And You Say Kegging Is Easier...

[HoboBrewery]

And I'd say you're right. 25 gallons of bottling yesterday, 5 gallons of which are not shown here.

Belgian Wit
Toasted Oak Pilsner
"Not At All" Light Ale
American Candi Amber
Strong English Herbal Ale

And brewed up a batch of Dunkel.

All I gotta say is that I'm glad I had to drive after that day or I would have been a mess sampling all those brews.

 

[BBL_Brewer]

That's alot of beer to bottle all at once. You'll be oh so glad when you decide to start kegging.

 

[RichmonS]

That is a lot of home brew. How long did that bottling session take?

 

[fishkid]

Man oh man, that's a long day. Hope you had some help

 

[HoboBrewery]

i had to bottle a batch that was kegged which contributed to this issue. i have a corny without a co2 tank- pretty stupid idea to naturally carb a keg and expect it to be ready on time. i see multiple keg setup in the near future.

but you gotta learn to write print to write in script, right? so if you've never done an ambitious sunday brew like i have, get in it my people. get it in. there's no better way to learn than be immersed in a batch or two a week. up to the legal amount you can brew, of course

that bottling/brewing session went as follows:


12:30PM-1:45PM- filling up 250 bottles with bleach and water and letting them sit and soak

1:30PM- 2:45PM- get the water boiled on our burner, steep grains, get 60 minute boil going.

2:45-4:15PM- clean bottles, try not to pass out from bleach exposure, inspect, double wash bottles

4:20PM- oh yea, i'm one of THOSE brewers.

and about an hour each bottling/drinking sesh.

once everything was bottled, i left. my car ran out of gas on the road and i frantically yabba dabba dooed my fat ass back to my friends house, car in arm.

oh yea, another funday sunday.

 

[bmantzey]

12:30PM-1:45PM- filling up 250 bottles with bleach and water and letting them sit and soak

[...]try not to pass out from bleach exposure, inspect, double wash bottles

4:20PM- oh yea, i'm one of THOSE brewers.

Ugh, bleach is yucky. You have to be sure to rinse your bottles out real good after you dump them, you stain your clothes with it, and as you said it burns your eyes and is an inhalation hazard. Not to mention it can cause corrosion in anything stainless or copper you use, such as your kettle or an immersion chiller. I've experimented with many different sanitizers, allow me to recommend going with the iodine sanitizer, I think it's called IOStar. I like it because you can even drink it (at the proper dillution) without any really nasty taste - it just tastes clean, and it's relatively cheap. A little goes a long way too!

Cheers to four hours ago!!

 

[Acoma]

You deserve a pat on the back for that one.

 

[Golddiggie]

Instead of using bleach (nasty stuff, no two ways about it) consider using a no-rinse sanitizer like StarSan... I've been using it since my second brew and haven't had any issues... It's super easy to sanitize the bottles too... Especially since you don't need to rinse he solution out of them... Unless you're using filtered water, you could be putting other things into those bottles. Granted, beer should be able to kill some of that, but who knows what's in your tap water...

I actually mixed up a fresh batch of StarSan yesterday (I have a large graduated bucket I use for it)... All ready for the next bottling session now.. Will spray the bottle tree with StarSan before I start sanitizing the clean bottles, and putting them onto it. It might take me about an hour to bottle up a 5 gallon batch... That includes sanitizing what needs to be, making the priming solution, and bottling the batch... I suspect that I'll find ways to streamline the process in the future... Right now, I'm ok with about an hour though...

 

[BrewThruYou]

Ugh...5 bottled batches in a row? I would probably quit brewing after that. I try to keep it to 2 a week maximum....only did one double bottling session and it sucked.

 

[MrStrangeBrew]

must have been a great bottling session... those empty bosxes must be all the beer you drank while bottling...right?

 

[bmantzey]

Yeah, bottling kinda sucks, but I don't think it's that bad as people make it out to be. It takes less time than the rest of the brew process. I'm not complaining about the rest of the process, but bottling seems to be the least of the work IMO.

 

[BrewThruYou]

Yeah, bottling kinda sucks, but I don't think it's that bad as people make it out to be. It takes less time than the rest of the brew process. I'm not complaining about the rest of the process, but bottling seems to be the least of the work IMO.

I don't think it's that bad either. Cleaning brew kettle / MLT is worse. My bottling situation is bad because it's hurting my back. I need to find a solution because the double bottling session made me hate myself.

 

[Golddiggie]

I don't think cleaning the kettle is all that bad, nor the mash tun... Maybe it's because I'm using an aluminum kettle, and the mash tun gets dumped into a compost heap, then pre-washed with the IC waste water...

