Font Mounted Counter Pressure Filler.

[mxd]

thanks, will need to look at the other type of CPBF and make a stand like TP (I think it was TP and it's bribie's one?)

thanks
Matt

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Actually, earlier in the thread BillGill posted an idea about an adaptor that could go into the PET cpbf. That'd work. It would take away all the ease of use advantages of this particular filler , turning it into essentially the same thing as the more usual sort of CPBF. But, if you are willing to use one of those anyway.... Then you have the option of either thing. Easy as pie filling of PET bottles & more difficult, but doable filling of glass and grolsch bottles.

I can't think of any way to get both the grolsch bottles and the easiiness though.

TB

 

[Batz]

OK - I've given this thing a run and installed it (sort of) into my keggerator.

It doesn't fit my fonts and I think it would look a bit silly hanging way out in front anyway - So I'll either buy an appropriate font for it or just rig one. It essentially has a through fridge style shank, so even just a length of stainless/chrome pipe would do nicely.

But, seeing as I have to open my keggerator to put the line onto whichever keg I want to fill from anyway. I figured a temporary solution would be nearly as good.

So here it is.

Here you can see the inside of my keggerator - the lump of wood is the CP filler assembly sitting in a convenient space waiting.View attachment 39389

And here it is in place. The spare liquid QD gets popped onto whichever keg I want to fill from, and while you cant see it, the CP filler's gas line runs to a second outlet (ball valved) from my regulator. So you drop the filler into place, click on the QD and turn on the gas. 20 seconds total.

View attachment 39390

And when you use it.. its basically hands free. You clip in the bottle, lift the lever to gas up, turn it to the left and lift to turn on the liquid, turn on the gas bleed. I was filling today and can do a bottle while holding a beer in my other hand... and the phone rang in the middle of one fill, so I turned one little knob, walked away and when I came back, continued where I left off. The only bit where you need two hands is screwing on the lid of the bottle.

Easiest CP filler ever !!!

I have mentally worked out an adapter for doing glass bottles. One bored afternoon, a bit of chopping board and some work with the dremmel will see a little adapter just slide into it. Wont do champagne bottles though, they are too wide to fit.

Good buy for me - it fits the purpose I bought it for exactly. Filling bottle for taking to parties etc. I will happily send bottles to comp in PET.. but I would prefer glass, so I will do the adaptor eventually. So it'll pretty much fill all my bottle filling needs and its damn easy to use.

TB

OK Thirsty you've had this for a while now, are you still happy with it?

Batz

 

[bill_gill85]

Actually, earlier in the thread BillGill posted an idea about an adaptor that could go into the PET cpbf. That'd work. It would take away all the ease of use advantages of this particular filler , turning it into essentially the same thing as the more usual sort of CPBF. But, if you are willing to use one of those anyway.... Then you have the option of either thing. Easy as pie filling of PET bottles & more difficult, but doable filling of glass and grolsch bottles.

I can't think of any way to get both the grolsch bottles and the easiiness though.

TB

Not having actually seen or used one of these fillers in person, I'd agree that filling glass bottles would be more difficult than filling pet bottles as the filler was designed, but I doubt it would be anywhere near as frustrating as it sounds to use a more traditional cpbf. My intent was, that the adaptor be fitted to the bottle filler for the whole bottling session, with the bottle then seated against the rubber stopper, using an upward motion. If you had a shelf under the filler (or the filler were font mounted), you could slip a spacer under the bottle to keep the bottle sealed against the rubber stopper. Then you can operate the filler as intended. No shelf? Then just hold the bottle in place by hand. You don't need two hands to operate the filler?

The only modes of failure I could foresee are;

1) Not having a big enough opening in the adaptor to allow the CO2 to escape as the beer flows in, resulting in the adaptor filling up with beer & overflowing out the vent tube, or

2) Losing the seal against the bottle & either dropping the bottle (you were holding it in place?) & wasting precious beer.

Like I said though... I've never seen one in person, the bottle attachment could be more complicated than I imagine.

Cheers,

Ben

 

[Batz]

I see they are on ebay here

http://tinyurl.com/23p82nn

I just may invest in one of these.

Batz

 

[Punter]

Hi guys,
If anybody wants one of these units, I currently
have 3 available.
$70 + post

 

[Thirsty Boy]

I made a video of using the filler. This is how I fill bottles for medium/long term storage, if i am just taking them to a party or something and they will be consumed that night, i skip the purging steps. Sorry they are sideways, i cant work out how to rotate the damn things.

I turn the pressure up on the keg and reg to 20psi when filling for longer term, this gives better purging of oxygen and also ensures that there is absolutely no carbonation lost during the process.

How the bottles go into the filler and clamp in place, purging:


Pressurize and fill the bottle:


Finishing the fill, removing the bottle from the filler:


Bottle capped and filled:



Pretty easy huh - purged of oxygen, filled with no loss of CO2 and all managed with one hand up until I had to screw on the cap.

