First time bottler

[Soulshine2]

Oh, I also wish I’d have had the fast rack thingy from day one. My wife got sick of me adding and deleting it from my cart and she just surprised me with it. It’s very important to my process.

https://www.northernbrewer.com/prod...MI7rHt1fTz4wIVCr7ACh2szQoGEAQYASABEgLkBfD_BwE

I was just saying today i needed something like that. Is that price for one rack or 2?

 

[Immocles]

@Soulshine2
It comes with two racks, which is enough for 48 bottles, and one tub for the bottom. The price was why I was so flaky about buying it haha. But it is definitely a very useful addition to bottling day.

 

[El Nino]

biggest thing I've learned was use a bottling bucket. especially if you're bottling with no help from anyone else.

first few bottling days, trying to bottle straight from the siphon was the most frustrating thing ever, especially when you get near the trub and have to restart the siphon. One day I was like F all that noise and was really considering kegging, till I saw people using bottling buckets on this site. I've been doing it ever since with no issues

 

[JimRausch]

FYI, StarSan is effective sanitizer only when wet.

Don't worry, I leave everything in the bucket of starsan until I'm ready to siphon.

 

[Katman]

There are two things I do that I don't see mentioned above. Since I don't label, I use a different color cap for each batch and record the color in the notes section of my brewing software.
Also I place a blank cap on each bottle as soon as it is filled (keeps out the fruit flies) then I cap them all at once when done filling.

 

[JimRausch]

2. Have 52-55 bottles cleaned & ready to fill
3. To gauge carbonation - Fill 2 water bottles & squeeze the plastic in a little & cap...When the bottle is hard (expands) to the touch, you are close to the beer being fully carbonated..test the first, check carb level...wait a few more days, check the 2nd bottle.

I do this as well. Peace of mind, and virtually eliminates the "hmm, I wonder if we have any carbonation" questions.

 

[NickTheGreat]

I haven't bottled in many years now. I always liked it, but I liked kegging better.

1. Elevate the bottling bucket, and attach the bottling wand with a short length of tube. Pull the bottle up into it, rather than pushing the wand down.

2. Have a large, flat, sturdy surface to set many bottles of full beer. Cap in batches. Batches of whatever makes sense for your space.

3. get some good music going, and have a few bottles of your previous brew (or store brew), and enjoy.

 

[TwistedGray]

3. get some good music going, and have a few bottles of your previous brew (or store brew), and enjoy.

After you're done so you don't make mistakes, lol

 

[davidabcd]

I haven't bottled in many years now. I always liked it, but I liked kegging better.

1. Elevate the bottling bucket, and attach the bottling wand with a short length of tube. Pull the bottle up into it, rather than pushing the wand down.

Curious as to why pull the bottle up to the wand?
Thanks.

 

[davidabcd]

I've only ever done 16oz flip tops (Grolsch bottles). It is quite possible that I would have declined the offer of the beer equipment I received years ago had I been told I would have to cap fifty-something beers.
Flip tops are quite convenient and there are fewer to fill compared to the 12oz bottles.

 

[tellyho]

Bench cappers work a lot better than wing cappers. Snapped more than a couple necks with wing capper.

This. I bottled with the damn wing capper for 12 years before I bought a bench capper. All those wasted hours ....

 

[BongoYodeler]

Curious as to why pull the bottle up to the wand?
Thanks.

For me it's just much easier and more natural.

 

[stosh]

I put the date that it was bottled on the cap and I write something abbreviated on the cap to ID the beer (BW = barley wine, IIPA - double ipa, etc) then write the same thing on the top of the recipe in my recipe book so I can go back and look at details of the brew day and/or recipe (I write the recipe out, take detailed notes including date, who was there if anyone, in a spiral notebook for reference).

I set aside time to bulk clean/sanitize a bunch of bottles. Then they go on my bottle tree that can hold 90 bottles and there they wait until I bottle again. My bottle tree comes up to about my waist so I use my Vinator that sits conveniently on top of it to sanitize as I go.

Take a bottle from the tree, sanitize it (Vinator), fill it, repeat. I arrange my workspace like I arrange my drums. In a tight semi circle. That way there is minimal movement and everything is close at hand.

