bottling time

Hi all,
This is my 1st batch of brew and right now it's in the fermenter doing it's thing. I am just wondering how much time it will take for bottling, from siphoning from fermenter to bottling bucket and then filling each bottle and capping. Seems like it might take awhile, I'm just wondering how much time I should set aside to do this.
thanks.

rookiecd said:

Hi all,
This is my 1st batch of brew and right now it's in the fermenter doing it's thing. I am just wondering how much time it will take for bottling, from siphoning from fermenter to bottling bucket and then filling each bottle and capping. Seems like it might take awhile, I'm just wondering how much time I should set aside to do this.
thanks.

Click to expand...

For your first time, it might take a while! Once you get a rhythm and become more proficient, it should take less than an hour.

What I do is move the fermenter first (to give it a chance to resettle) and then sanitize my bottles. I boil the priming sugar in two cups of water, and sanitize my my bottling bucket and siphon and bottling wand while that is boiling. After sanitizing the bucket, I pour the priming sugar solution in the bucket, and siphon the beer into the bottling bucket. Then I lift that bucket up on the counter, put the bottling wand in the spigot, and fill each bottle on the dishwasher door. I cap those, and do another group of bottles.

why the dishwasher door? is it because it won't reach? If I need to reuse the siphoning hose for bottling, would I have to re-sanitize it?

Do you have a bottling wand?

yes, I have a bottling wand.

Good... from your previous post it sounded to me like you were going to fill your bottles using the hose... glad to hear you're not doing that!

Sanitizing your bottles takes the longest. If you are doing a 5 Gallon batch I don't know that the actual process of "bottling" will take you longer than 20-30 min or so. My wife caps the bottles, but I usually do everything else and it seems like we are done in about half an hour...

I also use the dishwasher door method. It gives you a convenient setup to put the bottling bucket up high and the bottles down low (so gravity is on your side). It also provides a way to contain any dripping beer and sanitizer from the whole process. Check the "Bottling Tips for the Homebrewer" sticky under the Bottling/Kegging category for a lot of pictures and more discussion.

I think about an hour is a good estimate -- your first time will probably take a bit longer while you dial your process in. This is all assuming you're doing a 5 gallon batch.

Just try to get everything prepared ahead of time and take comfort in the zen experience of it all. Good luck!

When I bottle, I go 12 at a time. After I fill the bottle, I place a sanitized cap on it right away, while juggling a new bottle and filling one at the same time... don't worry... you'll do fine!

Bottling is a pain, but its very important to do it right. If you don't, all your hard work will be for naught when your bottles get infected. The first time is going to take a while, but it'll provide good experience, and you'll come up with a system that works for you in no time.

What I do is put all of my bottles in the dishwasher, and let it run through a cycle without soap (soap residue will kill your head retention). The hot steam of the washer will sanitize the bottles. While the dishwasher is running, I prepare my starsan solution, sanitize my siphon, caps, bottling bucket, and anything else that will touch the beer. I siphon the beer into the bucket, and let it sit until the dishwasher is done.

After that, I put the bucket 'O beer on the counter above the dishwasher. Just take the bottles out as you need them, give them a dunk in the starsan, fill em up and cap em. Very quick and painless process.

Here look at this. There is a pic that shows you how it is done.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/bottling-tips-homebrewer-94812/