We no need no stinking beer gun...

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You're getting us a bit :off: there El B...

You're liable to get more replies and better help starting a new thread with your secondary to bottle questons. Like Cheese said, this topic deals with bottling from finished kegs of beer.
 
BierMuncher said:
But it's the moving the cane fro bottle to bottle that drips everywhere.

At the end of a 12 pack (all I can fit in a bucket), I end up with the better part of a 1/2 cup of beer at the bottom.


I cut my cane down to about 14" of straight tube, and it hardly drips at all. In fact, when I'm done I have to pull the tube from the tap or it just sits in the tube.

If you can't picture what's happening, think about one of those little hamster water bottles that keeps the fluid in my vacuum action. Or when you pick up drink with a straw by putting your finger over the top.
 
I built a cpbf years ago, and like someone else said at the start of the thread, I've since turned it into "spare parts". It was just too much of a pita to keep clean. I started using the picnic tap and plastic wand simply as a way to get kegged beer into growlers and swing tops for transportation to partys and what not. For long term storage I started flooding the bottles first with CO2 from a valve and tee off of my gas line before crimping a hard cap on top and it works great. As the bottle is filled the CO2 keeps the beer away from any oxygen (in theory). At the end of the fill as I'm removing the "wand" from the bottle I fill that extra bit of head space with a quick spray of foam from the tip and slam a cap on the bottle. After the bit of foamover subsides I end up with about 3/4" of space under the caps. Takes a bit of practice, but the bottles keep for months and costs about $3 to bottle off a keg.
 
Muncher, I meant to post in this thread a while back - AWESOME IDEA!

I'm now jealous of your DIY Beer Gun and sorry I spent cash on the Blichmann (Bling-mann) version. I like yours way better, and I might have to make one just for the hell of it!
 
This is exacly the thread i needed as I am planning on a sweet Raspberry "Lambic" (another thread) and I cant have it naturally condition as I plan to pasteurize to stop fermentation at the sweetness I want.

Perfect.
Thanks.
 
Got all the required parts today from my LHBS:
Cornelius liquid QD, 4 feet of 1/4" ID tubing, cobra tap, short racking cane, little drilled rubber stopper, and a bottle of Samuel Smith's Imperial Stout - all for $24, including the $2.25 they overcharged me but wasn't worth going back to argue about.

Can't wait to try it!
 
Funkenjäger said:
Got all the required parts today from my LHBS:
Cornelius liquid QD, 4 feet of 1/4" ID tubing, cobra tap, short racking cane, little drilled rubber stopper, and a bottle of Samuel Smith's Imperial Stout - all for $24, including the $2.25 they overcharged me but wasn't worth going back to argue about.

Can't wait to try it!
Uh oh...

Big F?

You really want a standard liquid tube....3/16" inner diameter.

The 1/4" inch would be for longer push distances (like over 10 feet). I'm afraid the velocity will be too fast with a wider ID and you're going to get some excess foaming.

Give it a try, but you'll probably want to replace that hose in the long run. Also...go with 6 feet. The additional resistance will help you retain carbonation.
 
BierMuncher said:
You really want a standard liquid tube....3/16" inner diameter.

The 1/4" inch would be for longer push distances (like over 10 feet). I'm afraid the velocity will be too fast with a wider ID and you're going to get some excess foaming.

Give it a try, but you'll probably want to replace that hose in the long run. Also...go with 6 feet. The additional resistance will help you retain carbonation.
Oh, I know, I'm already quite familiar with the liquid tubing dynamics, having a kegerator and all - but my LHBS is nothing but a few dozen square feet in the back corner of a health food store, and needless to say they don't stock 3/16" ID beverage tubing. And all the beverage line I own is already in use in my kegerator. I just wanted to be able to try it out to some degree tonight, thus 1/4" was my only real option. I'll definitely swap real beverage line on there as soon as I place an order someplace that carries it.:mug:
 
As a follow-up, I wanted to share my experiences. I just tested this method out using the setup I mentioned above, including 1/4" ID vinyl tubing instead of proper 3/16" beverage line.

I did make a bit of a mess filling the first bottle due to user error (hint: remember to shut off the cobra tap before pulling the filler out of the bottle...) but the tubing seems to have worked out alright when I did things right - there was a little foam, maybe 1/8" or so, while filling, but not too much. Apparently the low dispense pressure, plus the fact that the counter-pressure aspect of it minimizes foam, is much more significant than the restriction of the tubing in this case.

