bottles and sanitizer bottle in the fridge the day before so that all equipment is cold. This will reduce foam while bottling.

That all being said, after I fill them I treat them like growlers from a brewery. Best consumed within 3 days of filling because I don’t purge oxygen out of the bottle.

 

Growlers work good for this sort of thing. But as others mentioned, it should be consumed as soon possible due to oxygen exposure.

 

Except for the cold-crash phase you have this almost in reverse. I'm guessing you're using US-05 . . . it's sweet spot is mid-60s (you're in the low 70s). After the active portion of fermentation is complete (air lock activity decreases to almost zero) the beer should condition. The yeast must stay active (just not kicking off any CO2) and this is helped along by slightly warming the brew. A profile like 4-5 days at optimum ferm temp, then raise a degree a day for 4-5 days. Yep, no danger in finishing as high as 70'ish and two weeks in the primary doesn't hurt a thing. The goal is for the yeast to clean up (metabolize) any diacetyl, acetaldehyde, and fusel alcohols. Lowering the temp after the active phase encourages the yeast to go dormant.

My co-brewer bottles and I keg, so have split many batches when complete. It works to rack to bottling bucket from keg, then add sugar and bottle. Age/oxidation is not a problem if done correctly. You can also fully carb in keg, then bottle with Blichmann beer gun (it purges O2 from bottle). It's about 100 bucks and a slight learning curve, but does a good job. If doing a po-man's bottling with no purging the "drink it quick" advice above is good. Once fully carb'ed beer is bottled, no matter the method, the carb level will not change. Personally, I'd tell my friends to drag their lazy asses over (with pizza) if they wanted a beer.

 

Growlers are great options if you are sharing beer at a small social gathering. Easy to use and you can buy or build something that fits your taps to fill them. The Last Straw at Northern Brewer is a device to facilitate filling bottles from a keg. I bought one thinking I would share more beer in bottles. It hasn't really worked out that way. The device is easy to use, but has failed to overcome the inertia of my laziness. Since after each use I want to thoroughly clean and sanitize it and its associated draft lines, I don't end up using it casually to share a few bottles with friends. I have really only used it for sending bottles to competition. And when I do that, I will bottle extras that can be shared. I haven't done this for several years, so the only beers I have shared in the last few years have been in growlers.

 

I would bottle condition with sugar. Easy to do and if your pals can't come over with pizza right away, or, you can't go over, the bottles will b in good shape for several months depending on the brew and your taste requirements.