The last inch? - Bottling day

[PorterPete]

Well I somewhat successfully bottled my first batch. I say somewhat cause I found that trying to bottle by yourself takes some practice.

I was using the auto siphon straight from the primary (1gallon) and using carb drops. Lost the siphon twice and had a hard time getting it started while not disturbing the trub on the bottom. At the end of it I had about an inch of beer left where the siphon could not get to it.

What do you guys do to get the most off your primary? I will be picking up a bottling bucket.

Also side question, Do you fill bottle, cap, fill bottle? Or fill all the bottles and then cap them?

 

[Longrange2]

I like to fill the bottles and just set a cap on them as I go, once I have 5 or 6 filled then I crimp the caps in place. A bottling bucket will definitely help, you wont have to worry about losing siphon.

I got a bottling bucket from a local shop that facbricates them for you, I had them drill the spigot hole as low as possible on the bucket while still allowing enough room to tighten the nut on the inside. If I add a little tilt to the bucket near the end of bottling very little beer is left behind. If I have dry hopped and there is much hop debris I don't tilt the bucket to leave more of that behind.

 

[boilerbrewer]

Check out the bottling tips for the homebrewer sticky on the bottling/ kegging forum. That info has definitely smoothed out my bottling process.

 

[Jayhem]

Bottling bucket is your friend, that way you can get every last drop of beer!

I always fill 12 bottles at a time, setting the sanitized caps on each bottle as I fill the next. Once 12 are filled I cap them all and put them in a 12-pack case and then repeat. . .

 

[PorterPete]

Yeah the bottling bucket will make the starting and stopping of the bottling process easier. However I will still have to siphon off of the primary. Do you just tilt the primary slowly to get the last bit?

Issue is the auto siphon has a half inch of plastic on the end so that you don't suck up the trub. I guess that last inch is more concerning for the 1 gallon brewer than the 5 gallon brewer.

 

[Jayhem]

I let it siphon without touching it until the last couple inches, then I slowly tilt the primary vessel while holding the tip of the siphon just below the beer level so it doesn't suck air. If you practice you will only leave about a cup or so of liquid in the primary. Using a yeast that flocculates (settles) well helps.

 

[TroyMorgan]

Yeah the bottling bucket will make the starting and stopping of the bottling process easier. However I will still have to siphon off of the primary. Do you just tilt the primary slowly to get the last bit?

Issue is the auto siphon has a half inch of plastic on the end so that you don't suck up the trub. I guess that last inch is more concerning for the 1 gallon brewer than the 5 gallon brewer.

Tilt it and get as much as you can. no reason to waste any of your brew. You can check out numerous videos on YouTube to see various techniques. A thick book like a phone book seems to be a common choice fo keeping the bucket tilted.

 

[stpug]

What jayhem said, plus...

When I bottle, I siphon from primary carboy to bottling carboy (5 gallon batches). The primary is set on a table with something to give it a slight tilt (an inch or so). The yeastcake is thick enough in 5 gallons that it allows the end cap of your siphon to sink into it thus allowing you to get more of the beer. I usually leave behind 4-12 ounces depending on how well compacted the yeastcake is.

Boiled priming sugar is poured into the beer in the bottling carboy, stirred a little, and then a siphon is started with a bottling wand on the other end (Phils Bottle Philler, or something like that). I do manual siphon starting and never lose siphon over the whole process, but I'm constantly filling with only 1 second gaps between moving the wand to the next bottle so there's not much time for the siphon to break. Since my bottling carboy doesn't have any trub/sediment I don't have to worry about it sitting right on the bottle with no end cap.

I fill all 50+ bottles using one hand while resting a sanitized cap on top with the other once they're filled. By allowing the cap to sit rested on top without crimping allows some dissolved co2 to escape pushing out any air trapped inside. When all bottles are filled, I go back through from the beginning crimping the caps. It probably takes about 10-15 minutes to fill all bottles, and 10-15 to crimp all bottles.

Edit: One last thing you can do to feel like you're not wasting any beer is if you feel like you're leaving behind a decent amount of beer then carefully pour the most liquidy part of the sediment into a glass, cover with plastic wrap, and set in your fridge for a few hours to a day. The beer and trub should separate and then you can decant the good beer (top layer) into a glass for drinking. I know it's mostly flat and not as good as finished/conditioned beer but at least you'll feel like you got every last bit of beer that you could - plus you get to taste your brew during it's lifecycle.

 

[mdgagne]

My preferred bottling method is using an auto siphon with bottling wand and tip at the end. I've never had a problem with lost siphon. Did you have a wand and tip on your auto siphon?

I like this method because i can put a dozen bottles in a second bucket and fill without worrying about spilling, put the caps as I go, and crimp once they're all full. For me, it takes half as long as using a bucket with valve on it and I get pretty much every last drop with my auto siphon without the trub tip on it (no need because the beer has already by siphoned to a bright bucket to stir in my priming solution).

 

[carguy13]

bottling bucket FTW... i make my wife cap the bottles after i'm done filling them.

 

[JayMac]

The bottling wand makes everyones life a HELL of a lot easier. When the beer reaches the lip of the bottle, and the wand is removed, the beer level is dropped to about 1-1.5 inches below the top, the perfect headspace for a 12oz bottle.

bottling bucket is a must.

transfer, using an auto-siphon for a painless racking process, and tilt the carboy slightly as the beer level drops.

add the boiled sugar water to the bottling buckets, and I VERY CAREFULLY stir to ensure even distribution (DONT INTRODUCE OXYGEN)

Then use the bottling wand and siphon to fill the bottles, loosely place the sanitized caps on until all bottles are filled. Cap them all in a row and you're done. Shouldn't take you more than about a half hour.