Font Mounted Counter Pressure Filler.

[raven19]

SJ - You say you are not bottling beer, however if the liquid you are bottling contains CO2 and its chilled, when you fill your bottles they would need to be chilled also otherwishe CO2 will get releases and froth up in your bottle.

If the liquid you are bottling is flat then this wont be an issue of course.

 

[Nick JD]

SJ - You say you are not bottling beer, however if the liquid you are bottling contains CO2 and its chilled, when you fill your bottles they would need to be chilled also otherwishe CO2 will get releases and froth up in your bottle.

If the liquid you are bottling is flat then this wont be an issue of course.

I bottle with warm bottles - no issues.

 

[raven19]

Same here Nick, but we are not looking to crank out the filling at max speed.

 

[Samuelsons_Jon]

Hi Raven,

I don't know of any commercial bottler who chills there bottles, and I've never done so myself. I'm unsure of what difference it would make - the product will be at about 3-4 celcius and contact with a bottle at 18 celcius for a millisecond or two I doubt make a difference. It never has 'til now in the setup that I've used anyway. Straight after filling they're being dropped in to a hot water bath at 72 celicus anyway. If it's to contain the fobbing then chilling the product would be vastly more effective surely? Glass being a great insulator and all that?

Nick,

Thanks for the info. I'm using screw-top glass that has a reasonable collar on it, but I won't know for sure til I try. The link may come in very handy! Ta!

 

[Nick JD]

How long do you pasteurise for?

 

[Samuelsons_Jon]

How long do you pasteurise for?

In-bottle pasteurisation in a hot water bath: 71.5 Celcius +/- 0.5 for 20 minutes. Kills everything that needs to be killed.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Jon - if you can run your product at a very low temp, say 0 to -1C (and it will help if you chill the glass... enough to make it worth the effort, who knows? probably not) and run at significantly over the carbonation pressure throughout the whole operation, you will fill a lot faster than in that video. Larger bottles also fill a lot faster. If you are currently operating at 4bar, you'll go a lot quicker than me. That whole thing in the video was done at 1.5bar g and only about half a bar over the carbonation pressure.

Evacuation - well, that will depend on how long you want the beer to last. My beer is filtered, that was a very pale lager and it was going to a person who doesn't drink a lot so it needed a 4-6 month reasonable flavour stability. I'm not personally happy with straight "purge" options for oxygen removal, fillers that use it have constantly higher DO levels than PE fillers - they're probably good enough at the 4bar you're working at, &/or perhaps with a tube to the bottom of the container... but the CP filler in question has no tube, so the purge isn't as effective, and also (even if it existed in a filling situation, which it doesn't) any C02 blanketing effect is nullified because the product is running down the sides of the container to get to the bottom. This filler isn't meant to be a "packaging quality" chunk of equipment - its meant to fill without fob and get the beer home in decent condition to be drunk quickly. If you want to use it as a way to package beer that you expect a shelf life from, you'll need to be a lot more careful.

Honestly - i dont think this is anything like the solution you are going to need. Hell, they're relatively cheap - grab one and experiment by all means - buts its a growler fill option to save bars time and wasted beer, not really a packaging solution. Mind you - at $350 per day for your current filler. Thats half a dozen of these things, a ton of "over cautious" and a casual worker to help out... and you're still ahead.

btw - have a look here http://beerinnovations.com/beerequipment/PET/novotap for the people who designed these things (and their new and improved model) rather than the cheap arsed chinese rip off I am using. If you are patient (the website is a nightmare to navigate) there are quite a few videos of the fillers in action, times for fills, installation applications and stuff like that.

Cheers

Dan

btw - have you shoved a data logger in a sample bottle through your pasteurisation process?? I haven't had a real look at the numbers or anything, but my gut feel says you are throwing a lot more PUs at your beer than needed and you might be affecting the flavour needlessly.

 

[Samuelsons_Jon]

Jon - if you can run your product at a very low temp, say 0 to -1C (and it will help if you chill the glass... enough to make it worth the effort, who knows? probably not) and run at significantly over the carbonation pressure throughout the whole operation, you will fill a lot faster than in that video. Larger bottles also fill a lot faster. If you are currently operating at 4bar, you'll go a lot quicker than me. That whole thing in the video was done at 1.5bar g and only about half a bar over the carbonation pressure.

