YES! A flawless bottling session!

Not a drop hit the floor, not a bottle broken, no leaks, no drips, nothing. Maybe 2 ounces ended up in the dishwasher.

Of course this means the batch is infected and bottles will begin assploding sometime next week while we're out of town.

Hey, bottling is hell, so if you had a good session all the power to you. And I will bet you it turns out great if given enough time.

Good for you!

A couple bottling sessions were enough for me....then I ran out and got a 5 gal corny keg setup. Loving it!

Kauai_Kahuna said:

Hey, bottling is hell, so if you had a good session all the power to you. And I will bet you it turns out great if given enough time.

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Really? I find bottling quite relaxing... something about the fairly mindless repetitive motion is calming. Although I use mostly 22oz bottles, so there's less work. And a nice bench caper definitely makes the job easier!

Kauai_Kahuna said:

Hey, bottling is hell, so if you had a good session all the power to you. And I will bet you it turns out great if given enough time.

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Hell???? There's nothing in this hobby that is "hellish" especially not bottling...If you have issues with bottling like that, it means you haven't gotten your process to work for you.

There's plenty of tips here to do just that.

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

Granted, it's not the most exciting thing to do, but it's also not the worst 45 minutes I spend in a day either....

Like MurderMittenBrewing said, the mindless process can be quite relaxing. I put a basic brewing podcast on and before it's over, I'm finished and my junk is put away.

I don't have a problem bottling, so long as it goes right. Up until this batch, that never happened. I either sprung a leak on my bottling bucket, or bottles broke in my capper. On my second batch, one broke and jammed in the bell of the capper so I couldn't get it out. Fortunately there was only a couple beers worth left in the bottling bucket so we didn't miss much. I didn't remember until the next day that I had some flip tops in the back of a closet that I could have used for the last bit. *facepalm*

This time, the worst thing to happen was that we ran out of sanitized bottles before we emptied the bucket so we had to fetch another sixer of bottles from upstairs and do a quick starsan on 'em.

I got 30 bottles of mixed sizes and one 6-liter tap-a-draft bottle filled and carbonating away. Was amazed me was that we didn't get any on the floor. Usually, at some point we'll spray the kitchen down with sticky beer or something, but I guess practice really does make perfect.

Congrats!

Of all the bottling sessions I've done, I think only the last two have gone really well, so I know how you feel.

Actually, it was after I got a couple of kegs that the bottling really improved... maybe it took the pressure off?

:cross:

Jay

Revvy said:

... and before it's over, I'm finished and my junk is put away.

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I usually put my junk put away PRIOR to bottling... But that's just me.





Sorry, had to be said, Revvy

Revvy said:

before it's over, I'm finished and my junk is put away.

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r2eng said:

I usually put my junk put away PRIOR to bottling... But that's just me.

Sorry, had to be said, Revvy

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If he's finished and his junk is put away before it's over, maybe that's why he's still single?

Yeah, I could'a read it wrong!

The thought of having one's junk out while bottling makes me worry about and "contest" beers he's gonna' bottle!

And to think Laughing Gnome had nothing to do with this thread

I end up bottling a lot, mead is too dangerous for me being on tap and the end product is well worth the amount of effort and I have the process down pat. I just think it is hell.

There's days I like the process of bottling and then there's days (like today) where I think to myself that I need to get a keg for my next batch.

Here's to a good bottling session

Wait, where did everybody go? I just took my junk out.

ChshreCat said:

Not a drop hit the floor, not a bottle broken, no leaks, no drips, nothing. Maybe 2 ounces ended up in the dishwasher.

Of course this means the batch is infected and bottles will begin assploding sometime next week while we're out of town.

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I just bottled 11 gallons of oaked chokecherry wine. It took almost two hours from the start, to putting away 55 bottles of wine. My session went well, too- maybe the stars are aligned today or something- but nothing spilled, no drips, no having the bottling wand disconnect from the spigot and spew red wine all over (don't ask!), no broken bottles, etc. What a great day!

JohnnyO said:

Wait, where did everybody go? I just took my junk out.

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Here I am!!!!!

I hated bottling beers. 53 bottles and a wing capper was too much for me to want to do more than a few times.

Now that I'm bottling mead, the fact that I'm only bottling like 20-25 bottles at a time and using a nice bench corker, I'm having fun bottling again.

I bottled for the first time last night using actual glass bottles and not the PET ones. Everything went great thanks to some very good tips from Revy's thread. I only hope there's no explosions.