Bottling's a pain but....

It is very satisfying coming home from work and seeing 48 beers carbonating away!

I normally keg but decided to bottle my pumpkin ale so I could share a few over at friend's houses. It feels like you have a lot more beer when there are two boxes full of bottles instead of one keg!

I don't mind bottling.

I hate bottling. It's such a stupid chore and waiting two weeks for bottles to carb up is even more annoying. That's why i started kegging. If I can help it I will never bottle a whole 5 gallon batch of beer again.

I think that bottling is kinda fun. I know, I'm a very sick homebrewer...

Kolsch_Meister said:

I think that bottling is kinda fun. I know, I'm a very sick homebrewer...

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I agree. I bottle 80% of my brews. I bottle when I brew so it is very easy. Rack to bottling bucket while the water is heating up. Bottle during the mash. Easy

I really enjoy bottling. It's not work for me, it's spending more time with my hobby. I will admit though I am about to order some kegging equipment, I hate waiting weeks for them to carbonate, especially my lagers. I never thought it would come to this, I enjoy bottling and then seeing them put up with nice labels on them. Next step is for me to learn counter pressure filling!

I hate bottling by myself, but with the help it's not bad at all. Great excuse to bring some friends over, get the job done in an hour drink some beer or good wine and everyone goes home with a couple bottles.

I bought an All In One Wine Pump, a vacuum pump obviously for my wine making, and soon afterwards bought the beer bottling attachment....what a pleasure it is to bottle now! I can bottle a 5 gallon batch in under 10 mins, and a few mins more for capping.
That machine gets a ton of use between beer and wine, I usually brew between 6-8 5 gallon batches of beer within a week or two to stock up, it is worth every penny!
I can rack, degass, filter, and bottle my wine, and rack and bottle beer (I don't filter my beer).
I am in no way affiliated with the company, I just believe in the product, the customer service is unlike most, extremely helpful.
Check them out at http://allinonewinepump.com/ you won't be disappointed!!!

Tom

An hour with help! I sanitize bottle, cap put the beers away for conditioning and clean up in an about by myself. (5 gal batch)

pumpkinman2012 said:

I bought an All In One Wine Pump, a vacuum pump obviously for my wine making, and soon afterwards bought the beer bottling attachment....what a pleasure it is to bottle now! I can bottle a 5 gallon batch in under 10 mins, and a few mins more for capping.
That machine gets a ton of use between beer and wine, I usually brew between 6-8 5 gallon batches of beer within a week or two to stock up, it is worth every penny!
I can rack, degass, filter, and bottle my wine, and rack and bottle beer (I don't filter my beer).
I am in no way affiliated with the company, I just believe in the product, the customer service is unlike most, extremely helpful.
Check them out at http://allinonewinepump.com/ you won't be disappointed!!!

Tom

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very cool product I am interested! ...I just don't like Glass Carboys

BamaProud,
I have approx 26-30 Glass Carboys, knock on wood, I haven't had any issues with them so far.
This Pump has saved me a ton of time and back ache!

Bottling is awesome. I prefer bottles to draft, even at bars. Can't explain it, I just do

I've streamlined my bottling process to where I'm begining to enjoy it. It's all part of the process,so I might as well enjoy it. Not to mention bulk priming to style with my own lil tweaks. And the smells. The taste of the odd left over bit. Takes me about an hour & a half to set up,bottle,& clean up. Maybe two hours depending on my back & hips. I'm getting faster at clean up now that I start brewing or bottling in the morning during my "more awake & alert" hours.

I guess I really am one of the laziest people around.

yeah, it's a pain dragging out the bottling system BUT for me, has it's advantages...

I Keg my beers and only bottle when I know I'm almost empty. It allows me to refill the keg with a fresh batch and while this fresh batch is getting itself carbed up, I'm drinking out of bottles

I don't keg, so NOT bottling is foreign territory for me. I just bottled a batch of Bourbon Barrel Porter this morning. I put the bottles in the dishwasher around 730am. By the time the full cycle, including heated drying, was done, I had gotten most everything else ready to go. Once the bottles were cooled, I had at it. Everything was finished and cleaned up before 1100am. And to me, bottling is simply a part of the brewing process...and I do enjoy the entire process.

glenn514

BigFloppy said:

yeah, it's a pain dragging out the bottling system BUT for me, has it's advantages...

