how long does it take others to bottle a 5 gallon batch?

tonight I bottled my 4th batch (started brewing in January.). how long does it take others?
I bottle by myself. from boiling the priming sugar to capping the last bottle it took 2 hours. that time included drinking 3 pints as well.

I don't drink enough to keg (or invest in kegging equipment.) are there long time home brewers who still bottle? its a pain, but I'm happy once I finish.


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I Started with a Keg but after a Infection and a Bad fridge I just bottle, It takes longer but I don't think I will lose a whole batch. The keg tasted Great and was too darn convenient. I will Keg again but it will be a while. It takes me probably 4 hours but I am unorganized.

I still bottle, and it usually takes me three hours if I work with clean bottles. That includes clean up.

3 pints in two hours? That's keg level drinking!

Seriously, one hour. I'm organized.

If I'm timing myself and trying to be efficient, I can bottle 5 gallons in 90 minutes including cleaning if my bottles are already clean and just need to be sanitized. When I use my bottles, I rinse or clean as needed as I go, so that I don't have to mess with it on bottling day. I put them upside down in the case so I know they are clean and to keep dust out.

Im about two hours from the time I bring the fermenter into the kitchen until the time Im done with clean up and sitting on the couch. That includes sanitizing bottles but does not include designing, printing, or applying labels. I hate bottling BTW.

I would say a couple of hours is normal. I keg now but the next brew is going into bottles. It is a coffee porter and my kegs are full. I also have a red IPA that will be kegged when one becomes available.

2 hours from start to finish (usually). Including clean up.
The part I like the least is labeling. I create 1 1/2" X 2" labels in excel, twenty-one to a sheet and cut them to individual labels (mostly at work). So that time doesn't count. Then, I use two small pieces of scotch tape to hold them in place on the bottles. Thirty five bottles = 72 pieces of tape (one label goes in my log book). I usually have a beer or two to help the mindless time pass more quickly. Add an extra hour or so to the bottling time. Labeling doesn't usually happen for least another three weeks though.

Only timed that I bottled was last weekend and that was an Oktoberfest. The nice wife helped me out. Bottles were pre-cleaned. I dipped them in Star-san and sat them on my bottle washer while she filled them. Then I would grab the full one and cap it. Took us about 40 minutes total from fermenter to bottle bucket to a big thank you for the help.

I purchased the All In One Wine Pump, a vacuum pump originally to rack, degass, filter and bottle wine, it made all of those tasks so easy and fast, that I purchased the beer bottle attachment, I can bottle and cap a 5 gallon batch in under 15 mins, not to mention that I no longer have to lift heavy carboys to rack them, and I can filter if I need to.
Check it out at www.allinonewinepump.com

Not including sterilizing the bottles and using 22oz bottles, probably 45 minutes. I bake my bottles to sterilize them and usually do it overnight. Outside of that, its a pretty quick process, especially with 22 oz bottles.

I've tried a variety of modifications to streamline my workflow. The entire process (organizing, cleaning, sanitizing, racking, bottling, capping, clean-up) always comes in about 2 hours.

Guess I'm speedy. I can usually bottle up a 5 gallon batch in 1 1/4 - 1 1/2 hours if I'm alone. That includes equipment migration to the kitchen, sanitizing, priming sugar chart reference, bottling and capping. Never bothered to label anything, just put a post it note on the case in the closet for reference.

If I can get a friend to help out it puts things at 45 minutes on the dot. Sequence is they sanitize while I rack and get priming sugar ready, then I fill while they cap as bottles are ready for it. Parallel tasks at their finest.

45 minutes to an hour depending on interruptions. I tend to get all of my ducks in a row the day before, sanitize bottles and caps quickly with spray starsan over the kitchen sink, then spray out the bottling bucket, rack to it and fill furiously. I cap off once i've reached the end of the case and then move on to filling the second cases bottles.

