beer gun carbonation....how is it?

[DarkNoonBrewer]

I've been to Blichmann's shop a few times even when the beer gun was new and nothing else existed on the market. It is and always was made here in the USA. What is your agenda? Are you angry that you're not making profit of your innovations? Why don't you give it a shot and see how easy it is? You build a manufacturing facility! Where did you get $160? It was $75 this whole time until it was redesigned and included all the accessories. I've used the new gun as well. The tip does not fall off. You have to disassemble the gun to get the tip off. Its not going anywhere. The Chinese POS you have does not have the improved design.

I guess I cant get you to stop, so Im not even sure why I started this response. Enjoy homebrewing please, and let us fans of buying products that are already assembled and ready to go with replacement parts and quality service a phone call way, enjoy our purchase and stop talking about companies you know nothing about.

Cheers

But the original blichmann beergun was not made here. It was made in china along with the older generation blichmann kettles... They are making an effort to make everything here more now than ever but that wasnt always the case. You seem to know a lot about this new gun I assume you have one then? If it does have all the things you say its a fairly good gun and I underestimated it,

But lets not forget the fact that its most likely only better and cheaper because of the chinese competition in the first place.. the original "inferior" and much cheaper design was sold by blichman for $160 just because they could get away with it at the time. Now they have been forced to step up their game and the result is better and more economical choices for us.. The rest of the world doesnt necessarily play by our version of the capitalism rules..The manufactuerer in china often reserves the right to sell the product direct to countries where blichmann or whomever they make them for may not market them like the intertap faucets. and the quickest way to ensure your design will be stolen is to send it there intentionally to have them build it for you for pennies on the dollar..

 

[murphyslaw]

FWIW, I've got no complaints with the performance of the old Beergun. I've never had the tip fall off, the carbonation is perfect, and I feel confident that the co2 flushing is adequate for long-term storage. I had tried the BM version but always made a huge mess and wasted a ton of beer. I know others have had better results, so its probably user error, but the mess is minimal with the Blichman.

The only thing that I find annoying is that its a bit of a hassle. You've got to flush it with sanitizer, disconnect the liquid keg line and connect your beergun, connect it to the co2, use it, clean it, then clean up whatever mess I made. My kegerator is a tight squeeze and my CO2 lines go through it, so I've got lines everywhere and they always seem just short enough, or restricted enough, that its a bit more annoying than it should be.

Its great when I have to fill 20 bottles or if I'm entering a competition and don't mind the extra time and effort to get it right. But if I'm on my way out the door and think "oh, I should bring a growler" or I'm trying to pack up the car after work and get on the road for trip, or even just trying to get the damn kids out the door on time, taking 20-30 min to fill up a growler isn't usually worth it.

As an aside, I just bought a growler filler from Midwest that is just a silicone tube with a connection that fits into a perlick faucet. I'm not worried about co2 flushing a growler because its not intended to last more than a day or two. As long as the carbonation is okay, I'll be thrilled. In fact, I'd probably use it for bottles too, relegating the beergun to competition bottles only.

 

[Maylar]

I opted for the Last Straw instead of a beer gun. At the time the price was comparable and the reviews were excellent. It's a fine quality piece of gear.

 

[Cavpilot2000]

I've been using the Beer Gun for a while.
It usually works great unless your beverage is highly carbonated.
I had some very fizzy ciders that I tried bottling and they always foam, whereas normally carbonated beer doesn't.
It's a good piece of equipment but I wonder if newer designs might surpass it.
If I were buying today I'd probably try The Last Straw.

 

[-CHRIS-]

just looking for real world experience. is it on par with bottle primed, or even store bought ??

Last weekend I drank a year old bourbon stout that I bottled off a keg and it was perfect. Subsequently I sold my gen1 beer gun and the gen 2 one just showed up today! It really is a huge improvement in usability and I look forward to using it.

Cleaning it is a pain and I agree that it is quite a bit of work to fill a few bottles. I already have a keg of star san and may fill a keg with PBW to make cleaning easier.

Chris

 

[augiedoggy]

I've been to Blichmann's shop a few times even when the beer gun was new and nothing else existed on the market. It is and always was made here in the USA. What is your agenda? Are you angry that you're not making profit of your innovations? Why don't you give it a shot and see how easy it is? You build a manufacturing facility! Where did you get $160? It was $75 this whole time until it was redesigned and included all the accessories. I've used the new gun as well. The tip does not fall off. You have to disassemble the gun to get the tip off. Its not going anywhere. The Chinese POS you have does not have the improved design.

