DIY bottling (bench capper and bottle dryer)

Thought I'd share a couple of DIY projects that I did shortly after bottling my first batch. The idea was to streamline the process a bit without spending any money.

I grabbed a shoe rack that my wife was about to toss out, cut off the bent portion of the shoe trees, and viola...I had a bottle rack that holds about 55 bottles.


I took the capper bell off of the wing capper that came with my starter kit, then added a rack and pinion press mechanism that I built from some scrap stainless. I spring-loaded the press mechanism to prevent breaking bottles.

Cheers! And let me know if you want any greater detail on either of these.

 

Great ideas, and that capper looks awesome. Please share more build information and pictures with the capper. Where's the spring?

 

SA-WEEEEET CAPPER.

How about sharing the build......

 

Holy crap, that capper is awesome. Nice job!

 

Thanks, all. Used the capper last night for the first time, and it worked perfectly. I may make a longer lever arm because it takes some force to cap at the end of the stroke.

Total cost of the build was the $5 that I gave to the welder to get those perfect TIG welds (my welds typically look like bird doo doo) and the 6-pack of homebrew that I gave to the guy who milled the slots in the rack.

Essentially, it's just a rack and pinion operated adjustable press with a spring-loaded capping shaft (helps to center up the cap without fussing over the position of the bottle on the base).

The upper pressing mechanism can be adjusted in 30mm increments, but I found that to be completely redundant, as from a single height setting I can cap everything from a 23oz Samuel Smith's bottle to a 12oz Anchor Steam bottle.

Here's the AutoCAD layout that I used to figure out the dimensions that I needed. I can follow up next week with detailed photos of the construction if you all would like to try a similar build...

 

Yes,
please post build pics when you have a chance. Thanks

 

just wanna bump this for those juicy details....

 

Sure, nacho. I'll be bottling again next weekend. I'll tear it down and do some exploded views.

 

Awesome work!