Getting a vinator and bottle tree took a ton of time off my bottling. I did two 5-gallon batches in about an hour. Used to take an hour or more for one, with all the bottle sanitizing. I could probably do a single batch in half an hour or less if I was really pressed for time.

I usually bottle when I brew. I clean my bottles when I drink them so I always have clean bottles ready. I rack to my bottling buckel while my mash water is heating up. Once I start my mash I start bottling. I squirt starsan in the bottles and set them in my dishwasher rack. I work in batches of twelve and it usually only takes me. about 30 minutes to bottle and cap a batch. It is easy because the Starsan is mixed for brewing and I clean up during the boil.

Easy.

One hour, start to finish.


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I've been brewing 8 years. I've only considered moving to kegging a couple of times. I like to have a lot of variety and I usually have beers that stick around for a year. Besides, bottling is very Zen and relaxing for me.

It's usually 3 - 4 hours for me to bottle 10 gallons.

thanks for the feedback. streamlining the process hopefully will come in time. also, the mention of a vinator and a bottling tree should cut down on the time.


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My actual bottling time is 30 minutes or so. I have the priming solution already boiled and cooled, and the bottles are waiting for me in the dishwasher, and the fermenter is racking onto the priming sugar.
So I really don't know how long it really takes, but I too have had 3 or 4 hour bottling days as well. It just depends on how organized (or not) I am that day.

1 hour if I stay on task. It's been some time though. I keg now.

Probably around 1 hour (use 500 mL swing-tops, wife helps), although that could come down if I was more organized. My process is something like:

• Fill electric kettle and set to boil
• Go grab my brew kettle and all the fittings/bottles/etc. that I need for bottling
• Use now-boiled water to start a priming solution and cover SS fittings to sterilize. Bring priming solution to boil on stove, then remove from heat
• Make batch of sanitizer in brew kettle. Sanitize kettle, siphon, bottling wand, etc.
• Attach fittings to kettle (F-F elbow on inside as a dip tube, street elbow with 3/8" barb on outside for bottling wand), and start dumping sanitizer into 2 gallon bucket, using a bit to fill vinator-type bottle sanitizer
• Remove swing-tops from bottles and toss into sanitizer bucket as it fills
• Attach bottle rinser to sink and put vinator nearby. Rinse and sanitize all bottles, put to dry on bottle tree sprayed with sanitizer.
• Attach bottling wand to kettle, dump in priming sugar solution and siphon beer from fermenter to kettle.
• Open kettle valve and start bottling. Usually wife sits and fills bottles, I hand her fresh bottles, attach swing-tops and put full bottles back into cases.
• Rinse out kettle, bottling wand and siphon. Rinse yeast cake from fermenting bucket and clean out residue with PBW while it's still fairly wet.

If I'm really on top of things, the steps flow nicely and it doesn't take long. We put on music and chat, so it's more of a fun weekend activity than a boring slog.

This gets everything set up and cleaned so I can brew my next batch the same/next day. If I'm brewing that soon, I reserve the bucket of sanitizer for use on the brew day, only takes a half-ounce of star san for a batch, start to finish.

timcook said:

thanks for the feedback. streamlining the process hopefully will come in time. also, the mention of a vinator and a bottling tree should cut down on the time.


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A bottling tree helps. I found a faster way to sanitize my bottles after my vinator broke. I make about 2 gallons of starsan in my 5 gallon kettle, then, with two at a time, dunk and fill a bottle in each hand about a quarter of the way full, put my thumb over the opening and shake, then pour back out and onto the bottle tree. I can sanitize bottles twice as fast this way. I do this while my priming sugar is boiling.
I've found that you don't need to let the priming sugar cool much, maybe just a tad, but it doesn't make any difference.

It takes me about an hour to get all my beer in bottles (for 3.5 or so gallons) then a bit longer to clean everything up.

