Wow...bottling alone sux!!!

[BrianTheBrewer]

Today was the first time I bottled a batch of beer without my friends. It was fun at first because I wanted to see if I could do it alone (which I did) but wow what a pain. The clean up was the worst. I started at 2:15pm and finally finished at 6:45pm. Not that bad of time. I see now why I love brewing with the people I brew/bottle with.

How many of you bottle alone and hate it/love it???

 

[billtzk]

I occasionally have "help" (if you can call it that) when I'm brewing. Mostly the help eats my food, drinks my beers, smokes my cigars, and distracts me while I'm brewing. Nice.

I always bottle alone. Funny, no one seems to want to help with that.

Lots of people volunteer to help me drink my brew. They know how much I love to brew, so I guess they think they are doing me a favor?

 

[k1v1116]

I have always bottled alone maybe 20 or so 5 gallon batches. its sucks but it shouldnt take more than 2.5hours total. there are cheats, like using bigger bottles and/or fliptops.

 

[Bernie Brewer]

4 1/2 hrs???

Don't worry, you'll get the process streamlined. Then you'll start kegging.

 

[Sastrugi]

I'm a lone bottler and always have been, but I have my system down and it only takes a couple of hours, max. I don't mind it much because it brings me one big step closer to opening the bottles back up and drinking what's inside...

+1 on bigger bottles!

 

[Malticulous]

I never timed it but I think I bottle a batch in less than a hour. That is after the dishwasher sanitizes them. I move so fast other people get in my way. With others we talk and drink beer. I don't even have a sip when I'm bottling.

 

[Orangevango]

Luckily my girlfriend loves to bottle. She actualy doesn't want me to start kegging because she likes to bottle.

 

[mattmcl]

I've got it down to about 30 minutes, but I use bombers.

 

[jmartyg]

i'm down to about 30 minuts of the botteling process. Dishwasher sanitizes them in 2 runs of 3 dozen 341ml bottles. I usually find one or two with a cracked or chipped mouth.

here is my process:
- After the dish washer cooks them, i put them in 12 packs and cover with a plastic bag.
- Start the second run of 3 dozen bottles in the dishwasher.
- Boil the priming sugar in 500ml of water.
- Sanitize the bucket, lid, cane and hose
- the sugar water should be cooled enough not to make me think it will melt the bucket. so now I rack to the bucket, insert lid and put in the corner for a few minutes.
- I usually have another 5 gallon batch I need to rack, so I sanitize the carboy I just emptied and rack to that
- the first 3 dozen bottls should be cooled now
- Check the dishwasher; should be on the last leg of the 'drying' process.
- if there is time, i clean up the bucket/carboy I just racked from and put it away.
- START BOTTLEING
- put he botteling bucket on the counter pull up a chair and get the 3 cases in arms reach.
- fill 12 bottles at a time; I leave them in the case when i do this, makes thing faster.
- cap 12 bottles. I use a bench capper on the floor. I get better leverage this way and my shoulder doesnt hurt.
- dishwasher should click itslef off about now. (about 30 minutes total time). Open it up, wait for the steam to clear and pull out the rack.
- fill and cap the remaining 24 clean and cooled bottles.
- smoke break
- empty dishwasher - put the 3 dozen in cases
- the bottles should be fairly warm to the toch, so sometimes i have to kill some time
- fill 12, cap.. repeat 1.5 times.
- clean bottleing bucket, lid, cane, hose and put away.
- if i am starting anoter batch, I just use the bucket I just bottled from, or the one I racked from, depending if I want to use that yeast or not..
- scrub the spill I always make of the floor and counter.

If no one gets in my way, and if i am not starting another batch, it takes about 2.5-3 hours start to finish including cleanup.

 

[bsay]

Call me crazy, but I bottle while I brew another batch. There's so much down time in brewing, I might as well be doing other beer related activities.

 

[Sparky]

How many of you bottle alone and hate it/love it???

