Transferring to bottles

Aaaaargh...I can't believe this is my first post....but I might as well get this embarrasment out of the way I just racked my first brew, an amber ale, from a plastic bucket primary to a 5 gal glass secondary and am wondering, how do you fill 48 bottles on bottling day with a 3/8" racking cane and hose? Is this possible or do I need more equipment? Thanks for any help (and I'll allow ample time for hearty laughter )!

It's possible, but you will make a mess and spill a lot of your precious beer. What you need is a bottling wand. It has a tip on the end with a piece inside of it that is kept in place by the pressure of gravity from the siphon. But when you press it to the bottom of a beer bottle it rises up and presto! You have beer flowing through the wand. When it's full you pull it out and the piece is forced back into place by the pressure, the beer stops flowing. More than likely you'll still make a mess, but it will be much, much smaller.

Mr_Turtlehead said:

Aaaaargh...I can't believe this is my first post....but I might as well get this embarrasment out of the way I just racked my first brew, an amber ale, from a plastic bucket primary to a 5 gal glass secondary and am wondering, how do you fill 48 bottles on bottling day with a 3/8" racking cane and hose? Is this possible or do I need more equipment? Thanks for any help (and I'll allow ample time for hearty laughter )!

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You need a bottling wand such as Rewster adivised. Makes it simple. Fill it ot the top and when you pull it out, presto....the perfect amount of beer to cap.

Thank you both. I found exactly what you are talking about. Can this be used with an auto siphon? I may as well get one of those as well at the same time. Cheers.

Many folks - well, me anyway - transfer to a tank specifically for bottling. They commonly have a gravity tap at the bottom. Attach the hose to that, the other end into the bottling wand, put the whole thing up higher than your bottles, and off to the races.

Sanitize everything of course.

SteveM said:

Many folks - well, me anyway - transfer to a tank specifically for bottling. They commonly have a gravity tap at the bottom. Attach the hose to that, the other end into the bottling wand, put the whole thing up higher than your bottles, and off to the races.

Sanitize everything of course.

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This is what I do...place my priming sugar solution in the bucket and then rack from the secondary fermenter into the bottling bucket. Might lose a wee bit of beer in the transfer, but I leave behind whatever else has settled out in the secondary and it's easy to stir to mix in the priming solution. I also use a plastic bucket as my primary fermenter, and then I use it for bottling. If your bucket has a tap it will work just fine, and if not you could buy one at the HBS and install it yourself if you were so inclined.

Yes it can be used with an auto siphon, just make sure its in a bottle and "open" ie bottom all the way down before pumping your auto siphon or you'll be wondering whats stuck.

SteveM said:

Many folks - well, me anyway - transfer to a tank specifically for bottling. They commonly have a gravity tap at the bottom. Attach the hose to that, the other end into the bottling wand, put the whole thing up higher than your bottles, and off to the races.

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Ah, yee old bottling bucket, as the name indicates, for bottling. I couldn't live with out one... well I could but my wife would give me a hard time if she caught me licking up the beer off the floor.

catfish said:

...well I could but my wife would give me a hard time if she caught me licking up the beer off the floor.

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Ain't it the truth. Squeezing out a sponge into you mouth can have the same set of consequences.

By the way, Mr. T - you will probably want more than 48 bottles unless you have pint sized ones. You will probably need more like 56 (plus or minus a couple) twelve ounce ones.