Worst Bottling Night Ever

[derekp83]

Last night I bottled 5 gallons of a souped-up Munton's Nut Brown Ale kit that had been in primary for 3 and a half weeks. It...was...a disaster.

1. I attached my fill-hose to the spigot and began filling the bottling bucket (from the counter to the floor). Half a gallon in and I realized that I hadn't added the priming sugar. I stopped the flow of the beer and poured the pint of priming sugar into the bucket. I'd imagine most of the beer will be carbonated fine, however, this led to other issues.

2. For some reason, it was extremely difficult to restart the flow of the beer, even with gravity on my side. It probably took a half hour or more to fill the bucket from then on: lifting the fermenter, taking off the fill-hose and reattaching. 3-4 times, the fermenter would go crazy, likely blowing air when I turned off the spigot.

3. I tried capping some Euro bottles and a Yuengling quart bottle to no avail. I at least determined that the bottles could not be capped, and it wasn't a faulty capper (except for me of course, lol). The Yuengling neck cracked when I tried to bottle it. Add it to the eff-ing list!

4. When attempting to cap one of the Euro bottles, the bottle slipped and fell on the counter, pouring a good 12-18 ozs of beer all over the floor and basement door. Yay!

5. It took over 3 hours to bottle 5 gallons. Fun...

Big question: does anybody else use fermenters with spigots to transfer the beer to a bottling bucket, as opposed to auto-siphons? What am I doing wrong in regards to beer-flow. It's a pain and I can't seem to wrap my head around it, however, before I stopped the flow, the half gallon that got in the bottling bucket seemed to be flowing without a problem.

I hope this is entertaining for everybody perusing the boards this weekend and planning to bottle or brew. Don't do what I did! lol

 

[str1p3s]

The only time the flow stops for me is if the air coming in replacing the beer is either blocked or restricted too much. Did you take out the bung or try to just loosen it? Just loosening it might be too restrictive.

 

[applescrap]

Sry to hear man. No, I dont yet but I bought them so I could. My plan is straight to keg, but yeah I want spigots in my fermenters and I dont care what if any problems they cause. I'll sanitize them fine. My plan is to drill them about 1g as well! In fact today I have 5g to rack and am pissed I have yet to do it. Time to sanitize the siphon.

I never really bottled much,but I never understood how people did it either. I would prime every bottle individually. There are even a correct size sugar cube iirc. My buddy uses a priming dump but some are always over carbed, some less. So yeah prime each bottle then bottle in box or plastic sterlite box in case of spills. I suck at racking and hate it.

 

[derekp83]

The only time the flow stops for me is if the air coming in replacing the beer is either blocked or restricted too much. Did you take out the bung or try to just loosen it? Just loosening it might be too restrictive.

I didn't, and then I saw a video later where a guy advised doing so. Will definitely in the future.

 

[derekp83]

Sry to hear man. No, I dont yet but I bought them so I could. My plan is straight to keg, but yeah I want spigots in my fermenters and I dont care what if any problems they cause. I'll sanitize them fine. My plan is to drill them about 1g as well! In fact today I have 5g to rack and am pissed I have yet to do it. Time to sanitize the siphon.

I never really bottled much,but I never understood how people did it either. I would prime every bottle individually. There are even a correct size sugar cube iirc. My buddy uses a priming dump but some are always over carbed, some less. So yeah prime each bottle then bottle in box or plastic sterlite box in case of spills. I suck at racking and hate it.

I like the idea of bottling in a box. However, a little bowl below the bottling wand and bucket usually catches a lot of spillage.

To your point about priming, when I do it right, that is, when I add the priming sugar to the bucket before transfer, I have a consistent and fine carbonation level throughout.

 

[eric19312]

Nothing wrong with a spigot as long as you keep it clean. Disassemble it and clean and sanitize it well before reuse. Expensive fermentors like conicals all use some form of spigot to get the beer out. Sure you can make them sound fancy calling them tri clover butterfly valve and racking arm but it is still a spigot. Using a spigot also gets you going in the direction of being able to do closed transfers once you start kegging.