Evacuation - well, that will depend on how long you want the beer to last. My beer is filtered, that was a very pale lager and it was going to a person who doesn't drink a lot so it needed a 4-6 month reasonable flavour stability. I'm not personally happy with straight "purge" options for oxygen removal, fillers that use it have constantly higher DO levels than PE fillers - they're probably good enough at the 4bar you're working at, &/or perhaps with a tube to the bottom of the container... but the CP filler in question has no tube, so the purge isn't as effective, and also (even if it existed in a filling situation, which it doesn't) any C02 blanketing effect is nullified because the product is running down the sides of the container to get to the bottom. This filler isn't meant to be a "packaging quality" chunk of equipment - its meant to fill without fob and get the beer home in decent condition to be drunk quickly. If you want to use it as a way to package beer that you expect a shelf life from, you'll need to be a lot more careful.

Honestly - i dont think this is anything like the solution you are going to need. Hell, they're relatively cheap - grab one and experiment by all means - buts its a growler fill option to save bars time and wasted beer, not really a packaging solution. Mind you - at $350 per day for your current filler. Thats half a dozen of these things, a ton of "over cautious" and a casual worker to help out... and you're still ahead.

btw - have a look here http://beerinnovations.com/beerequipment/PET/novotap for the people who designed these things (and their new and improved model) rather than the cheap arsed chinese rip off I am using. If you are patient (the website is a nightmare to navigate) there are quite a few videos of the fillers in action, times for fills, installation applications and stuff like that.

Cheers

Dan

btw - have you shoved a data logger in a sample bottle through your pasteurisation process?? I haven't had a real look at the numbers or anything, but my gut feel says you are throwing a lot more PUs at your beer than needed and you might be affecting the flavour needlessly.

Hi Thirsty Boy!

Thanks for taking the time out to post - it's appreciated!

I hope you do know that I wasn't trying to say what you were doing was wrong - just that it might not be as appropriate for what I do. I'm not too much of an ass, at least I like to think so!

Regarding the filling - all professional CP fillers that I've seen/used push the liquid around the outside of the bottle - it's done this was (iirc) as it prevents the liquid being agitated too much as long dip tubes aren't used in the commercial industry - at least I've yet to see one! Believe it or not it was the fact that it did this that actually attracted me more to this!

Please bear in mind that my products (lemonades in the main) are very high in anti-oxidant and won't be as oxygen sensitive as beers may be and so some of the things that I do won't be suitable for everyone else. Post pasteurisation I have a 24 month shelf-life and the flavours are as good on the batch I made at the start (18 months ago) as they are now. But like I say - different product and it's pasteurised which makes the world of difference!

About the data logging - I completely agree with you, and when I'm setup myself I'll be doing exactly that. At the moment the 'leccy is part of the $350 charge, so I'm not that fussed!

This could, of course, all fail completely, but I think it's worth a punt!

Thanks Dan!

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Hi Thirsty Boy!

Thanks for taking the time out to post - it's appreciated!

I hope you do know that I wasn't trying to say what you were doing was wrong - just that it might not be as appropriate for what I do. I'm not too much of an ass, at least I like to think so!

Regarding the filling - all professional CP fillers that I've seen/used push the liquid around the outside of the bottle - it's done this was (iirc) as it prevents the liquid being agitated too much as long dip tubes aren't used in the commercial industry - at least I've yet to see one! Believe it or not it was the fact that it did this that actually attracted me more to this!

Please bear in mind that my products (lemonades in the main) are very high in anti-oxidant and won't be as oxygen sensitive as beers may be and so some of the things that I do won't be suitable for everyone else. Post pasteurisation I have a 24 month shelf-life and the flavours are as good on the batch I made at the start (18 months ago) as they are now. But like I say - different product and it's pasteurised which makes the world of difference!

About the data logging - I completely agree with you, and when I'm setup myself I'll be doing exactly that. At the moment the 'leccy is part of the $350 charge, so I'm not that fussed!

This could, of course, all fail completely, but I think it's worth a punt!

