How long does your bottling take?

[Grinder12000]

About 1 hour. Bottles are rinsed during the week. Just rack, sanitize, fill and cap.

 

[mattmcl]

The one thing that really sped things up for me was timing the bottle filler to take as long as it took me to cap a bottle. So I fill one bottle, move the filler to the next bottle and start it. By the time I'm done capping the first bottle, the second one is almost full. I just adjust the valve on the bottling bucket to slow it down a bit.

 

[kenstogie]

The one thing that really sped things up for me was timing the bottle filler to take as long as it took me to cap a bottle. So I fill one bottle, move the filler to the next bottle and start it. By the time I'm done capping the first bottle, the second one is almost full. I just adjust the valve on the bottling bucket to slow it down a bit.

That's an interesting idea. I think I will try it, i just need to make sure I don't get distracted with my self diagnosed ADD.

 

[mattmcl]

Yeah, just leave yourself some extra time and you'll be fine. I can actually cap two bottles in the fill time, just to be safe.

 

[chigundo]

Stupid question.. I'm a n00b here.. but a lot of steps are taking during the entire beer making process that emphasizes sanitation... when you siphon into the bottling bucket.. you're beer is sitting there wide open to the elements for a good 2 hours (on average it seems) as you bottle each beer. Is that just the way it has to be? Is there really minimal risk of contamination at this point as long as your bottling equip is sanitized?

 

[Revvy]

Stupid question.. I'm a n00b here.. but a lot of steps are taking during the entire beer making process that emphasizes sanitation... when you siphon into the bottling bucket.. you're beer is sitting there wide open to the elements for a good 2 hours (on average it seems) as you bottle each beer. Is that just the way it has to be? Is there really minimal risk of contamination at this point as long as your bottling equip is sanitized?

It's 45 minutes for me.....

Honestly most of the time I don't use a lid, and have been bottling for years and have not had an issue from it.

But, who says you can take a bucket lid or kitchen pot lid and cover it if you are that concerned about it? It doesn't interrupt the process or anything.

Realistically, you've just kicked a lot of co2 into action both by racking the beer into the bucket and adding sugar, that is going to cushion the surface of the beer somewhat...and if you've used a no-rinse santizer, like starsan with it's foam, then you probably have some of said santitzer/foam sitting on the surface of the beer anyway.

 

[chigundo]

I'm going to just be using an iodophor solution for the bottle/tree sanitizer.. that's okay too right?

 

[Revvy]

yes

 

[BamaRooster]

Takes me about .75 - 1 hour for the whole process. I press my wife into service and this makes a huge difference. I have all of my bottles sparkling clean before I start and all I have to do on bottling day is rack to bottling bucket, sanitize, fill, cap and cleanup.

 

[paulster2626]

45 minutes, unless I forget to close the spigot on the bottling bucket when I'm siphoning - then it takes a bit longer.

 

[unionrdr]

I got my wife involved with bottling of her 2nd brew last Monday. Got the time down to about an hour & 20 minutes. I think I'm gunna bottle this way from now on,way faster & easier.

 

[Blove30]

Yeah, I agree the key is to get some help, I am a noob too. When I try to bottle on my own it takes me about an hour and a half. With help, it more like an hour or less.

 

[unionrdr]

I forgot to take stock of the exact time,so I estimated closely. I know it was about an hour. I know we started about 20 after the hour,& 20 till the hour at the end. Faster than 2-2.5 hours on average by myself. Including set up & clean up. I got it down to 1.5 hours once or twice that way. But this is a def improvement. So it's team work from now on,having 2 batches to deal with.

 

[motleybrews]

Using Revvys method but adapted to my space, I can bottle a 5gallon batch start (sanitizing bottles) to finish (fermentor and bottling bucket clean and put away, bottling area cleaned up) in an hour 15. That includes soaking the plastic.