I put my bottle caps in the Vinator and put a cap on each filled bottle so when I'm ready to cap I just have to move the bottles from the towel to the bench capper.

I have since moved to kegging BUT I still bottle many batches either in part or whole. Mostly my cold weather line ups that benefit from xtra time in the bottle like stouts, barley wines, etc. I also bottle to share with friends, family, clients.

Buy a bench capper. I got lucky and found a Ferrari Super Agata used. I think they're around $50 new but way more than worth it in terms of safety and convenience/speed.

Buy a Vinator too. Again, way more than worth it in terms of safety and convenience/speed.

I add priming sugar to the bottling bucket and use a spring loaded bottling wand. Bucket on a crate or shorter bucket for gravity, cue up some music, and away I go.

It'll take a few times going thru the process to figure out what works best for you. The fun part, at least for me, is refining the process until it's streamlined to my liking.

 

[davidabcd]

For me it's just much easier and more natural.

Cool. I thought possibly a mechanical reason I wasn't aware of. Thanks.

 

[NickTheGreat]

Curious as to why pull the bottle up to the wand?
Thanks.

Maybe I'm not explaining it well. But when I starting, I thought I should set the bottle down, and put the wand/tubing into it.

I did it the way this fellow does at this point in this (grainy) video. 1:27 in


It may be preference, but get a stool, and do it that way, and you only really need one hand to do it, and it is holding hte beer bottle, not wrangling hoses and knocking things over.

 

[dwhite60]

If you bottle from the fermenter be SURE you have a pinch clamp on the hose.

I had something get in the spring valve in my bottling wand which prevented it
from closing. Only choice I had was to lift the wand above the bucket which
caused back-flow and stirred up all the crap in the bottom of the fermentor.

Been brewing since 1990 and have bottled every batch. I enjoy doing it. Seems
that if you keg you still have to clean hoses, taps, worry about running out of
CO2, bad gaskets, bad pin/ball fittings. You also have to have space for the
kegs, CO2 cylinders, and the kegerator (I've had seven cases of beer stacked
before, small footprint!). Space has always been a problem for
me. Small apartments, small houses. Only real advantage I see to kegging is
ease of serving but, how hard is it to open a bottle?

Also, I do a lot of 2 to 3 gallon batches. This alone eliminates a lot of bottling
work.

All the Best,
D. White

 

[Soulshine2]

There are two things I do that I don't see mentioned above. Since I don't label, I use a different color cap for each batch and record the color in the notes section of my brewing software.
Also I place a blank cap on each bottle as soon as it is filled (keeps out the fruit flies) then I cap them all at once when done filling.

I use different colored caps too

 

[Saunassa]

I just have my bucket on the table with a bin below in case i have overflow or drips. I have also use this to dump out any starsan accumulated in bottom of the bottle just before filling. Biggest improvement was attaching the bottling wand to spigot. Made everything easier and faster and less messy.

 

[TwistedGray]

Only real advantage I see to kegging is
ease of serving but, how hard is it to open a bottle?

Also, I do a lot of 2 to 3 gallon batches. This alone eliminates a lot of bottling
work.

Same boat - most of my batches are sub-3gallons so bottling isn't an issue. I would say the primary advantage is that you can go from fermenter to belly a lot faster when kegging. Also, you maintain a temperature of the beer so it's always available. Bottled beer should be refrigerated for at least a day or two before consumption. So, there are definitely advantages, but bottling is easy enough

 

[Dave Sarber]

Oh, I also wish I’d have had the fast rack thingy from day one. My wife got sick of me adding and deleting it from my cart and she just surprised me with it. It’s very important to my process.

https://www.northernbrewer.com/prod...MI7rHt1fTz4wIVCr7ACh2szQoGEAQYASABEgLkBfD_BwE

You will find that on Amazon for way less money. They even have another version that fits bomber/wine bottles.

 

[devilssoninlaw]

The one thing that made it easier for me was getting someone to help. I get my wife or son to push down on the bottling wand while I feed them more bottles and cap the full ones. It sure is a time saver.