DIY Automated bottling for under 100$ is it possible ?

I just saw a video of a guy who made a Drink maker using a microcontroller and 2 windshield washer pump.

http://www.matthewdavidwilliams.com/2008/10/17/introducing-barduino-the-ruby-powered-bar-monkey/

It made me think about using it at bottling time with beer on one side and the priming sugar on the other. Press the button and your ready to cap. Even a simpler version where you just need one pump so you put you priming sugar in the hole batch as usual...

But im kegging so i prefer individual priming because i never know how much beer is left after filling my keg.

So now for the capping do anyone have an idea about how we could automate that process for cheap... something like a DIY electric capper.

The bill so far

Arduino : 34.99$
Pump: 9.75$ X 2
Electronic part: 20.51$
__________
Total: 75$ 2 Pump version (65.25$ One pump version)

I was thinking about modifying a benchcapper i already have so there is 25$ left to be on my 100$ target.

Any idea is welcome !
Thanks

Interesting idea... Its a good way to bottle and cap a few batches in just a few minutes. But how would you keep the bottles moving?

That was my question as well. How do you keep the bottles moving.

The issue with bottling isn't that the act of filling a bottle is particularly arduous, its that you have to repeat it 48 times. Sure, the microcontrolled setup is pretty slick, but its only doing 2 bottles at a time. The real trick is doing 24 bottles at a time.

Using an unsanitary pump to mix a drink your going to drink right now is ok, I guess. Bottling beer that is going to sit around for awhile is another thing entirely. Swap out your wiper fluid pumps for peristaltic pumps and bam there goes the budget. A lower cost option might be to push the beer with CO2 and use electronic valves.

broadbill said:

The issue with bottling isn't that the act of filling a bottle is particularly arduous, its that you have to repeat it 48 times. Sure, the microcontrolled setup is pretty slick, but its only doing 2 bottles at a time. The real trick is doing 24 bottles at a time.

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??? The link the OP posted was using two bottles as a source to mix a cocktail, it wasn't filling the bottles, it was emptying them. A local micro uses a 6 head filler, for a home brew scale filling one bottle at a time is fine, and if it is automated it is even less tedious.

I swear someone came up with an automated bottling station and posted it on here, but it was more than 100 IIRC....if I can think of the key words I'll try to find it. It was a few years back.

Here....

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/semi-automatic-bottling-line-141364/

camiller said:

??? The link the OP posted was using two bottles as a source to mix a cocktail, it wasn't filling the bottles, it was emptying them. A local micro uses a 6 head filler, for a home brew scale filling one bottle at a time is fine, and if it is automated it is even less tedious.

Click to expand...

whoops, I guess I didn't look at it too carefully. I get it now....

First, it seems to me that you wouldn't have to/want to bother with the mixing part of of this....why not prime first and just dispensing the primed beer into bottles? I doubt you could accurately and consistenly dispense priming super solution into each bottle.

Second, I think my other point still applies...its not the actual filling part that is the issue with bottling, its that you have to do it over and over.

I think a ghetto way to fill multiple bottles at once would be a much better way to spend $100 than a fancy way to fill one bottle.

Maybe I'm not seeing the genius here, or how this could actually be adapted to bottling home brew.

But im kegging so i prefer individual priming because i never know how much beer is left after filling my keg.

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I never understood this. I always do different size batches and mixes of different bottle sizes, etc. and never have this problem.

It's very simple:

Keg from a container with volume markings on it. When you get done kegging, look at the markings to see how much beer is left in the container, and prime for that volume.

A mixture of the two would be optimal. A computer controlled device to tell the pump how much in each bottle and a design that can fill 12 bottles at once. That would make quick work of the standard 50 or so bottles that we fill for every batch.

It's simple, build a manifold that delivers liquid evenly. Use a controller to fire the pump for x number of seconds. A BCS 460 would do it easily with very little programming.

Or gravity feed through the manifold and manually control with a valve.

Not sure how much of a timesaver it would be, though.

Ok this may not be exactly what you are needing since you had stated that you wanted to use brew and priming sugar but then later you stated that you kegged so it got me to thinking. I have been toying with the idea of building a small bottling/capping line for if and when I make big batches and want to spread the wealth. I keg everything currently so the setup is designed for my specifications but can be modified to fit just about anyone's.

Everyone forgive my terrible MsPaint skills but I had been mulling it over for a few hours and decided to get it down on paper before I forgot.



Yellow boxes - valves
Red blob - a float to sense the level of the brew
Brown Box - Sealed Canister

This is kind of a run down of how it would work. You have to use your imagination! The apparatus that you see above the table should function similar to how the big boys do it. I imagine the reservoir being fixed and the air and liquid hoses coming out of the bottom of it moving up and down to fill the bottles.