I've been kegging since 2010 (bottled for the first couple years), but am finding myself going back to bottling more these days. I like to cold crash for a few days (leaves very little sediment in the bottles), then use a keg as a bottling "bucket". Limits the amount of oxygen pickup, easy to mix in priming sugar with purging the keg of O2 and giving the keg a swirl, and it's metal (I hate plastic...).

They each have their place. I get annoyed when people knock bottling like it's inferior to kegging.

It always took more time than I cared to spend, usually 2-3 hours. I switched to kegging. But, it took me almost 2 hours just the other day to keg my batch, from cleaning the keg thoroughly, sanitizing, transferring, cleaning the carboys, and then putting it all away to look as if I'd never been in the kitchen. It seems like everything that is brew related takes at least 2 hours. And brew day itself is 6.

In the meantime, I came home yesterday and my kitchen smelled like a bar with old beer! I must have spilled some somewhere.

I'm in the 2hr camp. Vinator helps a lot. Actual bottling is about an hr, but with prep, moving & clean up, it's 2hrs.

It takes me 2-3 hours. That is from start to finish. The bottling tree is great, but my vinator broke after a few uses. I know a lot of people like the vinator, and although I think it is a good idea, I think its built with poor quality materials/bad design for homebrewing. Really bottling goes fast, its the cleaning that takes most of my time.

pumpkinman2012 said:

I purchased the All In One Wine Pump, a vacuum pump originally to rack, degass, filter and bottle wine, it made all of those tasks so easy and fast, that I purchased the beer bottle attachment, I can bottle and cap a 5 gallon batch in under 15 mins, not to mention that I no longer have to lift heavy carboys to rack them, and I can filter if I need to.
Check it out at www.allinonewinepump.com

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NICE!!!

This gets me thinking of a DIY...

It used to take me about 2+ hours to do it by myself, I used a bottle tree with the spray bowl thing on top. If I started with clean bottles then it's just a matter of taking them out of the case and push them down on the sanitizer spray and put them on the tree. Start filling and capping.

I keg now and even if you only drink one or two a week it would be worth it IMHO.

I still have tons of bottles and do bottle from time to time as well as keg so even if you end up kegging you will still bottle here and there I would guess.

rekoob,
Having a vacuum pump in your "tool chest" is a must in my opinion, since I make a good deal of wine and beer each year, the All In One Wine Pump has paid for itself many times over! My buddy kegs and still uses his All in one as well.

Stocktonbrew said:

Really bottling goes fast, its the cleaning that takes most of my time.

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This. Precisely.

I soak & brush all bottles in DIY-PBW; collect empties, rinsed, in 5G pail, when pail full, do a batch of bottles; store upside down in boxes. THen just sanitize on bottling day. Even so, moving things into kitchen & cleaning up and moving out afterwards adds nearly an hr to overall process of bottling.

About 2-2.5 hours.

I start with clean bottles though. I don't mess with cleaning them the day of. I do keg but not everything. My kitchen is not quite set up to allow me to do more of an assembly line so the clean bottles are to the left of the sink, the left side sink is clear, the right side has a cutting board over it to hold the vinator and the sanitized bottles (about 12-18 at a time), then the bottling bucket, bowl of caps in sanitizer, and filled bottles on the counter beside that. Then once I get 12-18 filled, I set the caps (they're only placed on top lightly before) and put the bottles in the left side of the sink for a bath. They're set on a towel to dry a bit, then boxed.

I probably have a beer or two or a sample of the beer I'm bottling and a beer or two.

I think the racking to the bottling bucket, getting the priming sugar ready, and getting all that stuff sanitized for use is probably the biggest time suck. I use a long wallpaper tray full of star san for hoses and canes. That does help.

Many towels, lots of crap on the floor because either I'm messy or just careless...

Oh about two hours I'm disorganized. And I don't have much counter space. So.. Two +. Sometimes 3. Plus clean up

I'm about 2 hrs after about 1.5yrs of brewing and around 20 brews. I don't keg because I like to have a variety to drink and for the most part only drink one beer a day.