Got so tired of bottling that I just switched to kegging. It only took me 29 batches to get to this point. Took awhile to convince the wife, ya know

 

[firepunk]

Got so tired of bottling that I just switched to kegging. It only took me 29 batches to get to this point. Took awhile to convince the wife, ya know

I bottled 3 batches and said to hell with that and bought a keg setup. Now I need to get another keg and I suppose build a new draft tower so I can have 2 taps. Or maybe just buy a picnic faucet. I haven't decided yet. I do want to keep one keg of beer and one keg of cider on tap though.

 

[MoRoToRiUm]

I also just use one big bottle I do bottle on occasion, but then it's Grolsch swing tops and BMBF or BMBF alternative if it's on tap.

 

[madewithchicken]

Call me crazy, but I bottle while I brew another batch. There's so much down time in brewing, I might as well be doing other beer related activities.

I keg mostly because I am wicked lazy. But I brew at my friends house and we bottle his batches as we brew. I mean it is pretty easy that way. He cleans the bottles as I start the mash. And we bottle during the boil.

If you can do it quick enough you can clean the carboy and use it for the batch that is brewing.

But for my own beer I only bottle 18 bottles or so from each batch.

 

[bbrim]

I bottle alone. I wish I had help sometimes, no one minds helping me drink them. Sometimes I try to take a Zen-like approach and it helps, plus I keep myself going with a few sips here and there.

 

[TJ-Bill]

I bottled my last few batches, I started with regular bottles then slow gathered enough re-useable snap top bottles. They did save on time if your running solo. But now I've moved on to Kegging (haven't actually doen it yet) It used to take me about 3hrs to clean, bottle then clean up, I enjoyed it by I like the idea of Kegging plus Corny keg will only hold 19liters so I'll end up bottling some anyway.

 

[Revvy]

I alwys bottle alone, I can get a 5 gallon batch bottled in less than one basic brewing podcast (a hair less than an hour) That includes heating the priming solution, sanitizing everything including the bottles, racking, filling capping, and boxing...but not clean up.

I got my process dialed in, and I jury-rigged a couple things that really help, and make it more comfortable.

I mount my bottling wand directly on my spigot and set the bucket on a pot so I can sit comfortably at a chair and fill them at eye level (I auctually use a larger pot then the one showed here.)

I also use a dip tube in my bottling bucket.

This means I don't ever have to tilt it to get the last beer out.

In fact the dip tube leaves behind less that 4 ounces of gunk in the bucket which means I average 54 beers/5 gallon batches now.

 

[jcarson83]

+1 on setting on a pot on the counter and hooking the wand directly to the bucket. I think this saved me about an hour and a lot of complaining. A lot less bending over now and everyone likes that. It still takes me an hour and half or so but I don't really mind any more.

 

[Dpostman]

HUmmm, Great idea on the dip tube. I have about 3 or 4 curved ends of racking canes that could be used with a stopper to get the final part of my secondary fermentor buckets without having to tip them. Although, it doesn't take long to dump in a keg, any slight movement at the end of the process when tipping, does stir up some of the bottom sediments. I'm thinking Curved end of racking cane + the little plastic attachment to not suck up the very bottom of the bucket

Thanks.

dp

 

[Revvy]

HUmmm, Great idea on the dip tube. I have about 3 or 4 curved ends of racking canes that could be used with a stopper to get the final part of my secondary fermentor buckets without having to tip them. Although, it doesn't take long to dump in a keg, any slight movement at the end of the process when tipping, does stir up some of the bottom sediments. I'm thinking Curved end of racking cane + the little plastic attachment to not suck up the very bottom of the bucket

Thanks.

dp

The copper one was my original design, but it met an unfortunate end in my garbage disposal (I'm surprised my disposal survived, but it could probably dispose of bosy parts if I ever needed to.)

My replacement was a piece of racking cane heated an bent over my alcohol spirit lammp I use for yeast harvesting.