2. For some reason, it was extremely difficult to restart the flow of the beer, even with gravity on my side. It probably took a half hour or more to fill the bucket from then on: lifting the fermenter, taking off the fill-hose and reattaching. 3-4 times, the fermenter would go crazy, likely blowing air when I turned off the spigot.

OK was the lid on your fermentor when you did this? As your beer leaves the fermentor you need to replace the volume with air or gas. Seems unlikely this is the issue more likely is some sort of a clog.

I don't understand the part about lifting your fermentor seems you want to do anything you can to keep the yeast stuck to the bottom during your transfer out of the fermentor. I like to move my fermentor to the counter and then wait an hour or even longer for anything I stirred up to settle back to the bottom.

3. I tried capping some Euro bottles and a Yuengling quart bottle to no avail. I at least determined that the bottles could not be capped, and it wasn't a faulty capper (except for me of course, lol). The Yuengling neck cracked when I tried to bottle it. Add it to the eff-ing list!

Yah there are many different bottles in the market. Stay away from light weight bottles with twist off caps. You want the ones with pry off caps. Standard caps are 26mm, some European bottles use a cap that is 29 or 30mm. Depending on your bottle capper you can get a different bell for the larger caps. Easiest to just to stick with standard American pry off bottles taking 26mm caps though.

 

[Andrew Hodgson]

I bottle over the open dishwasher door to deal with spillage, of course it doesn't prevent spills if I crack a bottle on the counter.

I know some people bottle right from the fermenter and use carbonation drops, which appeals to me a bit to reduce oxygen exposure etc. I have yet to implement that myself because my thought is I would want to use it for hoppy beers, but if the trub gets to the spigot line and plugs up then I would just have to siphon to a bucket anyway.

Oh the nuances of bottling.

 

[kh54s10]

I prefer using my autosiphon to transfer to the bottling bucket. It is easy and I can watch the depth so that I don't transfer trub. I don't have to worry if the trub is deeper than the spigot. I don't have to worry about nasties growing in the spigot during fermentation. I don't have to worry about a $3 plastic valve leaking or getting broken. I can get all but a few ounces of beer from above the trub.

I also prefer batch priming. I add it to swirling beer filling the bottling bucket. I rarely stir and rarely get uneven priming. I don't have to measure individual amounts of sugar. I can adjust the amount of carbonation, which is difficult or impossible if you use tabs. I don't have to pay as much attention to be sure that I don't miss priming a bottle or double prime a bottle.

Make sure the bottles you are using can be capped before you fill them with beer.

Sorry to say, but self inflicted problems. Lessons learned.

 

[derekp83]

Nothing wrong with a spigot as long as you keep it clean. Disassemble it and clean and sanitize it well before reuse. Expensive fermentors like conicals all use some form of spigot to get the beer out. Sure you can make them sound fancy calling them tri clover butterfly valve and racking arm but it is still a spigot. Using a spigot also gets you going in the direction of being able to do closed transfers once you start kegging.



OK was the lid on your fermentor when you did this? As your beer leaves the fermentor you need to replace the volume with air or gas. Seems unlikely this is the issue more likely is some sort of a clog.

I don't understand the part about lifting your fermentor seems you want to do anything you can to keep the yeast stuck to the bottom during your transfer out of the fermentor. I like to move my fermentor to the counter and then wait an hour or even longer for anything I stirred up to settle back to the bottom.



Yah there are many different bottles in the market. Stay away from light weight bottles with twist off caps. You want the ones with pry off caps. Standard caps are 26mm, some European bottles use a cap that is 29 or 30mm. Depending on your bottle capper you can get a different bell for the larger caps. Easiest to just to stick with standard American pry off bottles taking 26mm caps though.

The lid was on.

I lifted the fermentor to get additional gravity going and to straighten the hose in hopes of the flow to work better.