Bottling bucket ( do I really need one)?

[WI_Wino]

The pump reduces the time to fill bottles. I was filling them faster than my wife could cap them. In my experience the last third of the bottling bucket takes forever. I agree using a bottling bucket is easy. But it's slow.

 

[WI_Wino]

So I cracked my first couple of bottles of the ESB I racked with the vacuum pump. Carbonation appears to be lower than I was shooting for. My beer has been conditioning in my 60 F basement since 1/2/15 so I may get a little more carb over the next several weeks.

I did bottle another beer using the pump but racked onto the priming sugar solution using an auto siphon. That was about a week ago so I'll report back on that one in another week.

 

[Pyg]

So I cracked my first couple of bottles of the ESB I racked with the vacuum pump. Carbonation appears to be lower than I was shooting for. My beer has been conditioning in my 60 F basement since 1/2/15 so I may get a little more carb over the next several weeks.

I did bottle another beer using the pump but racked onto the priming sugar solution using an auto siphon. That was about a week ago so I'll report back on that one in another week.

I used the pump to rack twice (once out of primary, and again from carboy to carboy).
However each time I cut a length of tube which ran to the bottom of the carboy and prevented splash racking.
I turned on the pump until I got a draw and then turned it off.

When bottling I put some holes in the second hose, which disabled the vacuuming porting of the pump. I did get some bubbles so it remains to be seen how much carb I get.
I did purposly use 5oz for less than 5 gallons in hopes that a little more carb would balance out any gas I lost!

but filling with the vacuum pump made everything so much easier!

I have come to the conclusion that anyone who told me "you dont need a vacuum pump" or "your over thinking it"
has either never used a vacuum pump or (like my LHBS people) have no clue what one is!