Blichmann beer gun

**Gabe** · 05-18-2007, 05:04 AM

Do you like yours ? I am trying to find ways to make bottling more fun---

is it worth the 70 - 90$ ?

chillHayze · 05-18-2007, 11:44 AM

Well, I'll tell ya... The beergun is a nifty tool but it is not necessary if you have a good faucet and the ability to chill your bottles.

I have one but seldon use it unless bottling at least a dozen bottles. It is kind of a PITA to hook up and sanitize. I used to get peeved about the amount of foam when filling from the tap, but once I chilled the bottles (another hassle for us w/ limited freezer/fridge space) I came to find my foam problem was nonexistant.

Whether you are bottling from the beergun or just from the tap, make sure to crank up the pressure to the beer about 2-3 psi a few days before hand to up the carbonation level. then decrease the pressure till beer just parely flows out of the tap/beergun.

One more thing - re: the beergun. Accessory kit 1 is nice to have, but you don't really need accessory kit 2 even if you use barbed fittings.

abracadabra · 05-18-2007, 02:05 PM

I have to agree with ChillHayze.

And as far as worth the money? I'd turn the question around and say what's the money worth these day's?

Not much if you judge it by the price of gas or the cost of a house and the worth of money seems to be dropping by the day. Not to get to political here but have you priced copper lately? I sure am glad inflation is under control.

Buy what you like and can afford the price will surely go up.

**johnsma22** · 05-18-2007, 05:37 PM

I love it, and use it for larger scale bottling. Both for already carb'd keg beer and bottling primed beer racked into a keg to make bottling easier.

For just filling a few bottles to bring somewhere, I just stick a 6" piece of 3/16" beverage tubing up into the spout of my Shirron faucet, lower the pressure in the keg to about 3 psi, insert the tubing down to the bottom of the bottle and fill away. It helps to use chilled bottles.

kthorson · 05-18-2007, 08:44 PM

I have only used mine twice so far and I love it. It makes filling bottles from the keg so easy. It was definitely worth the money for me.

Kyle

**FSR402** · 07-12-2007, 08:18 PM

here is a dumb question.. If I have beer that was forced carbed in a keg and I use the beergun to fill bottles from said keg. how long does the beer stay good in the bottles? Is this basicly the way the big guys do it? So then You don't have to carb the beer in the bottles?

Funkenjaeger · 07-12-2007, 08:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FSR402

here is a dumb question.. If I have beer that was forced carbed in a keg and I use the beergun to fill bottles from said keg. how long does the beer stay good in the bottles? Is this basicly the way the big guys do it? So then You don't have to carb the beer in the bottles?

I would love to hear a knowledgeable answer on this one, because I constantly see people talking about how force-carbed beer from a keg that is then bottled will lose its carbonation, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone give any form of reasoning on the matter.

When you pour carbonated beer into a bottle, there is a specific amount of CO2 in solution. Unless the cap is leaky, the only place it can go other than the beer is into the headspace - so a little carbonation will be lost as the headspace pressurizes, but as soon as things equalize, it's going to stay that way until you open it. The headspace is pretty small, and at serving temps the partial pressure is not that high, so that's really not a tremendous amount of CO2. You may have to carb it slightly more to take into account that small amount lost to the headspace, but that's it, it's not going to magically lose carbonation over time.

The fact that very few commercial beers are bottle-conditioned should be a pretty good clue that force-carbed bottled beer does not just go flat in the bottle.

mr x · 07-12-2007, 08:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gabe

Do you like yours ? I am trying to find ways to make bottling more fun---

is it worth the 70 - 90$ ?

I think you could make something yourself that would work as good and be much cheaper.

**olllllo** · 07-12-2007, 08:56 PM

I'm a little indifferent about mine right now.

It can work well, however, I need to figure out a sanitary way to glue the rubber stopper on the end. It has come off on me and fell into a bottle- twice now.

Part of my difficulty stems from the fact that I do not have a good staging area to get bottling done. My beer fridge is in a laundry area that is not yet finisheed with adequate counterspace and the sink is rough plumbed but not installed.

Getting that done will give me the space that I need.

I can't really blame the beer gun for that.

**Brew-boy** · 07-12-2007, 09:18 PM

I love mine it it works perfect every time and no foam. Nice clean beer and dont have to do a decant is wonderful. I would highly recomened it.