Bottler's: I commend you all

241 said:

A huge Rubbermaid from target is my best friend when soaking. Costs $7 and you can store your bottles in it between batches

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Great idea -- thanks!

Calichusetts said:

I bottle during the boil...about an hour including everything...getting the bottles from the basement, cleaning, etc. I like bottling, its relaxing. I might even stop bottling during the boil just to make it a separate thing. Every aspect of brewing is fun and relaxing to me. Brewing is such a great experience to me...its not work. No aspect of it.

I like bottles better so I bottle, nothing about time or effort or price or whatever. If any aspect of homebrewing took me 5 hours...I bet those would be a very relaxing and worry free period of the day, probably the best part of it.

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Pretty much my take on bottling.... Well said.

newb said:

Yeah I was just bustin balls man, but actually it is getting ridiculous the tops, and keep an eye out on the 12s now too. I de labeled before I bottled the other day and then filled a 12oz bottle only to find out the ring my wing capper grabs onto under the mouth to crimp, was too thin on a bottle. Had to drink it flat :-/ haha, so then I looked and found 3 more like this in the bunch of bottles, wish I knew what company it was. Anyone else run into this / know what ring I'm talking about?

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All the time. Such a pain.

PistolaPete said:

@ rcrabb22: Use Revvy's bottling techniques and it will go by A LOT quicker and easier. I actually enjoy bottling now that I follow his advice. Of course, It doesn't hurt to have some tunes playing and a homebrew in hand!

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I didn't mean to start a bottle vs keg debate. My original message wasn't written very well. My whining about bottle washing confused the intent to commend full time bottler's whose system makes it easy for them.

There is no doubt Revvy's tips are excellent advice.

I only bottle to gift at Christmas and when the bottles are returned most of them are not rinsed and are pretty funky. I found an over night soak in a hot oxi-clean solution did not get all the debris out of some of them and I needed to brush clean each bottle to make sure. Bottle brushing 150 or so bottles wasn't a lot of fun.

I haven't started kegging yet, but I hope to soon. I keep a bucket full of oxiclean and water, and I drop my bottles in it as I empty them. I let them soak for days until I get about 12 bottles and then I rinse, dry, add bottles to the box, and repeat. I'm doing this constantly, so after a couple weeks I easily have 50+ bottles that just need to be sanitized. Every week or so I dump the oxiclean solution and make a fresh batch.

I imagine kegging is a bit easier, so to speak. That's not really why I want to start kegging, though. The main reason is that I don't have the space for all of the full/empty bottles.

To the OP... Thanks for commending us bottler's!

Well I will interject on this bad natured thread.

I just started kegging, and the fact that I no longer have to bottle is just awesome. Huge time saver.

I decided at the last minute last night to keg some apfelwein and it took about 10 minutes. I never decided to bottle at the last minute - bloody time consuming and it meant I would be occupying the kitchen for 2 hours at least.

Kegging was basically: soak keg in PBW, rinse, soak in star San, rack to keg, hook it up to gas.

I didn't have to rinse 50 bottles, fill individually, cap them, box them, label them and carry to a different room.

I don't really know how kegging could take someone an hour to be honest.

Stauffbier said:

I haven't started kegging yet, but I hope to soon. I keep a bucket full of oxiclean and water, and I drop my bottles in it as I empty them. I let them soak for days until I get about 12 bottles and then I rinse, dry, add bottles to the box, and repeat. I'm doing this constantly, so after a couple weeks I easily have 50+ bottles that just need to be sanitized. Every week or so I dump the oxiclean solution and make a fresh batch.
!

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This is a great idea, thanks. I usually have a slightly used bucket of Oxy or B-brite left over from brew day that is still usable, now I know what to use it for, storing empties!

I can't say I really enjoy bottling, but don't really hate it either. I look on it as the second time I love my beer, the first being brew day, and of course the drinking day is my all time favorite time. I tell people I love my beer three times, when I buy beer I only get to love it once. And buying beer is starting to feel like cheating.

"I only bottle to gift at Christmas and when the bottles are returned most of them are not rinsed and are pretty funky. I found an over night soak in a hot oxi-clean solution did not get all the debris out of some of them and I needed to brush clean each bottle to make sure. Bottle brushing 150 or so bottles wasn't a lot of fun."

Invest the $12 for the faucet attachment bottle jet washer. Do your soak, then move to the jet and you'll save your back. The jet is like a cordless screwdriver compared to a regular screwdriver. There are some must have tools for the beer brewer. Even if you're only doing it once a year, it is best to work as efficent as possible.

For instance I spent 10 minutes last night running my bottles through the jet and into the dishwasher. Run the full cycle overnight. Wake up to clean sanitized bottles. From there a few minutes to create the carbing mix. then around 30 minutes to fill and cap my batch. I work my kitchen layout to my advantage.

And no, I'm not insulted by your comments. I think for you, simplify the process and you won't hate it so much.

cheers.

Bottled a few from the tap recently and some soda from this summer.

My daughter was actually capping this time, with the wing capper. I told her to watch out for some of the bottles because the wing capper can be trouble on some of them.


Right after that one of the bottle just exploded. Not the whole bottle, just the top of it. Pulverized glass EVERYWHERE! Luckily neither of us got it in the eyes, but it was amazing how much powdered glass was made when it broke.

Still prefer the bench capper. Should have just spent the extra 30 seconds and pulled it down from the top shelf of the equipment closet.

Homercidal said:

Bottled a few from the tap recently and some soda from this summer.

My daughter was actually capping this time, with the wing capper. I told her to watch out for some of the bottles because the wing capper can be trouble on some of them.


Right after that one of the bottle just exploded. Not the whole bottle, just the top of it. Pulverized glass EVERYWHERE! Luckily neither of us got it in the eyes, but it was amazing how much powdered glass was made when it broke.

Still prefer the bench capper. Should have just spent the extra 30 seconds and pulled it down from the top shelf of the equipment closet.

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The same thing happened to me. I was bottling a batch and broke 3 bottles in a row. I ordered a bench capper that night and never looked back.

Can't we all just get along?

I would love to have the ability to do both, but as a recent college graduate a kegging system is not even close to within my budget. And yeah, bottling is not that hard, especially if you have a friend, significant other or family member to help. Let them do the fun, easy stuff like filling or capping. It would be cool to have some beers on tap, but of course bottling has its merits too. Others here have mentioned the portability, but some beers really are just better bottle-conditioned too. I imagine I'll get flamed for that one