I just try to lay my tubing in the bucket so that the flow creates a whirlpool effect. It also has the benefit (if you don't move it much) of creating a trub cone in the middle of your bottling bucket where it's easy to leave that stuff behind.
One thing I have found to be useful is take a price gun like what you would see at a store and I assign each brew a number. The brew log gets a sticker, the carboy gets one in ferment, and each bottle gets one. This is a fast, easy way to label. In beer smith each brew I do starts with this number in as my assistant brewer allowing me to find them easily in the program.
Another thing I generally do while bottling is bottle 1 beer in a clear bottle and lable it with the brew log (scaled to fit). This allows me to check the color of the beer as well as be used as a quick referance instead of using beersmith.
Best thing I ever learned about bottling was to recruit my girlfriend to cap the bottles after I fill them. Cut my time in half! "Save the hassle. Bottle with a friend."
Revvy's one of the cool reverends. He has a Harley and a t-shirt that says on the back "If you can read this, the bitch was Raptured.
Quote:
Originally Posted by YooperBrew
I gotta tell ya, just between us girls, that Revvy is HOT. Very tall, gorgeous grey hair and a terrific smile. He's very good looking in person, with a charismatic personality... he drives like a ****ing maniac!
I came across this thread a couple weeks ago and when I was at Lowe's last weekend I saw the pvc pipe section and thought, what if I throw a pvc elbow on the threaded end of the spigot instead of the nut? So, I bought a 3/4" pvc elbow threaded on one end and slip on, on the other end. It fits snug to the bottom of the bucket but it has just enough space to start a siphon. I haven't bottled a batch with it yet but I tried it with water and it seems like it will work. Not sure if this has been thrown out as an idea yet but I figured I'd throw it out there.
Thanks for all the other tips! I used all of them when bottling my second batch and it made everything more simple.
This is my current bottling setup. I use a short-walled "bussing bin" that I got from a restaurant supply store (About $5.00). It will hold 35 bottles at a time, keeps them from falling over, catches any overflow/spillage, and allows for quick transfer back to the counter for capping. I set it on the ground, below my bucket, and then grab a chair, and start filling the bottles one at a time, row by row. I can easily see which bottles have already been filled, and where the fill line is while bottling.
I put the bucket on the kitchen counter, and I currently use my auto-siphon for bottling, rather than the spigot (That is soon to change - don't worry!) Once I get the siphon going (with a little help from SWMBO) I can easily fill the bottles, which are loaded into the bussing bin on the floor. I pull up a chair, and go to town! Bottling is relatively quick this way.
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