 

[Beerbeque]

I usually finish a 5 gallon batch in 90 minutes using half bombers and half 12oz. My bottles have already been rinsed clean when I drink them so I just dunk them in a sinkful of starsan solution,drain them in the bottom rack of the dishwasher and start fillingwith my chair pulled up to the dishwasher door. I cap them, mark the caps with the batch #, box and clean up. Bottling day is quick and easy compared to my 4.5 hr brewday. I really prefer bottled beer so I'm not much interested in kegging yet.

 

[BrianTheBrewer]

Well today im bottling another batch of IPA. NoClueBrewmaster is coming over later to help so this should be easier all around.

 

[Memorex88]

I occasionally have "help" (if you can call it that) when I'm brewing. Mostly the help eats my food, drinks my beers, smokes my cigars, and distracts me while I'm brewing. Nice.

I always bottle alone. Funny, no one seems to want to help with that.

Lots of people volunteer to help me drink my brew. They know how much I love to brew, so I guess they think they are doing me a favor?

+1 same here

 

[jimba009]

Luckily my girlfriend loves to bottle. She actualy doesn't want me to start kegging because she likes to bottle.

ditto on this. she gave herself the title "Beer Wench"

 

[mmb]

Luckily my girlfriend loves to bottle. She actualy doesn't want me to start kegging because she likes to bottle.

And she likes you having money to spend on her.

To the OP: It's all getting your process down. Do it alone a few more times and soon you'll find that all the "help" you were getting really isn't.

 

[Grinder12000]

I can bottle 12oz bottles and it's a 90 minute job - not tough at all! as mmb says - it's all about getting the process down.

I think the only thing someone could help on is the capping but that is not that much work either. Another person would just get in the way.

Mostly the help eats my food, drinks my beers, smokes my cigars, and distracts me while I'm brewing.

+1 to that !!!

 

[TerryWendel]

It takes no more than 45 minutes after things are sanitized to bottle 5 gallons alone.

 

[kip]

Kegging seems to me to be the way to go... Primary to keg and forget about it. I make mine from wort kits so even that is really easy. All told from start to finish a 5 gallon batch probably only consumes 1 hour of my time....

EDIT: If my friends are around they tend to do a pretty good job distracting me and slowing the process while drinking my beer but I'm not going to include that time for the record

 

[Jeffro]

I bottle while brewing as well... I clean and sanitize my bottles while doing my mash and drain them in the racks in my dishwasher. Then I fill 'em once the boil is underway. Sometimes I may get interupted to add hops, irish moss, ETC to my boil but I still have plenty of time to finish bottling, put a batch number on my bottles, and take them out to my "bottle conditioning" chamber (converted freezer that maintains between 65-75 degrees thanks to a cheap line level baseboard thermostat turning a lightbulb on and off... The light bulbs that I use are ones that I paint with blue "engine color" paint).

 

[Skipster]

I bottled alone a couple of days ago. The one thing that I did that really made a difference was placing the bottling bucket on the fridge top. That way I could stand with the bottles at chest level. It made it pretty easy. Right off the counter top into the conditioning cupboard.

 

[goodbyebluesky82]

I bottled my 4th batch in maybe 65-70 minutes. I was running like crazy, and only bottled about 42 bottles, all 12 ouncers with crown caps. That 70 minute timeframe included sanitizing all the bottles and my bottling wand, but not much of a cleanup (I did that when I got home from work).

What I find helps is:
1)using my brewpot to dunk 10 or so bottles at a time in starsan solution
2)instead of siphoning I just use my bottle wand and tubing to fill up the bottling bucket, if I have it set right it just flows all on its own and lets me mess with the bottles.
3)I use milk crates to store my bottled beer, and I use 2 of them stacked to sit on while bottling over the D/W. I can still reach the counter to reach for a new bottle while the one in my hand is still filling. Timing is pretty important or you'll make a mess though.
4)When the bottles are full, I cap 'em, and in the crates they go. 2 crates hold a 48 bottle batch, unless its my sierra nevada bottles- they are a little chunkier.

If I add some 22 oz bombers, and some more grolsch bottles I can get my time down even further. I would love to bottle while mashing, or during the boil and get my brewin' done in a single day.