Bottling Bucket

Hello. Today I just purchased a beginner set of homebrewing equipment. I also made my first 5 gallon batch of german hefeweizen from a kit.

What is the point of a bottling bucket? Why can't I directly siphon it from the carboy to the bottles?

For one, a bottling bucket with a spigot is easier to control the flow than just siphoning. 2, it removes some sediment from the brew, 3, it is a vessel to mix in your priming sugar without stirring up said sediment from the fermenter.

YOu can siphon directly from the carboy to the bottles, but not without difficulty. The bottling bucket allows you to transfer sediment free beer into a container to mix in your priming sugar, then bottle from that without worry for stirring up trub. I see the disadvantage of a bottling bucket with a spigot as it is hard to keep clean. I gave up after my spigot leaked the first time from all of its gaps. I figure I would probably have to buy a new one each time I used it, for fear of beer getting stuck in all the cracks and causing infections later on.

A bottling bucket takes all of 5 minutes to properly clean. The spigot comes apart in about 10 seconds, and I've never had a leak with mine. I only hand tighten the spigot, but I do give it a pretty good torque.

Use a bottling bucket if you're going to bottle condition.

Read Revvy's tips & tricks for bottling.

In order to get clear beer either a brewer will leave his beer in primary for around month or rack it to a secondary after fermentation is complete (around two weeks) either way the time spent doing that allows for particulate matter (like hops) and proteins from fermentation, to fall down to the bottom...

In order to thoughly integrate the beer with the priming sugar and bottling from the peimary or secondary vessel, you would have to stir the beer/priming sugar...which of course means then that you defeated the clearing phase which you patiently waited to happen.

By racking to a bottling bucket you can easily mix the sugar solution and the beer, by letting the natural flow of the beer through the siphon hose do the work for you.

Plus by using a spigoted bottling bucket you can hook your bottling wand to a hose or to the spigot directly rather than trying to bottle AND maintain a siphon (which some "old school" brewers manage to do, but me, nah.)

And a spigot is not really that difficult to clean and sanitize...I just flush it with the oxyclean water I use, then rinse it.

I and others have put together a thread with tips and tricks to make the bottling process quick and easy.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/revvys-tips-bottler-first-time-otherwise-94812/

nebben said:

YOu can siphon directly from the carboy to the bottles, but not without difficulty. The bottling bucket allows you to transfer sediment free beer into a container to mix in your priming sugar, then bottle from that without worry for stirring up trub. I see the disadvantage of a bottling bucket with a spigot as it is hard to keep clean. I gave up after my spigot leaked the first time from all of its gaps. I figure I would probably have to buy a new one each time I used it, for fear of beer getting stuck in all the cracks and causing infections later on.

Click to expand...

XXguy said:

A bottling bucket takes all of 5 minutes to properly clean. The spigot comes apart in about 10 seconds, and I've never had a leak with mine. I only hand tighten the spigot, but I do give it a pretty good torque.

Use a bottling bucket if you're going to bottle condition.

Read Revvy's tips & tricks for bottling.

Click to expand...

xxguy's right don't be intimidated or afraid of the bottling bucket spigot, just based on one brewer's experience....It's really no more difficult to work with than any other piece of equipment. One thig to do if you want to make sure, is to unscrew it from the bottling bucket, then fill a bowl with hot water and oxyclean, make sure the spigot is in the open position, and soak it in there, letting the bubbles free anything.

But normally, if your beer has cleared long enough and you rack carefully there shouldn't be any particulate matter getting lodged in spigot. That should have been all left behind when you racked to the bottling bucket.

And thanks xxguy!!!!

Welcome to HBT!

There are very good reasons for the steps you take in brewing, making great beer is the biggest of them. In case you haven't read it, the online book (also in print) How to Brew - By John Palmer is a great resource to explain why you are doing what you are doing.

nebben, my bottling bucket spigot leaked a lot when I first used it. I took a better look at it after my first bottling batch and saw that there was seam along the threads of the spigot that wasn't allowing the rubber washers to properly seat themselves. After filing that seam down the leak went away. It took a little doing, but it beat buying a new spigot.

And I really appreciate my bottling bucket, and I could actually say I enjoy bottling, especially after using the tips I learned from Revvy's post.

Hi. I kinda forgot to buy a bottling bucket until the last minute. I work in the food industry so I have a few 5 gal buckets that I have lying around. Since none of them have 1 in. holes in the bottom for a spigot, I racked from my secondary into my designated bottling bucket. I should have let it sit, but I did not...but this would proabbly been a bit smarter. then I racked from my "bottling bucket" into bottles using a bottle filler. worked great!

but this is coming from a first batcher...so take this advice as you will.

For me, a bottling bucket is essential. I attach a small section of tubing and the bottling wand directly to the bucket and fill the bottles "factory" style. Get some flip tops and bottling can be a breeze.

Wow. Thank you everyone for the thorough responses. I red them all and they are appreciated. The only foreseable problem with using a bottling bucket for me would be that I couldn't see how (or really try) I would attach a pipe to the plastic spigot that I screwed into the bucket.

I also have an unrelated question. Don't know whether I should start up another thread but I figure it couldn't hurt too bad if I asked here. I used the full boil method for making my first batch. I started with 6 lbs of water in my kettle and I ended up with more than 5 gallons of wort. I'm not really worried about this....should I be? My question is this: My carboy is a 6 lb carboy (I think) so all that wort is pretty high up in the carboy. It has been 12 hours or so right now and the fermenting is going great however I am worried that it may overflow the airlock. I tried putting on a blow off tube over the stopper however my 3/8" ? tubing wouldn't fit into the top of the stopper. Am I doing something wrong? Should I just let it overflow and not worry about it?

Also is it bad at all that I took the stopper / airlock off for like 5 minutes or so to mess around with getting a blow off tube on?

I think a 3 piece airlock needs a 1/2 in ID hose to be used for blow-off, or if you are using a glass carboy or BB Lowe's, Home Depot, Ace should have vinyl hosing that will fit either inside or over the opening to your carboy as a large blow-off hose. I hope you had 6 gallons of water in your kettle and have a 6 gallon carboy, 6 lbs just doesn't seem to be enough!