Before I start, let me just say that I'm quite pleased with my current bottling techniques, which is to say that I think I'm doing it as fast as possible, but not as fast as it could be done. (I'd prefer to spend zero time bottling, or as close to it as possible). I'm following Revvy's very handy bottling guide, bottle washer, dishwasher-as-a-drying-rack, and bottling wand attached to the bucket directly.
However, I have an irresistible desire to tinker, and I've been thinking about ways in which to cheaply automate (or psuedo-automate) the bottling process.
There was a good thread on this a while back, and I'd have resurrected it 'cept it was getting a bit off track. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/bottling-automation-ideas-52840/index3.html
Basically, I want to brainstorm a few things with you guys. First, has anyone tried the multiple wands at the same time thing? How well does it work? My suspicious is that different wands would fill each bottle at different speeds accounting for a bit of pressure difference between wands, and that you couldn't fill 4 bottles (or however many) at the same time because of this. Another problem I would foresee is that the more wands you have filling at the same time, the less pressure you have in each. But maybe someone has tried this and can comment on actual results.
Second, I was thinking about a basic "bottler" that could be constructed super cheap. Here's a crudely drawn picture:
It basically consist of a long, upwards tilting rack of bottles to the right of a hand actuated gate, and an area for full bottles to the left. The user would line up a bunch (20+) bottles on this long gravity-driven "conveyor". Then bottling consist of two steps, one for each hand.
Right Hand: take bottling wand which is on a flexible, long piece of tubing attached to the bucket which is nice and high (more gravity = more flow) and fill the bottle at the bottom
Left Hand: when bottle is full, poke the spring loaded gate pressing against the bottle inwards, allowing the bottle to be pushed through the gate mechanism and thus loading a new bottle where the old one was. The gate springs back automatically (hence the spring) catching the new bottle. Then left hand can place a cap on the bottle while right hand fills the new one. I don't have a bench capper yet, but you could even cap as you go with a bench capper.
This is obviously not a huge improvement over the standard method but I wanted to throw the idea out there. Maybe someone can improve it or think of cheap ways to automate it?
Has anybody tried to automate bottling filling? I'm surprised Yuri hasn't built one with a sensor actuated solenoid or some sort.
However, I have an irresistible desire to tinker, and I've been thinking about ways in which to cheaply automate (or psuedo-automate) the bottling process.
There was a good thread on this a while back, and I'd have resurrected it 'cept it was getting a bit off track. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/bottling-automation-ideas-52840/index3.html
Basically, I want to brainstorm a few things with you guys. First, has anyone tried the multiple wands at the same time thing? How well does it work? My suspicious is that different wands would fill each bottle at different speeds accounting for a bit of pressure difference between wands, and that you couldn't fill 4 bottles (or however many) at the same time because of this. Another problem I would foresee is that the more wands you have filling at the same time, the less pressure you have in each. But maybe someone has tried this and can comment on actual results.
Second, I was thinking about a basic "bottler" that could be constructed super cheap. Here's a crudely drawn picture:
It basically consist of a long, upwards tilting rack of bottles to the right of a hand actuated gate, and an area for full bottles to the left. The user would line up a bunch (20+) bottles on this long gravity-driven "conveyor". Then bottling consist of two steps, one for each hand.
Right Hand: take bottling wand which is on a flexible, long piece of tubing attached to the bucket which is nice and high (more gravity = more flow) and fill the bottle at the bottom
Left Hand: when bottle is full, poke the spring loaded gate pressing against the bottle inwards, allowing the bottle to be pushed through the gate mechanism and thus loading a new bottle where the old one was. The gate springs back automatically (hence the spring) catching the new bottle. Then left hand can place a cap on the bottle while right hand fills the new one. I don't have a bench capper yet, but you could even cap as you go with a bench capper.
This is obviously not a huge improvement over the standard method but I wanted to throw the idea out there. Maybe someone can improve it or think of cheap ways to automate it?
Has anybody tried to automate bottling filling? I'm surprised Yuri hasn't built one with a sensor actuated solenoid or some sort.