Bottle Fillers

[nabs478]

I am currently making a system to do 150L batches, and as such I need to upgrade by bottling bucket and polypropylene hose with a tap to something that can bottle a batch of this size in a reasonable time frame.

I have seen at a local microbrewery, they have a machine which has four nozzles. To fill the bottles, you put a bottle up to each nozzle, push the bottle into the nozzle, when you do this the nozzle moves upward, then rest the bottle for about 10secsin there, and it fills the bottle automatically with the right amount of beer.

Does anyone know what one of these machines is called, how it works, where you get them and how much they cost? Any info would be great.

I have seen people talking on this forum about "spring loaded fillers" which kind of sounds a bit like what I saw at the microbrewery. Could someone explain how they work, whether or not they fill the bottle to a pre-determined level or not and how much they cost?

I suspect that the type of filler at the local micro-brewery will be out of my price range, but at the same time, it looked very simple and it could possibly turn out to be something I could make myself, if I knew how it worked.

Either way, I am open to suggestions for any equipment between a bottleing bucket with a hose and the stuff at the local microbrewery.

Thanks

Pip

 

[Trencher]

My basic brewing kit came with a spring-loaded bottle filler that works well by itself. It's basically a straight piece of rigid plastic tubing with a valve on one end that is opened by pushing in a small plastic stem. That's the spring-loaded part. Here's a decent picture:

You might manage to combine 4 of those to fill several bottles at once.

 

[LykeAFox]

I also have a spring tip and it makes bottling a whole heck of a lot easier. Just press on the bottom of the bottle and then lift up when the beer is at the top. Presto! You could probably make a manifold with 4 (or more?) of those attached to it and use a common lever to press them down.

It seems that potential uneven filling and the time required to set up all 4 bottles in a row would offset the benefits compared to just using 1 spring filler by hand. I usually just set up all my bottles in rows and have at it. Then I cap them when they are all full. It would take some time to do 150L but without a lot of mechanical equipment it seems to be the best option.

 

[nabs478]

Yeah, they sound quite good.

Just to clarify one thing, you push the bottle into the nozzle of the spring loaded filler, then it starts filling and it stops filling when you remove the pressure bewtween the bottle and the filler?

What happens if it fills all the way to the brim? Does it spill and go every where or does it just stop?

I am still very interested in looking into a filler that fills to some specificed height in the bottle. If anyone has any info on these machines, I would love to hear it.

 

[Bigfish713]

you fill the bottle to the top and when the filler is removed the space the filler occupied will leave the correct amount of unfilled space to carb the bottle.

 

[nabs478]

Aahhh I see....thats the goods!!

I'll have to get hands on one of these things then!!

 

[kilroy]

While this a beer topic - I make wine and use this device to fill my bottles, I have used it to fill some beer bottles with Hard Cider that I made.

This is the site for more info:
http://www.buonvino.com/P_BotFill.shtml


The problem that I found with the spring loaded fillers is that if I was distracted - I over flowed.
Sometimes I would pull out too soon, and not get a correctly filled bottle.
It was also very slow, because of the diameter of the pipe.

With the filler above - I can fill one bottle while I cork another one. Usually fills up before I have corked the wine bottle - fills up very quickly for a beer bottle.

These guys are around $30 (US)

Happy bottling.

Kilroy