Not to suggest that you SHOULDN'T use proper beverage line, but just saying that if (like me) you can't get it locally, you can use 1/4" ID tubing in the mean time.

BierMuncher, thanks for the idea, this is an awesome system - I can tell that once I get a little more practice getting the fill levels right, this will be a quick and easy method with great results. And the fact that it costs WAY less than a typical counterpressure filler is a huge plus.
 
here is a hint from the brewery I get to help bottle in.

ALWAYS CAP ON FOAM

Foam=CO2 and if you have foam up to the cap you have no oxygen in the bottle!
If the foam isn't tiny bubbles up to the cap give it a shake and then cap. Tiny bubbles are CO2 and big bubbles are oxygen

hth

John
 
Hey BierMuncher, I enjoyed reading this thread and your idea. But for the life of me I can't seem to wonder why everyone that kegs are going back to bottling. Nothing wrong with it, especially when it's nice to bottle some brew that's been forced carbed so you can take it on the go. So don't bash me all ye who post! I think it's a great idea! I'm just making and observation that's all. Seemed a little funny to me. Thanks again for the thread and pics! :mug:
 
Listening to one of the episodes of the Jamil show on the Brewing Network podcast, I seem to remember one of those guys saying that when they brew big beers like belgians that they bottle condition instead of serving from a keg, they still keg them and force-carb, and then bottle from the keg, rather than messing around with naturally carbing in bottles.

Not that that's exactly my goal. I totally agree with what Yuri said, I would love to be able to bring bottles with me to share when I go somewhere. Also, since I can only serve from 2 kegs at once, I would like to be able to keep some beers around in bottles so that I can have a bit more variety - and bottling a 12-pack (or whatever) from each keg that I serve seems like a good way to build up a stock of different beers.
 
the_Roqk said:
Hey BierMuncher, I enjoyed reading this thread and your idea. But for the life of me I can't seem to wonder why everyone that kegs are going back to bottling. Nothing wrong with it, especially when it's nice to bottle some brew that's been forced carbed so you can take it on the go. So don't bash me all ye who post! I think it's a great idea! I'm just making and observation that's all. Seemed a little funny to me. Thanks again for the thread and pics! :mug:

For me it's a matter of brewing lots of styles very quickly. The only thing standing in my way is not enough room in the keezer to chill and carb my kegs. Getting that last half keg into bottles makes room.

Another thing is this: I brew some out-of-the-ordinary beers...just to try out. I have 10-gallons of Old Speckled Hen down in the brewshop. Now I love that beer, but it's the kind of beer you enjoy a half a pint of in front of the fireplace 3-4 nights a week. Kegs are better suited for higher volume house ales (in my opinion). I like to bottle those more "extreme" beers for leisurely sipping over time.

Ultimately, I'd like to get to where I have a steady stash of bottled beer that is 10-18 months old. Now that's the beer I'll send in to competitions. :D
 
I used the BMBF tonight and I nominate it for DIY of the year!!!

So easy! I probably spilled less beer than I did bottling with the wand. Worked like a champ. After seeing people ***** about their Blichman's, I was thrilled that this is so easy.

A $.65 stopper and a broken racking cane. No tubing, just E.F.'d it in the picnic tap. Filled 4 bottles in no time.
 
BierMuncher said:
The other thing is that I tend to grab the bottles out of the bucket to go cap and leave the cane sitting in the bucket while I'm off capping the bottles.

Just easier cleanup at the end.

I was at the LHBS at lunch today picking up some odds and ends and saw a beer gun for sale.

Man that thing looked complicated.

I read this thread a long time ago and tried this. I found, though, that if I put a Bottling tip on the racking cane then you don't drip all over the place. You have to goof with where the stopper is set but after you get it there no dripping. I always use oxygen absorbing caps. all this fuss about oxygen ruining beer imho is all for nothing. If you do up 5 or so bottles at a time what bubbles up from sitting there will make a nice layer of co2. Just fill 1 up and sit and watch it. You'll see what I mean. Then cap them with oxygen absorbing caps. no worries then! =)
 
Cheesefood said:
I used the BMBF tonight and I nominate it for DIY of the year!!!

I second that nomination. This needs some pics and a wiki entry.


