Better bottling/less loss

[welly2]

Bottled 23 litres last night which was the first big bottling I've done since getting kegs in place. It was an arduous task.

Anyway, what I noticed was how much beer I was losing. I bulk primed and so moved beer from the primary fermenter to another fermenter I was racking from. There was the expected loss there, although lost a litre or so extra that I probably shouldn't have if I syphoned better. And then I lost a litre or so from the fermenter I was racking from as I simply couldn't get the last bit out.

I'm trying to figure out a better method so I don't keep losing litres all over the place that hopefully I could salvage. I use one of those bottle fillers you stuff in the fermenter tap. I syphon using an auto syphon.

I'm undecided whether to bother figuring out a more efficient method of moving beer around or just suck up the losses/set my batch size in beersmith to be bigger and brew a bit extra. I suppose at the end of the day, it'll be an extra dollar in grain.

 

[Blind Dog]

Bottle most of the batch carefully as you're doing. Then just carefuuly tip the dregs from the bulk priming bucket through a sanitised funnel into bottles. Mark those bottles so you'll know they're not keepers and drink them first. Used to work for me

If you're desperate to recover the dregs from the FV, you can use a paper coffee filter in a funnel (sanitise both) to collect it and carb drops in the bottle(s). Not sure it's worth it

 

[BradG]

The last bottle gets an inch of sediment. Give it to some one. They'll never drink your beer again.

 

[Danscraftbeer]

The losses are donated to the party in my compost pile. The worms very much appreciate it they turn up in the thousands.

 

[Kingy]

Sometimes if I'm lazy I'll keg my 19litres and tip 2-3 litres down the sink. It's only 6-8 beers. Maybe $2-3worth for half an hour work. My time is worth more to me on weekends.

 

[Rocker1986]

Sometimes if I'm lazy I'll keg my 19litres and tip 2-3 litres down the sink. It's only 6-8 beers. Maybe $2-3worth for half an hour work. My time is worth more to me on weekends.

I did exactly that a couple of weekends back, just couldn't be arsed setting up all the bottling shit for 10 stubbies worth of beer so I just drained about half a dozen schooners from the FV to get it coming out reasonably clear (normally that first portion is drained into a bottling bucket) and then filled the keg and tipped the remaining litre down the sink.

 

[BrisBrew]

The last bottle gets an inch of sediment. Give it to some one. They'll never drink your beer again.

ROFL thats good

 

[Danscraftbeer]

I have to say I feel sad about perfectly good beer going down the sink. There is always uses for good beer. Splash it over your hop beds.
Anyone tried beer vinegar? done it. Slug traps? Lawn feed?

 

[n87]

Sometimes if I'm lazy I'll keg my 19litres and tip 2-3 litres down the sink. It's only 6-8 beers. Maybe $2-3worth for half an hour work. My time is worth more to me on weekends.

2L coke bottles with carb cap.
when you start drinking the keg, top it up.
extra 6 pack, negligible effort

 

[Danscraftbeer]

2L coke bottles with carb cap.
when you start drinking the keg, top it up.
extra 6 pack, negligible effort

I do that with 750ml pet bottles for pre tapped keg taste testing.
If leftovers are more than 2 bottles worth and its good beer and you know it. Its worth bottle conditioning with carb drops for kegged versus bottle conditioned flavour tests.
Oh don't tip that liquid gold down the sink.. :huh:

 

[LiquidGold]

Agreed

 

[welly2]

Nice idea re: the carb cap. I should think about getting a couple of those really. I think I'm going to just scale up my recipes a few litres and just get over the odd litre here and there I'm losing. Or try and design a better racking vessel. One with a spout right in the bottom so I can get the last dregs out of it. Which will probably cost me more than a couple of hundred grams of grain I'd have to pay for by scaling up.

 

[butisitart]

i only bottle. there's an art to gently tipping the primary slightly when you're down to the last 4L or so, and getting the most out without stirring trub. i usually lose around 500ml, and on a high floc like nottingham, i'd lose about 200ml max.
on the bottling fermenter, are you removing the trub filter first?? with no trub filter, you can go all the way and lose around 80-100ml. i funnel that if i'm just shy of a bottle.
trick - always keep a 330ml bottle for the end - you might not be able to fill a bigger bottle, but you might squeeze out a 330. last bottle is always the taste tester at about 2 weeks to give you an idea how it's all travelling.

 

[Killer Brew]

I manage to hardly waste any by carefully placing a wedge under the back of the fermenter when Im around halway through bottling. Lets me get nearly everything out of the tap while leaving the sediment behind.

 

[Killer Brew]

i only bottle. there's an art to gently tipping the primary slightly when you're down to the last 4L or so, and getting the most out without stirring trub. i usually lose around 500ml, and on a high floc like nottingham, i'd lose about 200ml max.
on the bottling fermenter, are you removing the trub filter first?? with no trub filter, you can go all the way and lose around 80-100ml. i funnel that if i'm just shy of a bottle.
trick - always keep a 330ml bottle for the end - you might not be able to fill a bigger bottle, but you might squeeze out a 330. last bottle is always the taste tester at about 2 weeks to give you an idea how it's all travelling.

SNAP!!

 

[kaiserben]

As above - I keep a sanitised 330ml bottle handy for the last little bit from the bottling bucket's tap. So I'd usually end up only losing the trub and maybe 100-200ml from the fermenter (maybe more when it's a style I need to be clear), and then maybe another 500ml that can't reach the bottling bucket's tap. (which I guess I could also tip out into a funnel and into another bottle, but have never been bothered with that last bit).

 

[Mr B]

Yep, scale up a little.

I do 50l batches (2 x 25l ferments), so I fill 2 kegs and bottle a bit over a case for giveaways etc.

 

[peteru]

Whatever is left in the priming bucket makes an excellent ingredient for cooking. Flemish beef stew is one good recipe, but I'm sure that a beef and stout pie or some other creation will do just as well. The extra unfermented sugar in the primed beer is no problem when cooking, most meat dishes benefit from a bit of sugar and salt to balance each other out. Cooking with beer is good even if you have kids, all the alcohol will boil off so you don't have to worry about having tipsy toddlers.

 

[Rocker1986]

That's not a bad idea actually, might have to start saving the priming bucket dregs!

 

[wobbly]

For those that bottle and worry about the amount of beer left behind have they considered installing a "dip tube" in their bottling bucket along the lines of this one copied from HBT.

I know this is a different tap to what is commonly available on the Plastic Fermenters used in Australia but the idea/principle could quite easily be adopted with a bit of creative thinking

Cheers

Wobbly