I do know what you're talking about for back pain... I've been using a step stool to put the bottles on (I don't have a dishwasher) which does help... If you can raise the bottles up a bit, and maybe have a chair that goes lower, that could help you out...

 

[bmantzey]

Clear off your counter, put your bottle bucket on a stool on your counter, and bottle your beer at counter level. What I do is save the empty 6-pack (or 12-pack boxes) holders that a six pack of Sam Adams (or whatever) comes in, and use those to put the freshly bottled beer into. When it's full, grab another one.

Problem is, if you have back trouble, you'll have a hard time getting 5 gallons of beer up on a stool on your counter and I'd hate to be to blame if you were to drop 5 gallons of beer and hurt yourself. lol

 

[Golddiggie]

I actually put the bottling bucket onto a small table (sold as a night stand, but it's stronger than many dinner tables I've seen, solid wood here) and put the bottles on the step stool... I use a directors style folding chair (low, not tall) to sit in. I have the bottle tree to my right, and filled bottles to my left. Makes it easy... I also put the full fermenter on the same table, and the bottling bucket on the stool in order to rack it... Makes for easy transfers. I am thinking about trimming down the tubing on the bottling wand a little... But, it loops nice when I want to use both hands (I put the end into one bottle and can loop the tubing over the spigot to hold it, without getting any brew out)...

It's all about tweaking the process to work best for you, with the least amount of physical pain/discomfort...

 

[bmantzey]

My wife has been encouraging me to start kegging. I have absolutely no objections to this idea, but the suggestion kinda caught me off guard. She and her sister are going to fund it, and I guess I just am having a hard time believing it. LOL! I mean, I never even mentioned it and she came out with this offer. I'm like, hell yeah!

 

[Golddiggie]

Dude, you suck and she rocks... [j/k]

Actually, she still rocks...

Is she going to get the keezer for you too? Go for one that will hold more kegs than you think you'll want... That way, you have the actual amount of room you'll need later.

 

[bmantzey]

Well, I have a large fridge that someone just gave me. I use it for my fermentation, conditioning, and grain storage. I think I'll be able to easily fit two 7 gallon carboys in there and 2 kegs, plus at least two batches of bottled beer. The grain is stored in the freezer section.

Being an upright, I've been wondering how I'm going to install the tap. I may end up going with one of those little 5 cubic foot chest freezers, since they look so good with a tap sticking out the top. Something like that would be a nice addition to my living room.

 

[Golddiggie]

Unless you're making lagers, I wouldn't put carboy's in there... At least not once you start kegging... I plan to have my keezer (when I actually build it) in the 40-45F range... I'm making ales, stouts and things using ale yeast, so I don't need to be able to fit carboys into it... I MIGHT cold crash the occasional batch later, but it's not something on the need list...

For the taps, you could put them through the door, or either side of the fridge section. Not sure how well it will work with the temperature controller, for the freezer section though... You might want to test that before you actually keep things that need that temperature range in it...

 

[BBL_Brewer]

Be warned....beer on tap has a strange way of disapearing a whole lot faster than bottles.

 

[bmantzey]

LOL!!! Nice! I like that!!

 

[Golddiggie]

Just means you get to brew more often. :rockin: :rockin:

Of course, if you don't mark either the keg, or the tap handles, and have several, you won't really know what you're going to get... If you want to be a wise-ass, you could switch them up without telling people too. So, when they pull on the same tap as the previous day, they get something very different... I think it would just be fun to F with their minds that way...

 

[SirBC]

Bottling is easy

 

[kpr121]

Be warned....beer on tap has a strange way of disapearing a whole lot faster than bottles.

This is definitely a true statement!!

Sometimes I bottle a sixer from the keg just so that I know that some of that beer will actually last. Nothing like sitting at your own party and someone comes up to you and says, "Hey I think that keg of IPA is kicked", and you barely even got to taste it!

 

[HoboBrewery]

i knew someone would say something about bleach. yea, its more work, yea it burns, yea it ****s your clothes up, yea you get dizzy if you don't open a window...but no it's not expensive at all, no i don't bleach my kettle that is about to get boiled anyway, no i don't usually have to scrub bottles, no i haven't had a corrupt bottle in over 40 batches, no i don't wear non-bleached clothes on bottling day, no my beer doesn't taste like bandaids, no it's not all that crazy when you get yourself in a routine with a friend some homebrews and some good music.

i bought star san for my keg a couple weeks ago. now i have a 10 dollar solution that costs about a dollar a sanitization versus a 1 dollar solution that costs about 10 cents a sanitization- oh yea, and the grocery store has it in stock...all the time.

to use star san for bottles is serious overkill IMO

 

[Golddiggie]

Bleach needs to be rinsed off of what you sanitize. Additional water waste.
StarSan doesn't need to be rinsed at all. No additional water waste.