Cheesefood said:
A $.65 stopper and a broken racking cane. ... Filled 4 bottles in no time.

Ditto for me.
 
This is great!

I had resigned myself to the fact that I would have to buy a beergun soon, but now I can cross the stupid thing off the list

Thanks BM.
 
Here's the benefit...

These took about 45 minuts to fill on Thurdsay night for a party out of town..
notempties.JPG
4 Hours later you can see that the end product was obviously well received:

empties.JPG
 
The beergun was one of the things the SWMBO was getting me for Xmas. I told her not to because I wanted to try this method. I tried it out today. I can see where this can work really well; however, I think I need to practice more. After filling a 12-pack, I probably lost almost 2 beers! I'm still getting substantial foaming. I dropped the PSIs to ~3-4, using 3/8" line, cold bottles. The only thing I notice is that since I'm using a complete racking cane, there might be an issue there somewhere. Anyone have video of this method that I can check out? I know it's been asked before, but I figured maybe someone had done it by now... :D
 
Even though you turned the PSI down...did you bleed the pressure from your kegs first?

I made that mistake.

Also, if you can get your cane down to 15-18 inches that might help.

One more thing. Is the tip of your racking cane cut at an angle. If not, this would cause a lot of back pressure where the cane hits the bottom of the bottle and cause foaming. If it's cut at an angle, the beer will flow with less restriction and less foaming.

Lastly...make sure to apply enough pressure on that stopper to slow the flow.
 
BierMuncher said:
Even though you turned the PSI down...did you bleed the pressure from your kegs first?

I made that mistake.

Also, if you can get your cane down to 15-18 inches that might help.

One more thing. Is the tip of your racking cane cut at an angle. If not, this would cause a lot of back pressure where the cane hits the bottom of the bottle and cause foaming. If it's cut at an angle, the beer will flow with less restriction and less foaming.

Lastly...make sure to apply enough pressure on that stopper to slow the flow.

I think the magic is in the cane length and the stopper seat. I use a 14" cane with a bevel cut, and a solid seat of the stopper. I can fill room temp bottles (70*) and lose maybe 1 tbsp per bottle. I lose more beer from drippage than foam.
 
I'll try those soon. I did bleed the pressure from the kegs, which is why I was surprised at the amount of foam. I'll cut my racking cane down at an angle and see how that works. Thanks guys.
 
Ok, I've used the BMBF several times over the last couple of months. It works fairly well, but I've had my share of foaming and spillage (mostly due to drinking heavily whilst doing it). Some of the tips though are going to make this even easier. I'm going to go chop up one of my stainless racking canes that I don't use to make BMBF v.2.0. I'll also remember to cut the pressure down, vent the keg, and release the tap when releasing pressure from the bottle (the last one really is just operator error).
 
Out of curiosity, I just filled a 12pk and caught all the overflow, drippage, etc. in a bucket. I made no abnormal effort to reduce spillage, all of the bottles were topped off. At the end, I dumped the contents of the bucket into a kitchen measuring cup. I had just shy of 8oz of beer.
:mug:

Note: No beer was harmed in the filling of the bottles. All uncontained beer was safely stored in a warm, self-expanding container for further processing.
 
pldoolittle said:
Out of curiosity, I just filled a 12pk and caught all the overflow, drippage, etc. in a bucket. I made no abnormal effort to reduce spillage, all of the bottles were topped off. At the end, I dumped the contents of the bucket into a kitchen measuring cup. I had just shy of 8oz of beer.
:mug:

Note: No beer was harmed in the filling of the bottles. All uncontained beer was safely stored in a warm, self-expanding container for further processing.
Sounds about right.

I did two twelves last nite and had about a cup and a half. Putting those bottles into a bucket sure makes things easier.

NOTE: I fed the overflow to my dog...she loves Oktoberfast. :D
 
With an expensive beer gun/etc... is there overflow? I'm not investing in one. Never had use, i have the BMBF, just curious. BTW, if you take your time you don't get any spillage... takes more time though. :D
 
I suppose it's only fitting that since I was the first one to ask for a video, I should have to finally get off my butt and make one :D
So here it is, just to demonstrate how easy it is. Pop it onto the bottle, open the tap, once the flow stops squeeze the stopper with your thumb, let it fill until some foam comes out, let off the tap, pop it out of the bottle, and cap it.
And yes, you can fill it faster than I did in the video - get a rhythm and it's really quick, as the other guys have said. Even being slowed down by taking videos, we still filled a 12-pack in just minutes, and lost only a couple tablespoons of beer.

