Perhaps a Beer Gun/Counter Pressure alternative

[chefchris]

I've never had luck with the BMBF. Always loses carbonation. Basically the only difference between the BMBF and the Beer Gun/Counter Pressure setup is the purge of CO2 before and after the fill.

Here's what I thought ...

Get an empty keg and put some pressure on it. Use the piece of racking cane and #2 stopper shoved in the cobra tap like in the BMBF. Flush the bottle with CO2 from the empty keg through a cobra tap, fill with the racking cane, then top it off with a little more C02 from the empty keg and cap.

You might not even need the stopper. If you look at the beer gun it's just a piece of pipe stuck in a bottle, nothing capping the bottle off.

Just a thought I had.


That being said, my beer gun should be here this week.

 

[Scut_Monkey]

I've never intimately seen how a beer gun works but from how they appear to work this would be equivalent. Does the beer gun provide some other type of back pressure to help keep down foaming? I would think it has to otherwise you would have so much within the bottle.

 

[chefchris]

I've never intimately seen how a beer gun works but from how they appear to work this would be equivalent. Does the beer gun provide some other type of back pressure to help keep down foaming? I would think it has to otherwise you would have so much within the bottle.

It just suggests that you use 10' of beer line to keep foaming down. I used 6 feet and it worked fine. It's basically a pipe. You press a button to flood the bottle with co2, pull the trigger to dispense beer, then push the button again to cap off the beer with co2. There's no stopper on it, just a skinny pipe reaching to the bottom of the bottle.

Here's a video demonstrating the beer gun, except he doesn't hit it with co2 before capping it.

 

[ajwillys]

Yeah, I basically do what you're saying. I use a BMBF with pre and post CO2 purge. To do this, I set my reg to about 2 psi and use a tee running to two beer hoses. One runs to the keg with beer in it, the other is just a hose with an on/off on the end. I use this hose for purging. I've thought about combining the two by using a needle pushed through the stopper, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

EDIT: The beer gun doesn't use counter pressure. It counts on slow moving beer (from a long hose) and the fact that the beer is deposited directly to the bottom of the bottle, minimizing foaming.

 

[smmcdermott]

Yeah, I basically do what you're saying. I use a BMBF with pre and post CO2 purge. To do this, I set my reg to about 2 psi and use a tee running to two beer hoses. One runs to the keg with beer in it, the other is just a hose with an on/off on the end. I use this hose for purging. I've thought about combining the two by using a needle pushed through the stopper, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

EDIT: The beer gun doesn't use counter pressure. It counts on slow moving beer (from a long hose) and the fact that the beer is deposited directly to the bottom of the bottle, minimizing foaming.

So out of curiosity, it I use a long hose and gently get the beer to the bottom of the bottle, it would be the same as using the gun and I can bottle beer from my keg?

 

[chefchris]

So out of curiosity, it I use a long hose and gently get the beer to the bottom of the bottle, it would be the same as using the gun and I can bottle beer from my keg?

Do a search for 'BMBF' or 'We don't need a stinkin' beer gun'

I've never had luck with that method, though.

 

[Scut_Monkey]

So out of curiosity, it I use a long hose and gently get the beer to the bottom of the bottle, it would be the same as using the gun and I can bottle beer from my keg?

It would be the same except you would not have ability to purge the bottle with CO2 before and after filling. By purging you can ensure oxidation is minimized. Also, it allows the headspace to be filled with CO2 which ensures that CO2 from the beer will not diffuse into it changing the carb level of the beer itself.

 

[wildwest450]

I've never had luck with that method, though.

Thats strange, I just cracked a barleywine from last year I bottled with bmbf, it was still perfectly carbed. No co2 purging of any kind. Although if you fill the bottles I see no reason to purge with c02, how much air do you get when your capping on foam?

 

[Professor Frink]

Do a search for 'BMBF' or 'We don't need a stinkin' beer gun'

I've never had luck with that method, though.

This method has worked great for me. Just make sure your pressure is very low and you have a good seal with your stopper.

 

[Yambor44]

This method has worked great for me. Just make sure your pressure is very low and you have a good seal with your stopper.

Is the stopper a must? I bottle straight from my perlicks with a wand and o-ring. I don't always make use of the stopper.

 

[pilotdane]

The Beer Gun mostly works but there are two things I don't like:

It is quite slow. They rely on a long small diameter supply tube, a really tiny beer line down into the bottle and running the keg at very low pressure to prevent foaming. Filling a bottle takes at least twice as long+ as gravity flow with a cheap bottling wand.

It wastes gas. The Beer Gun's gas line has a 90 degree fitting for the gas to enter the gun. In the fitting they drilled a hole for the beer line to pass through. It's a loose fit and there is no gasket. A significant amount of gas escapes through this space instead of going down the tube into the bottle.

---
Capping on foam takes care of much of the oxygen problem. Some commercial breweries even rely on capping on top of the foam to purge the head space of the bottle. It does not prevent the beer from taking on oxygen during filling. Some breweries will do a single or double purge with CO2 prior to filling to further reduce the beers exposure to oxygen.

 

[remilard]

I find that with the two filling methods I use (CPBF and picnic tap with some hose on it) that if I start out very slow until it fills above the bottom of the tube by a good bit (like an inch total) I can fill the rest of the way much faster without foaming. Adjusting the speed is stupid easy on my CPBF, with other methods including I assume the beer gun you would have to fiddle with the regulator.

I agree that capping on foam is very important but I would still want to pre-evacuate for long term storage because you are going to get some gas pickup during filling.

The method described in the OP is exactly the method Mike McDole has described on the Brewing Network for many years. Two picnic taps with some kind of tube that goes to the bottom of the bottle, one connect to gas and one to beer.

With any method you are going to have to compensate for carbonation lost during bottling. Maybe this is more for the BMBF than CPBF or beer gun, but you should still be able to figure out how much to compensate.

 

[chefchris]

The method described in the OP is exactly the method Mike McDole has described on the Brewing Network for many years. Two picnic taps with some kind of tube that goes to the bottom of the bottle, one connect to gas and one to beer.

I knew I couldn't have been the first to think of this. It was just a thought that I had. I know a lot of people have luck with the BMBF, but I've never had one bottle turn out right. Hopefully the beer gun works good because I just sent off 4 bottles to a competition. Guess we'll see.