Bottling Tips for the Homebrewer

[BrewnWKopperKat]

An important consideration if using glass bottles IMO.

Using PET bottles and the wrong fresh yeast strain would likely produce gushers.

In either case, paying attention to the details will prevent badly packaged batches.

As for "inventory management", always have a couple of packages of CBC-1 or EC-1118 in the fridge/freeze. If CBC-1 is "too expensive", EC-1118 is available in 10 packs for around $6.90 (plus shipping).

 

[JC Mendyka]

This is a fantastic thread. I am finding bottling to be a hand-and-a-half job. Having a young person help is great company, and that's what you need.

 

[Brockness Monster]

I like to use small soda bottles and fill about 1/4 of the bottle with bottling solution (beer and sugar), squeeze the air out without losing liquid and cap tightly. as the beer carbonates this will give you a visual confirmation as the excess space will fill with CO2 and reinflate the bottle. Sometimes you can find little 6 oz. bottles at mexican mercados, but the 10 oz. Canada Dry and Hawaiian punch bottles work as well.

 

[JC Mendyka]

I used the setup in the initial post, and my helper rocked and rolled the capper. It was very efficient and very clean. Thanks for the tip.

 

[BandonBrewingCo]

Washing bottles is a pain in the hoop and my dishwasher doesn't get hot enough to use so I mix up 25L of pbw in my brewzilla and pump it into the bottles.

I'll invert them in a box after 30 mins for total coverage.

Then do the same with clean water.

The pump makes this go very quickly and the brewzilla gets an extra clean.

 

[BandonBrewingCo]

Got around to bottling today and I've never had a sweeter flow.

I bottled directly from the conical's racking arm and by having the tube flush against the base of the barb and a worm clamp over the tube at the bottling wand everything was very tight.

I also removed the airlock and let the tube and wand fill up before proceeding to bottle.

There was some initial few bubbles went up into the fermenter and only after that subsided did I depress my bottle want to start bottling.

I had zero visible turbulence from the lack of air intake.

I carbed with carb drops. Yes they are many multiples in price compared to normal sugar but looking at absolute costs v relative costs* they're still money well spent to me. I might try the dosing spoons if I'm not happy with the carb levels from the drops.

*ie €4 v 40c make carb drops 10 times more expensive (yikes!!!) but I'll easily pay the €3.60 not to have to try to sanitize a plastic bucket and spigot and clean it afterwards and make sure it doesn't scratch, etc

 

[MaxStout]

Washing bottles is a pain in the hoop and my dishwasher doesn't get hot enough to use so I mix up 25L of pbw in my brewzilla and pump it into the bottles.

I'll invert them in a box after 30 mins for total coverage.

Then do the same with clean water.

The pump makes this go very quickly and the brewzilla gets an extra clean.

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You just gave me a cool idea. I don't have a Brewzilla, but I do have a brew kettle with drain valve I no longer use. I can heat up some PBW solution on the stove and fill bottles like you did.