IMO using StarSan over bleach is a no-brainer. Especially with the extra time you need to spend when using bleach, combined with other elements.

I don't have a vented hood in my kitchen/brewery, so the only option, for me, IF I was to use bleach would be to open a window and use a fan in it. Not really a good idea during the winter time up here. StarSan has zero odor to it and requires zero ventilation when used.

I also mix up 2.5-3.75 gallons of solution at a time, with StarSan... I don't just toss it out after using once, since it remains viable longer. Especially once you cover it. I have a graduated bucket that I use to keep it (NOT the bottling bucket). The mixture costs me about $1 to make, even when I use filtered water (I have a filter system under the sink)... That cost is ONLY because I bought the 8oz bottle the first time, over 4 months ago. I plan on getting either the 16oz or 32oz bottle of StarSan next, since I'm almost out now... That will put the cost to under $.55 per batch (IF I mix up 5 gallons)...

Never mind that I don't really look at the costs of the sanitizer I'm using, per batch (this is the first time I've actually broken it down to per batch prices)... I'd rather have a sanitizer solution that's safe, and I KNOW will do a top notch job than use something that requires additional efforts to be made for it to be safe, and might ruin what I'm wearing in the process. Not that I'm wearing anything fancy when I'm brewing, I just would prefer to not bleach my jeans from the F'ing sanitizer...

 

[kpr121]

I usually make a 1 gallon batch of starsan each brewday. From that batch, I sanitize my fermenter, airlock, and anything else that will touch cooled wort. I also use it to sanitize bottles and/or kegs and/or secondaries that I will be racking a previous batch to (I simply add a bit of starsan, swirl and shake for a few seconds,then dump right back into the main bucket). Then I also fill up 2 spray bottles that I use during the week when I want to take gravity tests/bottle from keg/etc.

I don't feel like running the numbers, but I would imagine that a 1/5 oz of starsan every week or so will not break anyones bank, and it is definitely alot easier than bleach.

But to each his own, if you are happy with your process, that's all that matters. I would like any new brewers to see the options and make their own informed decisions on how they want to sanitize.

 

[AnonyBrew]

Nice job! I think it was after a 25g bottling day I myself decided to go with kegging.

 

[HoboBrewery]

Nice job! I think it was after a 25g bottling day I myself decided to go with kegging.

Within a month I'll buy a tank and then it's on. Til then I'll have a couple of these days to look forward to.

I feel you on the starsan. I did hear you can reuse it which is cool in itself.

How do you clean bottles with starsan? I mix my bleach with water and fill all bottles with bleach water. Come back in an hour or two and 95% are spotless after a double rinse. Do you squeegee all your bottles and starsan them?

It's not a money thing with star San, it's just that bleach always seems to work well for me. If starsan can be reused and it eliminates my need to squeegee bottles like the bleach does then i could see why star San is good. What do you think?

 

[weirdboy]

i bought star san for my keg a couple weeks ago. now i have a 10 dollar solution that costs about a dollar a sanitization versus a 1 dollar solution that costs about 10 cents a sanitization- oh yea, and the grocery store has it in stock...all the time.

to use star san for bottles is serious overkill IMO

I dunno what you're doing with your starsan but if you're using 1/10th of a bottle each time it's probably not right. I FINALLY ran out of my previous bottle of starsan after about 2.5 years.

I used to use bleach, too. Until one batch where I didn't rinse well enough and had 5 gallons of beer that I ended up dumping because it tasted so bad.

Add in that I never have to rinse AT ALL and thus save a boat load of time, the expense of the extra water, and never have to worry about dumping a batch due to chlorophenols again, and I am in the star san camp for life.

 

[Golddiggie]

Within a month I'll buy a tank and then it's on. Til then I'll have a couple of these days to look forward to.

I feel you on the starsan. I did hear you can reuse it which is cool in itself.

How do you clean bottles with starsan? I mix my bleach with water and fill all bottles with bleach water. Come back in an hour or two and 95% are spotless after a double rinse. Do you squeegee all your bottles and starsan them?

It's not a money thing with star San, it's just that bleach always seems to work well for me. If starsan can be reused and it eliminates my need to squeegee bottles like the bleach does then i could see why star San is good. What do you think?