I Keg my beers and only bottle when I know I'm almost empty. It allows me to refill the keg with a fresh batch and while this fresh batch is getting itself carbed up, I'm drinking out of bottles

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Good strategy, I may keep that in mind for when I start kegging as I will only have 2 kegs. Is counter pressure filling the pain they all say it is?

Don't love or hate bottling, but it certainly became 100% better after buying a bottling tree and vinator for sanitizing them, as well as switching to starsan from idophor. My old method was washing, then soaking each bottle in a bucket of idophor then an extended drying period in a clean bucket. Now the whole thing is more of an assembly line operation and goes much smoother.

^^Agreed glen & blackgoat. It's a lil weird how I got the equipment needed to make it quicker & easier. Then got to enjoying bottling since I could sit down & do it with everything within arm's reach. So it's def part of the process/fun now. Don't know how I got here,but I like it.
I dry hopped my Cougar Country IPA this morning,so mext Friday it gets bottled. The next batch of Maori IPA might be ready to dry hop this Saturday. So here's hoping on that one. Too bad neither will be ready for Halloween...minimum time for carbing & conditioning is 3 weeks as of 11/2.
But next week Saturday or Sunday I can get the PM Traditional Stout going for my Whiskely Ale. Stout aged a bit in old bourbon barrels is the original colonial mix anyway.

Buying a vinator and using Revvy's suggestion about basically putting the wand right up by the spigot using just a small amount of tubing definitely made my life easier. My third bottled batch went so much better than the others and I was far less frustrated about the labor involved.

I really want to keg but I am certain I'll bottle some still.

I will say this, I brew outside but all the chilling and such is done in the kitchen. Between that and bottling, I mop my floor a ton more. It's never been cleaner!

estricklin said:

Good strategy, I may keep that in mind for when I start kegging as I will only have 2 kegs. Is counter pressure filling the pain they all say it is?

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I've got a Melvico counter pressure bottle filler. It's really not too much of a pain, cleaning the lines out is the biggest pain but I've got a keg that won't hold good pressure that's filled with star-san for cleaning the lines out after use though.

You would probably have to empty your keg of beer using the bottler, de-pressurize and then fill the keg with star-san, re-pressurize and empty the star-san through the bottler

I keg 1/2 and bottle the other 1/2. My garage fridge has to hold soda and food with my beer so the biggest Keg right now is 2.5gal.

The stout that is ready for bottling is ~3.5gal and I am going to do 1/2- bombers and 1/2- 12oz bottles.

BigFloppy said:

I've got a Melvico counter pressure bottle filler. It's really not too much of a pain, cleaning the lines out is the biggest pain but I've got a keg that won't hold good pressure that's filled with star-san for cleaning the lines out after use though.

You would probably have to empty your keg of beer using the bottler, de-pressurize and then fill the keg with star-san, re-pressurize and empty the star-san through the bottler

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Well that doesn't sound too bad, I mean the keg was going to have to be sanitized anyway.

I may check into the Blichman Beer Gun.

Bottling itself isn't too bad. It's cleaning and de-labeling I really hate. Even with a good, long oxy-clean soak that makes most labels slide right off, and a decision to just not bother with the bottles whose glue isn't oxyclean-soluble, it always seems to take longer than it should.

That being said, you're right, there's nothing quite like the look of a small army of beers you made yourself. Sorry, I'm starting to tear up just thinking about it... :')

pumpkinman2012 said:

I bought an All In One Wine Pump, a vacuum pump obviously for my wine making, and soon afterwards bought the beer bottling attachment....what a pleasure it is to bottle now! I can bottle a 5 gallon batch in under 10 mins, and a few mins more for capping. That machine gets a ton of use between beer and wine, I usually brew between 6-8 5 gallon batches of beer within a week or two to stock up, it is worth every penny! I can rack, degass, filter, and bottle my wine, and rack and bottle beer (I don't filter my beer). I am in no way affiliated with the company, I just believe in the product, the customer service is unlike most, extremely helpful. Check them out at http://allinonewinepump.com/ you won't be disappointed!!! Tom

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Very cool product!

Hello said:

Buying a vinator and using Revvy's suggestion about basically putting the wand right up by the spigot using just a small amount of tubing definitely made my life easier. My third bottled batch went so much better than the others and I was far less frustrated about the labor involved. I really want to keg but I am certain I'll bottle some still. I will say this, I brew outside but all the chilling and such is done in the kitchen. Between that and bottling, I mop my floor a ton more. It's never been cleaner!

