Simple Bottle Carbonator for Ez-Cap bottles

This afternoon I built a simple bottle carbonating system for use with 1L Ez-Cap bottles.

The system consists of an upper and a lower plate 7/32 thick. Each is 4"x4", two pieces of 5/16 threaded rod, 2 wing nuts, an O-ring, and a corny keg gas tap with 1/4" NPT male thread.

The lower plate has two threaded holes, each 5/8" from the corner on a diagonal line from corner to corner, threaded to 5/16 national course thread.

The upper plate has the same two holes, but drilled out to slightly larger than 5/16. It also has a hole dead center that is threaded to 1/4" national pipe.

The upper plate has the as tap threaded into the center hole so that a small portion projects through slightly......... enough so that an O-ring will slip over the projecting end.

The two threaded rods thread into the lower plate, and extend upward.

The bottle is set on the lower plate between the threaded rods, and the upper plate is lowered onto the rods with the projecting end with the O-ring fitting into the top of the bottle, and the wing nuts are tightened.

A CO2 connector is snapped onto the gas tap, and you can then force carbonate.

This is intended to allow me to fill bottles from my Tap-a-Draft , then further carbonate from my CO2 tank.

The EzCap bottles are extremely strong........ rated in excess of 100 psi. I pressurized the first one today to 30 psi. I will leave it in the fridge over night, then remove the fixture and cap it in the morning.


H.W.

This project was received with a resounding lack of enthusiasm.......... ;-)

Never the less, I am posting a link to a photo of it:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4u3vvcqvdo9qcu9/carbonated.jpg?dl=0


Interestingly my Ipad which I used for the camera, renamed the file from carbonator to carbonated, (without asking me) and tried to force me to use a 4 letter extension JPEG instead of the proper JPG.

I used it last night with good success.

H.W.

for me, I couldn't visualize what you were describing. now that you have a pic, I "get it". interesting idea.. I wonder if you could make your device smaller, so that it only clips over the neck of the bottle. perhaps something similar to a "mouth piece puller" for brass instruments (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0002DUQC2/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20).. They are made for forcing things apart, but with a little modification you could alter it to clamp things together.. The adjustable part would close around the base of the bottle neck and the top part would hold your carbinator in place.
(this would be not unlike how a wing-capper works)

Excellent suggestion....... and yes I could build one that way.......

My solution was "quick and dirty". It took about an hour in the shop and used material I had on hand.


Force carbonating in the bottle is not practical as a regular procedure unless you can
"gang carbonate" half a dozen bottles at a time.... or more. It also needs a shaker to be practical. Manually shaking the bottles is time consuming....... an annoying task.

My original carbonator was a 3 bottle unit with a single central threaded rod. Like a 3 legged stool, the central rod in an array of 3 applies equal pressure to all three bottles. It actually used grolsch type caps that were drilled, and used a tire valve stem on each. It was completely impractical because you need a steady flow if you are going to do significant carbonation. I will eventually modify it so 3 bottles can be carbonated from a single corny gas connector feeding 3 lines......... Ultimately I would like to double up so I can carbonate a 6 pack.

It is my intent to make a shaker based on an old ATV tire, an electric motor, and an eccentric weight. One of the key features here would be to either invert or lay down the bottles........ laid down is best. The more surface area you have to agitate, the faster the absorption is.

The process is chill, carbonate, chill and let the pressure "settle", then remove the fixture and cap.

EZ-Cap grolsch type bottles are extremely strong.......I'm not nearly as confident in ordinary crown cap bottles......... some are better than others, but I'm sure that any "sound" crown cap beer bottle will handle 30 psi force carbonation...... Of course where does the pressure go when the temp increases? Of course I carbonate at 30 psi because it means less time....... absorption takes place in the fridge, and the pressure drops. Within 12 hours I can pop the fixture off and the pressure is fairly low.... just a few PSI...... which is what I want. Force carbonation is kind of a crap shoot.........There is no way to really quantify it without holding the beer at a fixed temp and pressure until it stabilizes. I use a MIG regulator with a ball type flow meter. My procedure is pretty subjective. I watch the ball in the meter, shake vigorously, and when the ball doesn't rise more than a bar or two no matter how vigorously I shake, I consider it done. I do this with my Tap-a-Draft bottles (1.5 gallon), and often pour right out of the bottle when I don't have a tap available. I can pour a number of beers (about 4) before I need to go out and re-carb.

Personally I would prefer to do all my beer in the Tap-a-Draft bottles, and I'm doing it more and more. I just leave some in cold crash to top up the Tap-a-Draft bottle when it gets low. I either re-force-carbonate or just hook it up to the paintball tank and crank the pressure up a bit. I will be buying two more tanks today. I don't know how long they will last, so having several is important. The reality is that I share beer..... and that means bottles.


H.W.

Owly055 said:

The reality is that I share beer..... and that means bottles.


H.W.

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I feel you there. Very hard to share with out. Though I usually try to just fill bottles or growlers from the keg just prior to going somewhere and that works fairly well. But having stuff already bottled and ready to go is a must if you want to send some home with guests.

this is a cool idea, two things.

will it taste more like kegged beer?

and why not just bottle condition for two weeks ? let it ferment that way.


i also have 3 cases of ez caps, and love them.

I do bottle condition, however bottles filled from my Tap-a-Draft system yield clearer cleaner beer with zero sediment.

I find that 2 weeks is extremely marginal for bottle conditioning, and usually condition for at least 3, and sometimes more.

I'm not sure what that kegged beer taste is......... Presumably the taste of freshness. What else could it be??

This shortens my pipeline by 2-3 weeks. Shortening the pipeline means fresher beer, and many beers are better fresh. Many of my beers are heavily hopped....not bitter, but lots of hop flavor and aroma, some as much as an ounce per gallon. Hop forward beers with lots of hop flavor and aroma are best reasonably fresh in my opinion.


H.W.

justenoughforme said:

this is a cool idea, two things.

will it taste more like kegged beer?

and why not just bottle condition for two weeks ? let it ferment that way.


i also have 3 cases of ez caps, and love them.

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