Syphon Bottle Filler Machine

[Logan_01]

Hey, I was looking around at bottle filling machines and came across the syphone bottle filler type which looks simple with little moving parts etc. Does anybody know anywhere in australia that sell these or similar? I was considering building one, has anybody else made something similar?

Thins is what I'm talking about:
http://www.vigoltd.com/Catalogue/Filling/Bottle/Syphon/Stainless-steel-syphon-fillers

And,
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KA3LlPQmsuI

 

[roller997]

That looks really interesting and substantially more efficient than the current method of filling one bottle at a time.
The only concerns I would have is in the amount of oxygen which would be picked up and also for anyone with a conical fermenter, they might not get enough flow going to fill 2-4 bottles at once. Also, the priming is interesting as I suspect it has a good enough seal with the white silicone bungs at the bottom of the stainless syphon tubes to hold the liquid, however I would have expected any liquid in a pipe that is on an angle like that to run out regardless.
Make sure to update the thread if you decided to build the machine as I am sure there would be others interested as well.

Cheers

Roller

 

[Online Brewing Supplies]

I dont see a great advantage over the normal single fill, still will pick up O2 and will still make a mess on floor :unsure:
Yes there is the bling factor but you are going to have to fill a lot of bottles to make it pay for its self.

 

[Wolfman1]

How many bottles do you fill in a batch?
You'd have to be filling hundreds to make up for the time you'd spend sanitising that contraption and then cleaning it again afterwards.
The reason he can fill a bottle in 10 seconds is how high he has suspended the barrel and the 2" connection hose to the bottling thingy.
If bottling is that bad then get your bottling bucket up as high as you can get it and rig up a wand on the end of a length of tubing and fill the bottles in a crate on the floor. As the cop said to the netball team, the more head you can get the quicker it goes.
You could even put in a tee to split the line and have two wands and fill two bottles at once.
It looks like an industrial application to me

 

[Crouch]

I looked around for a while just under a year ago and saw this kind of device ... I'd stick clear of this for beer, the amount of oxygen introduced could lead to some really bad flavours. When I was asking around many people mentioned that there is no point filling more then one bottle at a time, unless you have the ability to cap more than one bottle at a time ... fair enough point. These guys made an awesome bottling machine (for use with a few lads) if you're after something special ...this purges with CO2 and the counter pressure fills

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ikKnYwKtjA[/media]

 

[Logan_01]

Yeah I have seen that counter flow filler video, which is no good as I don't have a keg setup, and If I did I wouldn't need to bottle the whole batch anyway.

I understand the oxygen problem, however I think you could minimise this by having the float valve outlet under the surface, and keeping the lid on the container.

I don't know about you guys but bottling a 40-50L batch into 325ml bottles is a PITA. I could use bigger bottles, but I like having the standard beer size that fits nicely into a glass. So just looking at this as a way to drastically speed up bottling and keep it fun.

Capping is quick, once you have 18 or so beers lined up I can cap them in a few minutes, it's the fill time that takes forever.

 

[dent]

I kind of like that little syphon filler, maybe I'll build one sometime.

What about something like this:

The bottles are on a little spice rack type deal, which has a shelf that can be moved up and down. You start it off when the bottles are at the bottom, but here is the cool part - you raise the rack of bottles up so the top of the bottles is level with where the level of the beer will end up once the bottles are filled - so the flow will automatically stop when the bottles are full. Also would always fill every bottle to the same level, even if one of them was half full to start.

Would be pretty easy to build.

 

[Wolfman1]

Yeah I have seen that counter flow filler video, which is no good as I don't have a keg setup, and If I did I wouldn't need to bottle the whole batch anyway.

I understand the oxygen problem, however I think you could minimise this by having the float valve outlet under the surface, and keeping the lid on the container.

I don't know about you guys but bottling a 40-50L batch into 325ml bottles is a PITA. I could use bigger bottles, but I like having the standard beer size that fits nicely into a glass. So just looking at this as a way to drastically speed up bottling and keep it fun.

Capping is quick, once you have 18 or so beers lined up I can cap them in a few minutes, it's the fill time that takes forever.

325ml bottles are a PITA for me.
Seriously, give the hose and wand a try and let gravity do it's work. You just need to find something sturdy to get 40-50 kg up high. A two story house would be ideal, though the missus might be alarmed to see you carting a FV upstairs to the bedroom

 

[roller997]

Just to cover off on a couple of the points raised (including one I touched on).
This machine is obviously nothing like the other counter flow filler that was shown in this thread as that deals with carbonated beer and a lot of the carbonation would be lost if you first went to a holding tank and then into a bottle.
While I am not keen on the additional oxygen being picked up, and given the point above, I am assuming that you are essentially filling the bottles with primed beer so it does its carbonation. That will consume quite a bit of the oxygen, so I would be surprised if it create any off flavours as indicated initially, however it would reduce the shelf life of the beer before oxidation would be noticed. If the beer was carbonated, then that is a different story but as I mentioned the setup you described really can't be used for carbonated beer. Also, I don't think you will gain anything in terms of oxygen by putting the lid on as it doesn't look air tight - I suspect the lid serves more to keep the beer clear of any insects and other debris.

I also don't think that gravity makes a difference as long as the serving vessel is higher AND you have an adequately sized hose to fill the reservoir as the bottles appear to be filled via a syphon effect and not through pressure - All the pressure would be lost after the beer is in the holding tank.

Dent,
I like your idea - Simpler, cheaper to build and less Oxygen pickup as there is no holding tank and your manifold tubing could go all the way to the bottom. If I had space and wanted a multiple bottle filling setup, this is what I would look at. Cleaning it might be a PITA but then the other setup has to be cleaned as well.
The only reservation I have is the number of bottles fed from the one fermenter as it would trickle into 6 bottles and flow very slowly into 4 bottles. Of course, if you had a priming bucket with a larger outlet that would be less of an issue. Also while 4 or 6 bottles are filling, you could cap the other 4 or 6 which would make it quite an efficient process.