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^^ this! I bought the vinator...set up my spigot as Revvy suggested and use all sizes of bottles. Some 12oz sizes for weekday samplers, 16 oz swingtops, 22oz bombers and now a few 1liter swingtops I picked up in Germany. I really love seeing a bottle of beer.

I keg mine and when it's carbe'd up and conditioned (sample it until it's where you want it) I bottle out of the keg.
No waiting weeks and or wondering how it will turn out.
Get a growler filler. Works very well. BTW, turn down the air to about 5 psi and you won't get foam.

pumpkinman2012 said:

I bought an All In One Wine Pump, a vacuum pump obviously for my wine making, and soon afterwards bought the beer bottling attachment....what a pleasure it is to bottle now! I can bottle a 5 gallon batch in under 10 mins, and a few mins more for capping.
That machine gets a ton of use between beer and wine, I usually brew between 6-8 5 gallon batches of beer within a week or two to stock up, it is worth every penny!
I can rack, degass, filter, and bottle my wine, and rack and bottle beer (I don't filter my beer).
I am in no way affiliated with the company, I just believe in the product, the customer service is unlike most, extremely helpful.
Check them out at http://allinonewinepump.com/ you won't be disappointed!!!

Tom

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Did you find you had to adjust your priming sugar upwards at all with the pump?

ps Steve says hi. I bought a pump from him today and he is super helpful, you are right!

Bethebrew, I haven't had to adjust the priming sugar.
If you need help Steve is as helpful as you could want, I can always answer a question or two as well, I use the pump a lot!

Glad I started this post as I have some good tips for the next time I bottle!
Cheers!

My bottling got easier when I started bottling on the Dish washer door.

BamaProud said:

My bottling got easier when I started bottling on the Dish washer door.

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Good idea. I never could figure out why people bottle hunked over on the floor. I sit my bottling bucket on top of my stand up deep freeze, and then run the hose over to my island. I bottle comfortably sitting in a kitchen chair. It makes a huge difference.

I bottled for years, eventually kegged, sold off most of my gear in a divorce, and when I started brewing again, I never went back to kegging. I like the process of bottling, and like the convenience of storage and transport of bottled. I even like making labels.

The two things I used to hate was washing bottles, and sanitizing them. Now it's easy because I wash as I drink and put them away top down to keep out anything, and with a vinator and starsan, sanitizing is a breeze!

DWhitwell said:

Now it's easy because I wash as I drink and put them away top down to keep out anything, and with a vinator and starsan, sanitizing is a breeze!

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Ditto. Love the vinator!:rockin:

Here's a two part bottling video I did some time ago. I've got a bad back & hips,so I need to sit down with everything at arm's length.


It was hot that day too. Lookin a bit greasy...hormonal nosedive not helping either.

pumpkinman2012 said:

Bethebrew, I haven't had to adjust the priming sugar.
If you need help Steve is as helpful as you could want, I can always answer a question or two as well, I use the pump a lot!

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Thanks pumpkinman, I'll keep the priming sugar the same.

No real questions now, I should get it next week and bottle with it next weekend I hope. Waiting on a couple of saisons to finish, so may have a question after that.

Now that I keg I give out less beer, so it's kinda a win-win for me - I just fill a growler if I'm going somewhere and want to bring beer with me
I dislike bottling now that I keg.

I bottle based on style. I don't mind pouring pale ales and IPAs from my tap, but I prefer my belgian beers bottle conditioned and corked.

stazon said:

I bottle based on style. I don't mind pouring pale ales and IPAs from my tap, but I prefer my belgian beers bottle conditioned and corked.

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thats a good point - I don't brew belgians, although I freaking love them (had much ommegang this weekend thanks to my father in law). If the style dictates I bottle, I will probably bottle, although I don't serve my stouts on nitro because I don't have nitro... eventually though, eventually..

I don't mind bottling, but I need a better setup next time. I accidentally knocked over a bottle or two and had no safe place to set my bottling wand down.

firestem4 said:

I don't mind bottling, but I need a better setup next time. I accidentally knocked over a bottle or two and had no safe place to set my bottling wand down.

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If you're holding your bottling wand, I suggest you check out Revvy's sticky on the Bottling forum. Bottling got so much easier when I started using a short stub of tubing between my spigot and my wand. The pics really help in the thread.