Thanks Dan!

Short tube fillers are about speed - you can run a filler faster without the tube. A long tube will however almost always do a better job, especially on the dissolved oxygen front. If you aren't talking about hundreds of bottles per minute.... tubes are going to do a better job. But ... theory from me. All our fillers are short tube fillers, mind you, they go at 1000+ bottles per minute and triple evacuate. Its possible that industry doesn't even make long tube fillers anymore....

Beer and lemonade are very different - 02 is the enemy in beer, really seriously. The better you can do at eliminating packaged O2, the better your beer will be for longer. In EVERY circumstance.

I really should leave further comment to anyone from the very small scale end of the industry who cares to help you out - I dont know what constitutes "acceptable" in the micro brewing world. But what I do know - is I have tasted a lot, perhaps even a majority of craft beers, who just dont manage to be anywhere near as good in bottled versions as they are at the brewery or in kegs. Micros are terrible at packaging - there's a whole lot of hoo ha about naturally conditioned, live beer etc etc... and then the beer that was great at the pub, is **** in the bottle - every frigging time. So I say... err on the side of caution and have people who live in the next town able to try your beer and pronounce it good, rather than just wondering why the locals seem to like it so much when it tastes like crap every time they've tried it.

Rant over - you could make these work... probably worth a go.

TB

 

[Biggles Brewery]

004.jpg would be better to use a thicker gauge say 3 - 4 mm as this one only just pulls up to seal. Also the forks tend to spread after a while, just have to squash up in vice.

007.jpg

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10.jpg Pipe spacer

I guess it will depend on what bottles you intend to use but for me works well with Becks and Coopers tallies, can't see the rest of the crown seal type bottles being much different?

HI David Here....

Biggles Brewery....

I have one of the units arriving any time this week or earky next.

Got the washer part sorted.

Not sure on the Pipe spacer.

How does this fit in?

Cheers

David

 

[rockeye84]

Hi thirsty, I got this one off eBay a few years back for bout $90, for pet bottles but I'm not a fan. Adapted it to glass. It's a little bit fiddley some times but ***** all over trying to fill from a tap. Just made a font for it and some shims for different sized bottles, from kingys to stubbies, haven't found any bottles it won't work with. I highly recommend this setup! make one up, You won't regret it!

There's a few more pics in my gallery if your interested.
http://aussiehomebrewer.com/gallery/image/7624-counter-pressure-bottle-filler/

Regards rocki

 

[starcmr]

So,

I've been having a ******* of a time doing "quick" fills of bottles to take to parties etc etc. Pouring nothing but foam. I could dick around dropping the pressure etc, but by the time I do that I might as well bust out the CP filler. I want simple, fast, proper CP filling up on the outside of teh keggerator where its easy to get at.

I mulled over a number of potential designs for something I could mount on a font, or things I could fudge onto my existing taps - and made a mess testing one or two out - I decided to do some googling for inspiration and bugger me if I didn't find this.

A font mountable CP filler.

From here:

It is as near as I can tell - a generic rip off of the Pegas font mounted CP filler from Russia. As detailed here. Watch the videos!!



If the Generic one is the same as the Pegas one, you can even screw a regular tap into the front of it and not lose a place on your tower.

So I bought it.

I have no idea whether its going to fit on my font, or whether its any damn good... but I'll take one for the AHB team and test the bugger out. Unless of course someone else already has and wants to let me know I should be calling on Monday morning and cancelling this order ASAP.

Cheers

Thirsty

They're all over ebay when you search counter pressure bottle filler, I know most people recommend a tapcooler or nukatap counterpressure filler but I like the idea of having a system to mount the bottle. This reminds me of the WilliamsWarn BrewBottler and iTap but both of those models are made of plastic and this looks like stainless steel and cheaper.

It seems like it's a generic counter pressure filler attached to a press like you would use for a bottle capper. Does anyone have experience with these? I'm interested to bottling NEIPA with low dissolved oxygen. It's either something like this or spend $500 on a oktober manual seamer + $200 on a duo filler mono. I'm not sure if the duo filler will be worst when it comes to dissolved o2 but cans are cheaper than bottles.