StarSan is a sanitizer only, not cleaner... For my bottles, I rinse them really well as soon as I pour the brew out of them, inspecting them to ensure they're clean. I let them dry inverted at least overnight before putting them into the box (I use Grolsch and Belgian bottles)... I simply have my bucket of StarSan (already mixed up) ready, spray the bottle tree with more StarSan, and start filling the bottles in the bucket. Once I have some in there, and no room left to get more filled, I empty them out and put them onto the tree. Ensures enough contact time (only need a minute or two) and then they get to drain. No need to squeegee them out or off. Inverting them on the tree helps keep things out. Spraying the tree with StarSan ensures it's sanitized too. With the spray bottle, I can hit the tree again if I need to as I'm filling it with bottles.

StarSan can be kept, and reused several times, and for a while, and still be effective. You need to keep the mixed solution covered though (no biggie for me)... Means that whenever I need/want to pull a sample of my brew, I just open the StarSan bucket, dunk the thief and tube into it, then take the sample of brew. Zero issues using this method and it means I can take a sample pretty much at the drop of a hat.

I did get the bucket I'm using from a restaurant supplier, so it was cheap and it's food grade plastic.

weirdboy, he could have bought the 8oz bottle... Although that's still either a LARGE batch of sanitizer, or he's mixing it up to the wrong strength... I plan on going with either the 16oz or 32oz bottle next... First one was just the 8oz bottle... Has lasted me from mid-November, and I still have about 1/2oz left in it..

 

[kpr121]

Within a month I'll buy a tank and then it's on. Til then I'll have a couple of these days to look forward to.

I feel you on the starsan. I did hear you can reuse it which is cool in itself.

How do you clean bottles with starsan? I mix my bleach with water and fill all bottles with bleach water. Come back in an hour or two and 95% are spotless after a double rinse. Do you squeegee all your bottles and starsan them?

It's not a money thing with star San, it's just that bleach always seems to work well for me. If starsan can be reused and it eliminates my need to squeegee bottles like the bleach does then i could see why star San is good. What do you think?

I try to rinse my bottles with scalding hot water as soon as I get done pouring them. This leaves them clean. Then all I need to do is add a couple oz of starsan solution before bottling, shake, swirl and dump.

For bottles that I don't get to rinse right away, sometimes it takes a few douses of hot water, sometimes I need to soak them overnight in oxyclean (I do this with new bottles anyhow to get rid of labels).

If there is still crud in the bottles after a night of oxyclean soaking, I personally throw the bottles away. I hate using a bottle brush, although it would work. Bottles are too easy to come by for me to have to scrub them.

 

[bmantzey]

What do you guys think about the IO Star iodine based sanitizer solution? Pros/Cons/comments/etc? I use it and I prefer it but now that I think about it, I don't know that I've actually tried the Star San.

 

[Golddiggie]

What do you guys think about the IO Star iodine based sanitizer solution? Pros/Cons/comments/etc? I use it and I prefer it but now that I think about it, I don't know that I've actually tried the Star San.

From my understanding, using iodine based sanitizer's effectiveness is based on it's color... I'm color blind, so I think you see a big 'con' for me... StarSan is easy to measure out, and I don't need to worry about the color...

 

[BrewThruYou]

I don't think cleaning the kettle is all that bad, nor the mash tun... Maybe it's because I'm using an aluminum kettle, and the mash tun gets dumped into a compost heap, then pre-washed with the IC waste water...

I do know what you're talking about for back pain... I've been using a step stool to put the bottles on (I don't have a dishwasher) which does help... If you can raise the bottles up a bit, and maybe have a chair that goes lower, that could help you out...

I live in a townhouse with a shared backyard, so I'm dumping my mash tun upside down into a heavy duty lawn and leaf bag and then putting it in the garbage. Don't know what else I can do with it. I always make a mess.

I bottle in my garage on a wooden workbench. I think I need to use my upside-down Lowe's bucket to elevate the bottling bucket some more. And I'll elevate the empty cases too. I'm bottling this Saturday, so I'll try to make some changes.

 

[Golddiggie]

I live in a townhouse with a shared backyard, so I'm dumping my mash tun upside down into a heavy duty lawn and leaf bag and then putting it in the garbage. Don't know what else I can do with it. I always make a mess.

I bottle in my garage on a wooden workbench. I think I need to use my upside-down Lowe's bucket to elevate the bottling bucket some more. And I'll elevate the empty cases too. I'm bottling this Saturday, so I'll try to make some changes.