TB

 

[Fents]

really good vids TB, nice one.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Thanks Fents,

It actually works a little better with bigger bottles - probably because things get cold and stay that way longer during the fill of a big bottle. It takes about a min or so altogether to fill a 330ml bottle, but you can fill "faster" on a big bottle without fobbing, so a 750ml doesn't take much longer and a 1.25 only a little longer again.

 

[Florian]

Nice videos TB, thanks for posting them up, so much easier to understand the filler from the videos.

While re-reading through the thread last night I thought of an idea on how to fill glass crown seals with this filler. Will work on it over the next week or so if I find some time and post the results up. It should be fairly simple to reproduce, if it works that is.

Florian

 

[Florian]

I received mine from punter (nectarbrewing) this week and tried to bottle some soda water tonight.
Somehow I didn't quite get it to work the way I wanted, i could only fill liquid when the bottles wasn't pressurised. Once it was pressurised, the flow stopped.
I've watched TB's videos over and over again, one difference I have noticed is that mine vents air/Co2 with the large handle up, and fills Co2 with the handle down, whereas TB's seems to do the opposite. It's the same model, but branded pegas rather than keg king.
So I manage to fill bottles if I release pressure, then turn handle to liquid and fill until pressure is equalised, turn handle to gas again to release pressure again, then fill again and so on. Obviously this defeats the whole counter pressure concept, and I'm sure it's just something I'm doing wrong.

Has anyone else encountered this or knows what what I'm doing wrong?

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Maybe yours is different after all but on mine the large handle NEVER vents anything. The little silver handle/knob on the side vents. The large handle only either opens the path to the liquid or to the has pressure.

Make sure the little silver vent handle is closed. Turn clockwise to close.
Large handle is down (horizontal) and turned anticlockwise (lever towards the right)
Insert bottle and tighten it in place
Lift handle to open the gas path fill bottle with co2 and pressurise
Handle down, cutting off gas pressure.
Turn lever to liquid position (handle pointing towards you) which means gas is now cut off no matter whether the handle is up or down.
Lift handle to open the liquid path
Nothing happens - pressures currently equal
Now open the vent valve with the little silver handle/knob on the side - gas will vent out the exhaust and as the gas flows out, liquid will flow in.

You dont maybe have the gas pressure attached to the exhaust port do you? That would explain why gas vents when you lift the handle. IIRC gas goes into the upper one and gas/fob vents through lower one. I'll look tomorrow and tell you if i have it wrong.

 

[Florian]

You dont maybe have the gas pressure attached to the exhaust port do you? That would explain why gas vents when you lift the handle. IIRC gas goes into the upper one and gas/fob vents through lower one. I'll look tomorrow and tell you if i have it wrong.

Thanks for that pointer.
I had set it up exactly like in the video on Punter's website, turns out he had the exhaust and Co2 barb mixed up.
Have now set it up the way you mentioned (Co2 into the upper barb) and it works perfectly. What a great little unit! Will set up my new keg fridge once I've moved house in 3 weeks and the filler will get it's own permanent spot, so all I need to do is attaching the gas and beer disconnect (which will be permanently attached to the filler, leading through the door into the fridge) to the keg I want to fill from.

Have also (mentally) refined an adapter for glas bottles, even grolsch ones. Will build this once I've moved house as well.

Thanks heaps for clearing this up TB, and glad I tried the filler and got it sorted now and not last minute when trying to fill my pumpkin pilsener for the mash paddle.
Will pm Punter so he can add a note to his video.

 

[barls]

florian, can you post a pic with which ones you have swapped as ive got the same one, but gave up after one attempt.

 

[Florian]

Will do, give me an hour or so.

 

[Florian]

OK, her they are with a bit of delay:

As you can see I have ditched the barbed T-piece and liquid in and replaced with JG fittings.

Connect the line coming from your gas bottle/reg to the vacant spot in the T-piece.

Originally I had the T-piece (gas) connected to the short barb below the shank as shown in the video here, however, as described above, this did not work, as it is actually the exhaust.

Hope that helps and you get it working, Barls. Thanks again TB for your detailed description, not sure if I would've figured it out without it.

 

[barls]

cheers mate ill try to change mine over tomorrow.

 

[barls]

ok so it took me a couple of days to change it over but its done.
works now no liquid coming out of the top.
cheers barls

 

[Thirsty Boy]

You can have that T piece anywhere... It doesn't have to be near the filler. I dont have a T at all. My gas line off the regulator is split into 5 lines. 4 for kegs and one for the filler.

No different really, but neater for a fridge instalation if the gas just has one line that needs to come through the door. Depends on your set-up... But as long as the pressure going into the filler is the same as the pressure going into the keg, it doesn't matter where the connection is.

 

[Florian]

Yep, that's how I was planning to set it up once I set up my new permanent keg fridge after the move.