Sorry the video quality isn't great, I should have had more light so you could see the beer level better - but take my word for it, there was not much more than 1/8" of foam on the beer while filling.
[YOUTUBE]ow7rUf0TgPg[/YOUTUBE]
 
Ok, I made some modifications to my racking cane and tested out my BMBF v2.0 today.

What I did. I took a stainless racking cane I had laying around and don't use anymore and cut the angle off. I cut on a bias so that it would cause less foaming. Then I stored it in my freezer. I sanitized some bottles, cut the pressure to the kegs down to 4 or 5 psi and released the pressure from the keg (well on the first keg, forgot on the second and only bottled 2 bottles off it anyway). I did not chill the bottles and had very little foaming. In all I bottled up just over half a case of 12 oz'ers and 9 or 10 16 oz'ers. I found that if I didn't seal the stopper too tight in the bottle, I could control the flow by just stretching the stopper a little bit to release the pressure as it built up. Made filling fairly fast. Here are pics of my BMBF v2.0.

8384-IMAGE_020.jpg


And a close up of the bias on the tip.
8384-IMAGE_021.jpg



I had been thinking of buying either a beergun or a counterpressure filler, but not anymore. As little as I plan on bottling from the keg, this will do the trick nicely. I think I'll start bottling up a 6 or 12 pack from each batch that I deam worthy and sending them out for comps and beer swaps.
 
Funkenjaeger said:
...Sorry the video quality isn't great, I should have had more light so you could see the beer level better - but take my word for it, there was not much more than 1/8" of foam on the beer while filling.

Nice Vid...

The only thing I do differently is to have a "spit" cup near by. I go ahead and start my flow into the spit cup to purge air out of the lines...then use my (clean) finger to cap the end and move over to start bottling.

It appeared to fill alittle fast...what was your PSI set at? Mine usually takes a good 40-45 seconds to fill at about 5 PSI...with the excess pressure bled off the keg.

Thanks for the video.
 
BierMuncher said:
The only thing I do differently is to have a "spit" cup near by. I go ahead and start my flow into the spit cup to purge air out of the lines...then use my (clean) finger to cap the end and move over to start bottling.
Sounds like a good idea. Though, when I was filling several in a row I had pretty good luck just going straight from one to the next while keeping the tube mostly full of just beer, though it would require someone handing me bottles quickly to keep that up.

BierMuncher said:
It appeared to fill alittle fast...what was your PSI set at? Mine usually takes a good 40-45 seconds to fill at about 5 PSI...with the excess pressure bled off the keg.
I had it set somewhere in the neighborhood of 5PSI, though I'm not 100% sure of the exact setting as my regulator is hidden behind the kegs in the back of the fridge, so it was sort of eyeballed. I did purge the keg first. The faster filling is probably due to the fact that I'm using 1/4" ID tubing instead of 3/16" ID beverage line. So far I don't see much need to switch, as I can successfully fill without much foam, and it's plenty fast.
 
Funkenjaeger said:
Sounds like a good idea. Though, when I was filling several in a row I had pretty good luck just going straight from one to the next while keeping the tube mostly full of just beer, though it would require someone handing me bottles quickly to keep that up.

I only do that for the first bottle. I usually set about 10-12 bottles inside a bucket, nice and close to each other so I can move about pretty quickly. The tube won't drip (and pick up bubbles) until you pull it completely out of the bottle and if they're very close, you can quickly move from one to the other.

Nicely done...
 
BierMuncher said:
I only do that for the first bottle. I usually set about 10-12 bottles inside a bucket, nice and close to each other so I can move about pretty quickly. The tube won't drip (and pick up bubbles) until you pull it completely out of the bottle and if they're very close, you can quickly move from one to the other.
Oh, okay - in that case, I usually do the same, especially since I run some starsan through the line first so I need to purge the remainder of that anyway. I didn't do that in the video as we were too busy screwing around trying to get a decent 'take' :p
I will likely do another video the next time I fill some bottles, to include that step, as well as probably showing the sequential filling of multiple bottles (to show how painless it really is), and of course do it with better lighting conditions so you can more easily see what's happening in the bottle. And if I get real adventurous maybe I'll narrate so it's a little more instructional.
 
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