Who else does this? Anyone?

[Tactical-Brewer]

Hey all,

Was just watching a video on easier ways to bottle your beer and they were talking about a bottling bucket. Yeah, I know those have been around for a long time, but that's not the idea I had.

In the video, they had their mash tun sitting there next to the bottling bucket and I kept waiting for it, but they went a different direction with the video...

But, it raised the question, if you have a mash tun with a ball valve, etc, why couldn't you just transfer your brew from the fermenter into your cleaned and sanitized mash tun and use the ball valve and a small hose to easily bottle your brew?

Is this old news? I've never seen/heard of anyone doing it? Draw backs? Hard to sanitize the mash tun and the ball valve?

Just an idea, and probably going to do that next brew because it's kind of a pita knelt down on the floor using that wand deal.

Thanks,
Tac

 

[JonM]

I wouldnt trust my ability to sanitize a mash tun and brass ball valve, especially one as old as mine!

You can put the bottling bucket on a counter and attach the wand to the spigot with maybe a 1 inch piece of tubing. Sit in a chair in front of the bucket, and just lift the bottles to the wand, and bottle away. No kneeling necessary.

 

[Tactical-Brewer]

I guess I should have mentioned I don't have a bottling bucket lol.

But yeah, for sure the bottling bucket takes any of the need or want to use the mash tun out of the equation.

I thought about buying a couple of those Italian spickets I guess they're called but haven't yet.

 

[RM-MN]

Sanitizing a mash tun shouldn't be hard. You are really going for pasteurization so hot water should take care of the microorganisms. I believe that at 160F it only takes less than a minute so pour the water into the tun, use a torch to heat the ball valve, then slowly drain the water through it to maintain the heat there for a minute or 2. Longer times or higher temps are no problem as long as you don't destroy the tun with too high of temps. When you heat the ball valve be careful not to melt any plastics.

 

[muels]

I don't put much effort into cleaning my mash tun, just scrub out the gunk and sticky and rinse it. I would hate to mess with proper cleaning and sanitizing for the price of a bottling bucket!

 

[Tactical-Brewer]

Good point muels