Rooster81
Member
Hey Everyone,
I've recently completed a simplied CPBF. The design uses the following components:
- Roughly 6-8 feet of tubing, 1/4"
- Two in line on/off ball valves 3/8" (picked up for $7 each at hardware store, they didn't have 1/4")
- T splitter
- One ball lock gas disconnect
- One ball lock liquid disconnect
- #2 drilled rubber stopper
The tubing is connected to each disconnect and then to the T splitter, with the on/off valves in between. I kept the gas valve close to the T splitter and the liquid valve close to the disconnect. On the bottom of the T splitter I put a few inches of the remaining tubing (enough to reach the bottom of a bottle) and slid on the rubber stopper, so that the rubber stopper is at the top of the tubing, overlapping the part where the T splitter is connected to the tubing.
To operate:
1. Jam the stopper end into a bottle. Hold stopper down so it doesn't pop out during next step.
2. Open gas valve to pressurize bottle / equalize pressure between bottle and keg (can also bleed out oxygen if you want).
3. Shut off gas valve and open liquid valve.
4. Slowly let some of the pressure bleed from the stopper by letting up on the force you're using to hold down the stopper, or by kind of pinching the side of the stopper. This will allow the beer to flow into the bottle.
5. When bottle is full shut off liquid valve, pull out stopper, cap and repeat as necessary.
This design is somewhere between the BierMuncher filler and a traditional CPBF. Advantages: it allows you to completely pressurize the bottle / purge oxygen from the bottle in the beginning and is less complicated / less costly ($20 or $30) than a traditional CPBF. Disadvantages: it uses the kegs CO2 supply so if you're filling up a lot of bottles you may need to re-pressurize the keg at some point.
This works good for my purposes because I usually only do a few bottles at a time and occasionally will bottle out of room temperature kegs, so equalizing the pressure between the keg and bottle is key.
I've recently completed a simplied CPBF. The design uses the following components:
- Roughly 6-8 feet of tubing, 1/4"
- Two in line on/off ball valves 3/8" (picked up for $7 each at hardware store, they didn't have 1/4")
- T splitter
- One ball lock gas disconnect
- One ball lock liquid disconnect
- #2 drilled rubber stopper
The tubing is connected to each disconnect and then to the T splitter, with the on/off valves in between. I kept the gas valve close to the T splitter and the liquid valve close to the disconnect. On the bottom of the T splitter I put a few inches of the remaining tubing (enough to reach the bottom of a bottle) and slid on the rubber stopper, so that the rubber stopper is at the top of the tubing, overlapping the part where the T splitter is connected to the tubing.
To operate:
1. Jam the stopper end into a bottle. Hold stopper down so it doesn't pop out during next step.
2. Open gas valve to pressurize bottle / equalize pressure between bottle and keg (can also bleed out oxygen if you want).
3. Shut off gas valve and open liquid valve.
4. Slowly let some of the pressure bleed from the stopper by letting up on the force you're using to hold down the stopper, or by kind of pinching the side of the stopper. This will allow the beer to flow into the bottle.
5. When bottle is full shut off liquid valve, pull out stopper, cap and repeat as necessary.
This design is somewhere between the BierMuncher filler and a traditional CPBF. Advantages: it allows you to completely pressurize the bottle / purge oxygen from the bottle in the beginning and is less complicated / less costly ($20 or $30) than a traditional CPBF. Disadvantages: it uses the kegs CO2 supply so if you're filling up a lot of bottles you may need to re-pressurize the keg at some point.
This works good for my purposes because I usually only do a few bottles at a time and occasionally will bottle out of room temperature kegs, so equalizing the pressure between the keg and bottle is key.