No chance of starting a compost bin/pile? Maybe you could get the association (if there is one where you live) to set up one for everyone to use... That way you could put the spent grain in it and then be able to use it for other things. Where I brewed last, and probably will for the next several batches (until I move at least) they have a compost heap... Makes things much easier for getting rid of the grain. When I was using the BIAB method at home, I would either put it into a 5 gallon bucket for the LL to add to the compost heap, save some for bread/dog treats, and then toss the rest ()... I do plan on bringing what I can to my mother/sister's place once I move, if there's no compost pile/bin where that is. That way, it will at least go to good use...

For bottling, I would probably get a chair to sit on, that's lower, and use something to have the bottles at a decent height for filling... A plastic bin could do the job there. That way you're not standing for a long period (that bothers my lower back more) and can still fill the bottles up... I put the filled bottles onto a towel to the left of the bucket, to make it easier... Just goes from right to left...

I'm going to try and bottle up a batch tomorrow early afternoon (have a phone interview at 11am)... I'll try to remember to take some pictures of the setup I have, for reference...

 

[BBL_Brewer]

I prefer to bake my bottles in the oven at 350F for an hour. Not only does it eliminate the need to shake and or soak bottles in sanitizer on the day of bottling, but it actually sterilizes the bottles. I rinse my bottles immediately after puring off a beer and then store. When I get enough "rinsed" bottles built up I'll make a batch of cleaner like pbw or oxyclean and clean them all at once. A quick rinse, air dry, foil on top and then store again. I usually bake the bottles 1-2 days ahead of time depending on my schedule and how many bottles I need. One thing you need to know about baking bottles though is that you should gradually warm up and cool down the bottles. If you go too fast one way or the other you risk cracking the glass. It takes me about half an hour to bring an oven load of bottles up to 350. After that I just set a timer. Shut the oven off when done and leave the bottles in the over for a few hours to cool. It sure beats shaking 50-100 bottles with sanitizer let me tell you.

 

[bmantzey]

Do you really need to shake the bottles to sanitize them? I figure letting them sit with sanitizer in them for at least 5 minutes is enough.

Baking the bottles is a very interesting idea though. I'll consider that.

One problem I can see with that is, many of my bottles still have debris from the original label on the outside of them. Any suggestions on easily removing the labels? I decided to just leave them to their own will as to when they fall off because it seemed like more hassle than it would be worth.

 

[HoboBrewery]

see, this is where the discrepancy comes in. you guys all seem to reuse your bottles. i commend your painstaking ability to drink a bottle, clean a bottle, and store a bottle. i, on the other hand, do it the hard way- i go to a beer distributor and buy every last brown popoff bottle that they'll give me. you never know what you're going to get- sometimes they're ultimately clean, other times they're full of mold pockets.

to avoid squeegeeing every last bottle x 250 bottles, i put a strong bleach water solution into each and every bottle and let the chemicals do all the scrubbing.

based on how i do this, i can't see star san as a good option for me.

but maybe if, one day, i decide to save every bottle i drink or come across, and my girlfriend doesn't kill me for having a beer shrine in the corner of the apartment, THEN maybe i'll use star san like you folks do.

Re: baking bottles, i commend you on your ingenuity. that said, i have ****ty luck and could see myself cleaning 50 broken bottles out of the oven.

in summary, if your method isn't broken, don't fix it.

 

[kpr121]

Do you really need to shake the bottles to sanitize them? I figure letting them sit with sanitizer in them for at least 5 minutes is enough.

Baking the bottles is a very interesting idea though. I'll consider that.

One problem I can see with that is, many of my bottles still have debris from the original label on the outside of them. Any suggestions on easily removing the labels? I decided to just leave them to their own will as to when they fall off because it seemed like more hassle than it would be worth.

I use Oxyclean to clean the bottles, and remove labels. An overnight soak in hot water with a scoop of scent-free oxyclean. Very little scrubbing necessary, maybe just to get some of the stubbern label adhesive off (some bottles are better than others, I find myself selecting beer based on how easily the label will come off).

Once they are clean, they get two rinses. Fill the bottle about halfway with hot water, then dump. Then fill it to the top (and rinse the outside) with cool water. Dump and let dry upside down on a dish rack. I use a rack from a broken dishwasher.

This will ensure that your bottles are clean. To sanitize, you can use Starsan/Idopher/Bake in oven/whatever you like. I use Starsan. The reason why I shake is because I do not fill the bottles all the way to the top. I probably only fill 1/3 of the bottle. Shaking ensures that the solution will coat the entire inside. This just seems like its quicker than filling every single bottle to the top, then pouring them out.

From what HoboBrewery is saying, it seems like you can use a bleach solution to do everything, clean, remove labels, and sanitize. If that is the case, more power to him. I actually think that may be a great route, its just not what I do. To each his own.