Bottling Catastrophe

[FlyBoyKnight]

This weekend, my brew buddy and I bottled our first ever IPA recipe. After popping the lid off the fermentor and experiencing the magical and wonderous aroma of what we believed was going to be the BEST IPA I have ever experienced, we proceeded to rack.

After a mostly successful racking, we proceeded to bottle. We put the bottling bucket on the kitchen island counter and proceeded to fill our bottles.

The event occurred at approx 7:15pm when we were "NEARING" the bottom of the bucket. With approx 1.2 gallons remaining in the bucket, as the bottle filler reached for the next bottle off the bottle tree, the bottle filler pulled the tubing attached to the bucket too hard and......... off the counter the bucket went.

SPLASH goes the beer........ALL over the kitchen floor! Our wonderful hoppy creation CUT down in the prime of its life!!! Unfortunately, I do not have pics of the incident or the aftermath because I was sobbing in the corner for the remainder of the evening. :smack:

Fortunately, we were able to salvage the remaining 3.8 gallons.

In the future, I think we will be trying Revy's advice of attaching the bottle filler directly to the bottle bucket spigot. Either that or get a longer bottle filler tubing length.....or not put the bucket on that part of the counter.

Anyone else have any similar catastrophes occur in the line of bottling duty?

 

[mdbrewer1]

This weekend, my brew buddy and I bottled our first ever IPA recipe. After popping the lid off the fermentor and experiencing the magical and wonderous aroma of what I believed was going to be the BEST IPA I have ever experienced, we proceeded to rack.

After a mostly successful racking, we proceeded to bottle. We put the bottling bucket on the kitchen island counter and proceeded to fill our bottles.

The event occurred at approx 7:15pm when we were "NEARING" the bottom of the bucket. With approx 1.2 gallons remaining in the bucket, as the bottle filler reached for the next bottle off the bottle tree, the bottle filler pulled the tubing attached to the bucket too hard and......... off the counter the bucket went.

SPLASH goes the beer........ALL over the kitchen floor! Our wonderful hoppy creation CUT down in the prime of its life!!! Unfortunately, I do not have pics of the incident or the aftermath because I was sobbing in the corner for the remainder of the evening. :smack:

Fortunately, we were able to salvage the remaining 3.8 gallons.

In the future, I think we will be trying Revy's advice of attaching the bottle filler directly to the bottle bucket spigot. Either that or get a longer bottle filler tubing length.....or not put the bucket on that part of the counter.

Anyone else have any similar catastrophes occur in the line of bottling duty?

Sorry to hear about your beer. I've been lucky so far. *Knock on wood*

What I do is bring my fermenting bucket up and put it on the counter and let it sit for a couple hours. I then put my bottling bucket on a kitchen chair and siphon into it. I then hook up the tubing and bottle from there. I'm 6 batches in and its gone pretty smoothly so far using that method.

 

[ncboiler]

What I do is bring my fermenting bucket up and put it on the counter and let it sit for a couple hours. I then put my bottling bucket on a kitchen chair and siphon into it. I then hook up the tubing and bottle from there. I'm 6 batches in and its gone pretty smoothly so far using that method.

Pretty much my exact same method.

 

[flars]

Go with attaching the wand to the bucket spigot with a two inch piece of tubing. Only need one hand to fill the bottles this way.

 

[kaconga]

Go with attaching the wand to the bucket spigot with a two inch piece of tubing. Only need one hand to fill the bottles this way.

This! I used to need help on bottling day to do it efficiently. Now I knock it out solo in less time than when I had the help.

 

[Remmy]

Sorry to hear about your beer. I've been lucky so far. *Knock on wood*

What I do is bring my fermenting bucket up and put it on the counter and let it sit for a couple hours. I then put my bottling bucket on a kitchen chair and siphon into it. I then hook up the tubing and bottle from there. I'm 6 batches in and its gone pretty smoothly so far using that method.

x2