1 - Co2 connects from tank to valve at reservoir(1)
2 - Hose connects open faucet on kegorator to input port of reservoir(2)
3 - Open top valve(5) on reservoir to purge pressure to allow the brew to fill
4 - Float will cease filling by triggering top valve(5) to close
5 - As the apparatus lowers Co2 is blown into the reservoir(1) which in turn purges the bottle(4) and as it seals on the bottle. It would increase the pressure of the reservoir to operating pressure.
6 - Pressure switch closes Co2 valve (1)
7 - Open valve(3) to fill bottle - This allows the Co2 in the bottle to flow up(4) as beer flows down(3) until the level of the beer reaches the stem in the bottle.
8 - Close valve(3) after time given to equalize
9 - Open valve(5) which lets beer flow in(2) since it is now "unsealed". This will flow until the float switch signals to stop
10 - Switch bottle
11 - Open (3) Repeat.......

This is an idea I had earlier so please forgive my ignorance if I missed something. The same principle should be able to be used for a large number of filler tubes as long as the reservoir can maintain the capacity.

Now for the $100 issue, you already know about an arduino and then you will need 2 valves plus one for each feeder and then whatever hoses and fittings that you would need. I assume you could set it up to where you manually put the bottle in and it starts filling so in essence you wouldn't need it to move at all. As for the reservoir I was thinking a cheap food storage container that you can buy at Wal Mart or wherever. As long as it had a flat surface to smash some fittings together on and sealed tight then it should work. So really you need an arduino, 3 valves, hose, fittings, container, a few sensors/switches, and a lot of time and tinkering.

I think you could do the same thing with brew/sugar if you used a pump or a heck of a gravity feed. Plausible though.

This is merely a thought and can be adapted to many different methods so feel free to shoot holes in my theory or take off and run with it to build one! Cheers!!!

I guess I should have prefaced my reply but the reason that it is so complex is to be able to have a scalable solution that is very simple from the standpoint in that you don't have to have sensors at the bottle to determine when they are full. This should fill to the stem and then equalize. As long as the tank pressure is set correctly then the only sensor that I would think you would HAVE to have would be the float sensor.

Wow that Double IPA last night must have thrown me for a loop. Realized a mistake on the way in to the office, but that doesn't imply there are not others... The sketch above is missing a valve. There needs to be one to close off the beer inlet valve to the reservoir, my thinking was that being sealed it would hold back the beer by equalizing the pressure. This would fail since the equalizing stem used to transfer air back and forth from the bottle would allow the inlet to overflow the reservoir and blow out of the air stem. By placing a valve there and accounting for it in the fill/purge sequence, I believe that little contraption would work....

On a 'semi-related' note, when I was a yute, I had a '62 chevy II bracket racer.. So as to avoid open containers (the law was not so harsh back then), I installed a cool can under the hood (think an IC in a bucket only smaller scale)... those of you who have ever been into drag racing know what I'm talking about...

and rerouted the windshield wiper reservoir/pump tubing through it.. I would fill the reservoir with beer, wine, or mixed drinks, and the cool can with ice water and ice, and had the tubing that went to the wiper rerouted to exit under the dash (over the tranny tunnel)...

So all I had in the car was dixie cups.. when I or a passenger wanted a drink, I just held the cup under the end of the tube, and hit the windshield washer switch... presto! Ice cold mixed drink.. no bottle or can!

I even had an extension tube for it, so that I could just pop the tube in my mouth and hit the switch... great for long drives...

r8rphan said:

On a 'semi-related' note, when I was a yute, I had a '62 chevy II bracket racer.. So as to avoid open containers (the law was not so harsh back then), I installed a cool can under the hood (think an IC in a bucket only smaller scale)... those of you who have ever been into drag racing know what I'm talking about...

and rerouted the windshield wiper reservoir/pump tubing through it.. I would fill the reservoir with beer, wine, or mixed drinks, and the cool can with ice water and ice, and had the tubing that went to the wiper rerouted to exit under the dash (over the tranny tunnel)...

So all I had in the car was dixie cups.. when I or a passenger wanted a drink, I just held the cup under the end of the tube, and hit the windshield washer switch... presto! Ice cold mixed drink.. no bottle or can!

I even had an extension tube for it, so that I could just pop the tube in my mouth and hit the switch... great for long drives...

Click to expand...

You sir are epic in my book. That is sooo awesome! Pics? Sorry for following the off shoot of the thread...

Yeah, there's nothing like drinkin' and drivin' (sadly, I cannot say I've never done that)

fortunately, with age comes wisdom.