I guess I cant get you to stop, so Im not even sure why I started this response. Enjoy homebrewing please, and let us fans of buying products that are already assembled and ready to go with replacement parts and quality service a phone call way, enjoy our purchase and stop talking about companies you know nothing about.

Cheers

I'm not angry about anything.. It was here in what would be an old thread about the beer gun that I was told it was made overseas along with the version one kettles at the time. When I first looked into buying one it was not $75. I have a friend who bought one years ago before I was even into brewing and he told me it cost him $160.
Regardless your right, I'm not being productive here defending the Chinese guns

 

[TravelingLight]

Regardless your right, I'm not being productive here defending the Chinese guns

Nonsense! You have (or will) save me some money. For that, I'm thankful.

 

[jmark]

But lets not forget the fact that its most likely only better and cheaper because of the chinese competition in the first place.. the original "inferior" and much cheaper design was sold by blichman for $160 just because they could get away with it at the time. Now they have been forced to step up their game and the result is better and more economical choices for us.. The rest of the world doesnt necessarily play by our version of the capitalism rules..The manufactuerer in china often reserves the right to sell the product direct to countries where blichmann or whomever they make them for may not market them like the intertap faucets. and the quickest way to ensure your design will be stolen is to send it there intentionally to have them build it for you for pennies on the dollar..

Yup, I don't disagree and you don't even have to have them build it for you for them to steal it and sell it themselves. I read an article somwhere recently about folks who post projects on Kickstarter when they're in prototype stage, getting their ideas knocked off within days (yes, days!) by Chinese companies. That's just demoralizing! I understand why companies use Chinese manufacturers, but to me they end up cutting off their nose to spite their face.

Oh yeah... I do have the new model and it does work a lot better than the old model... I struggled with that one and sold it after using it a handful of times years ago. The new model, along with a desire to start bottling some of my stronger, ageable, beer from kegs had me giving the new model a try... so far I'm quite happy. YMMV.

EDIT... on the whole $160 argument... I believe I paid around $80 for the original gun... BUT (and it's a huge one) ended up paying another 40-50 bucks on 'attachment kits' to actually hook it up properly, so you're not far off on that $160 figure. The new gun does include the attachments necessary if you're just hooking it up to regulator/manifold that already has a flare connector, but if you don't have that you do still need to pick up a wye adaptor and shut-off valve.

 

[augiedoggy]

I am trying to get some confirmation on where I read about the guns being made in china for blichmann... mainly for my own personal knowledge and because I could have been incorrectly spreading misinformation here. Honestly it could boil down to the components being made there and assy done here or perhaps the whole thing was made here but I dont think so. I remember the part about it being from china not being questioned at the time and thats stuck with me like the gen 1 kettles. It was back when the ones first popped up from china and through other distrbuters like williams brewing as the kegking brand (who now has the intertap faucets made too) which was a few years ago. I have noticed other possible clone products like the autosparge are on aliexpress but not available to be sold to the US in the all stainless form but ok in brass which seems like a licensing thing to me like what happened with my intertap faucets.. which were real and not clones or knockoffs but for less than half the price until intertap stopped them from being able to ship them to the states. So there appears to be some enforcement going on... maybe blichmann never actually got the patent on the beergun all I could find was patent pending..

 

[jmcquesten]

I will absolutely be trying this next time. One of the main things I hated about using the Blichmann was having to purge my keg to get the pressure down to 5 or whatever it is they recommend. I don't mind it as much for something like a saison or low hopped beer. But for my hoppy beers, it takes a damn act of Congress for me to touch that PRV once it's filled and carbed. I hate blowing off all that nice aroma. I'm gonna give it a shot with 20 feet at serving pressure. Thanks for the heads up!

P.S. I assume you just coil it all up and zip tie it so you don't have 20' of tubing lying all over the place when you're filling bottles?

Yes, I coil it and zip tie it. I actually think I have more like 25 ft. The only drawback of longer line (especially for bottling) is the cost. When serving for the faucet, the really long line can cut back on head, but when bottling, you don't want or need any foam.