Setup and cleanup take longer than actually bottling 5 gal for me. If I have to clean out carboys rather than buckets it takes longer just because cleaning the "curves" of the glass can take some time if the remaining krausen doesn't come off easily.

I load my dishwasher up with 50-55 bottles the day before or morning of bottling, no soap just let water run and let the heat sanitize them, then put into case boxes after dishwasher finishes. First thing I do after this is get my priming sugar boiling, while that's coming up to a boil I make up about 2 gallons of StarSan in my bottling bucket, scrub that down really well, then dump sanitizer into a tub that will hold about 18 bottles. I put 18 bottles, auto-siphon, and tubing into the sanitizer and take the priming sugar off the burner. Let it sit on my basement floor to cool it slightly while I get the auto siphon and bottling bucket ready. Transfer beer to bottling bucket, and start filling. I usually fill and place caps loosely on top until i fill 18 then cap them.

From reading through this I have a question. If I sanitize in my dishwasher the morning of, then store bottles in case boxes upside down, do I need to soak in StarSan as I'm filling? I ask because having to soak and pour out the sanitizer as I'm filling is probably the part of my process I dislike the most.

I've got the process so this doesn't really add anytime, but it's creates some extra work by having to take the bottles out of the box, organize them in the tub so I can get 18 in it, use one hand to pour out sanitizer and the other hand to fill.

bolus14 said:

From reading through this I have a question. If I sanitize in my dishwasher the morning of, then store bottles in case boxes upside down, do I need to soak in StarSan as I'm filling? I ask because having to soak and pour out the sanitizer as I'm filling is probably the part of my process I dislike the most.

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The problem with dishwashers is that they most likely don't wash the inside of the bottle well. You would be lucky if a water jet actually sprays the inside of the bottle. If you wash them by hand ahead of time, and are comfortable with how clean the inside of the bottle is, then your dishwasher would be fine. I would bottle straight from the dishwasher and not box ahead of time unless you re-sanitize them.

Thanks. I do a pretty good rinse after drinking each bottle, but don't "clean" them. And I agree no water is getting into the bottle in the dishwasher, but because of how hot it gets that will sanitize them.

I also ferment and bottle at someone else's house. I don't have a good space for fermenting temps so rather than rigging something up I ferment and bottle at my in-laws. Otherwise I would go right from the dishwasher.

Stocktonbrew said:

It takes me 2-3 hours. That is from start to finish. The bottling tree is great, but my vinator broke after a few uses. I know a lot of people like the vinator, and although I think it is a good idea, I think its built with poor quality materials/bad design for homebrewing. Really bottling goes fast, its the cleaning that takes most of my time.

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I think at this point "vinator" is more of a genericized trademark. I've got a similar device that I picked up at my local wine shop which is much sturdier and better designed IMO (e.g. has a little plastic grate to prevent sanitizer from splashing around) I guess I should look more closely to see what brand it is. The action is not quite as smooth as on the "real-deal" vinator, but it didn't cost much and seems a lot less flimsy.

Elfer let me know what brand it is. If you like it I will give it a try.

Stocktonbrew said:

Elfer let me know what brand it is. If you like it I will give it a try.

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I guess it's still called a vinator, it's just the table top version instead of the bottling tree/clear plastic dish one:

http://homebrewsupplies.ca/product/1273-avvinator-bottle-rinser/

I'm not sure if this is the one you had, but I've bottled something like 15 batches with no hint of a problem.

Depends on what size bottles you use. I use 32oz flip tops. Doesn't take long at all but sanitizing flip tops is a little more involved.


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Grolsch 15.2oz swing top bottles is where it's at. Swing tops are way worth the investment. The bad thing is recollecting your bottles back. I keep brown 12oz bottles on hand if i am taking them to an event. I hate capping and it is sometimes iffy if you don't get a seal. I just elevate my bottling bucket. Line up the bottles on the floor and go to town with the wand. It is flawless.

Too long!


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