Tips For Making Bottling Day Less Painful

[Charlie]

When bottling, I transfer my beer into a spare fermenter which has my priming sugar dissolved into a small amount of boiled water and bottle from that. I stick it on the kitchen bench, ontop of an 'acquired' milk crate. I have all my bottles clusered in front so I can transfer to bottling wand from bottle to bottle really quickly. Takes about 25 minutes to fill a standard 23L batch once its set up.

Also because I need to sterilise the second fermenter (I use dilute bleach, fill it up and leave it for 20 - 30 mins - no probs so far), I basically do a bottling run with the steriliser into the bottles, which sanitise while I rinse out the fermenter, boil up my bulk priming sugar, and decant the beer into the fermenter.

Bottling is still a pain in the arse ... just bought a tap-a-draft system - can't wait to fill 3 6L bottles and a dozen stubbies over the usual 55 stubbies

 

[razz]

The best thing about bottling is moving to kegs !

 

[barneyhanway]

yeah I guess as I rinse thoroughly the bottles are next to clean.
Dishwasher is mainly for one step sanitising. The heat _definitely_ rises up into the bottles.

 

[Wortgames]

Great idea for a thread, but gee some of you guys fart around a lot!

Here are my bottling tips from way back when:

1. Find space for a bin. Half fill it with bleach solution. When a bottle is emptied, rinse it & bung it in the bin.

2. On bottling day, empty the bin. Rinse the bottles quickly with a pushy thingy or a tap-mounted bottle washer. They have been soaking in bleach for several days, they are farking spotless.

3. Use a bottling bucket, bulk prime, mix well, and attach the bottler to a hose to the bucket.

4. Line up your bottles next to your capper. On a table, on a towel.

5. Drop the bottler in a bottle. Wait for it to fill.

6. When it is full, move the bottler to the next bottle.

7. Cap the full bottle and put it in a crate while the next one is filling.

8. Repeat steps 6 & 7 until gurgling sound is heard from bucket.

I don't think it can get much easier than that. Apart from kegging :super:

(Oh, and if you need to empty the bin between brews, just store the bottles with a bit of the bleach solution in the bottom. Use plastic picnic cups over the necks to keep the rubbish out. They are reusable for about 100 years).

 

[TasChris]

I'm pretty much the same as others but it goes like this

Drink contents of bottle
Rinse bottle
Leave a couple of inches of water in the bottle
Leave bottle on kitchen bench until it is half full of bottles
Get yelled at
Wash bottles and place in oven and dry at 200C
Store bottles upside down in crates till needed
Half fill bottles with no rinse sanitiser swirl it around then tip sanitser into next bottle and drain
Fill bottles with beer

and repeat

main issue is when aquiring bottles with unknown heritage. I always soak them over night in bleach and bottle brush them within an inch of their life.
I only use long necks except for the last litre or two when I use stubbies as there always seems to be a bit less than a long neck of beer at the end!!

Chris

 

[VeeTwinTorque]

May as well add my routine to this thread,


Rinse out bottles immediately after emptying, twice. (Fill, shake, tip out; Fill, shake, tip out)

Let bottles accumulate next to the kitchen sink untill the wife threatens to throw them out,

Tip out last dregs of water from each bottle and stash in styrofoam boxes, in the garage. I get about 25 stubbies in each box. I dont store them upside down either.

On bottling day, i line up 120 stubbies on the kitchen bench in five rows. Examine each bottle as i put it on the bench. Any bottle that looks sus gets thrown in the bin. I dont bother scrubbing as i have a good supply of new bottles from friends when i get low.

Make up 2 litres of sodium metabisulphite steriliser and pour a little into every bottle in one row.

Shake bottles and tip into adjacent bottle in next row, untill all bottles have seen the steriliser through them. Let them sit for 20 min then tip the steriliser dregs out of all the bottles. I never rinse after this.

Lash the wife to move the funnel as i dose all bottles with white sugar, (Stops double dosing/bottle bombs)

Lash the wife to fill the bottles as i cap, shake then place back in the styrofoam boxes. I put the fermenter on a milk crate on the bench so you dont have to bend over.

No bottle brushing/scrubbing.
No bottle tree.
No sterilising of caps.
No rinsing on bottling day.
No longnecks, just stubbies.


I have two fermenters on the go each time & fill 120 stubbies each time. Takes me about an hour and a half, (And about 10 beers) on bottling day with the wifes help.

 

[ldleon]

Is using the oven to sterilise bottles an effective way of doing it? It would be so much easier than messing around with sanitiser and water and would definitely work (that's how it's done when making jam), but does it weaken the bottles?

Also, if the bottles are sanitised as they are emptied then sealed (with caps for PET, glad wrap for glass) are they really okay to use on bottling day without any further washing? Somehow sanitising a few at a time occasionally is much more appealing than doing them all on bottling day.

Any thoughts would be appreciated

Daz

 

[mika]

I used to wash each bottle in the laundry sink, got jack of that so moved to the little bottle washer you see at most beer shops, but got tired of pushing bottles up and down.
So, do some research on AHB, alot of people seem to use windscreen washer pumps so down to the wreckers, down to bunnings, pick up an old computer from a kerbside collection and $10 later....







Just speed up the bottling process that little bit more :beer:

 

[apd]

Is using the oven to sterilise bottles an effective way of doing it?

Daz,

I use the oven method for sterilising. As far as I know, the bottles will be fine as long as you heat and cool them slowly, ie. put the bottles in the oven BEFORE turning it on and leave them in there until they've cooled.

Once I've got a batch (20 or so bottles is all my oven will fit), I do the following:

Cap each bottle with a bit of aluminium foil and stick in oven.
Turn oven onto 110*C.
Once heated, leave for 15 minutes.
Turn off oven, let cool.

I've heard that a small amount of water in the bottles may help as moist heat is better than dry heat for sterilising.

Since the foil is sterilised during the process, you can leave it on until bottling day, then rip it off and stick your beer straight in - no rinsing or further sanitising/sterlising needed.

 

[ldleon]

Good stuff apd, that's what I wanted to hear.

Thanks, I'll give it a try.

Daz

 

[homebrewworld.com]

Tips For Making Bottling Day Less Painful


KEG IT !

:beerbang:

 

[evanmit]

kegging it doesn't really count as making bottling day less painful.....bottling day involves bottles, you must be thinking of kegging day

 

[petesbrew]

Using 2 litre coke bottles means less bottles to fill.
Good for parties and there's no real need to take the empties home.


But of course I still have stubbies and longnecks for something a bit normal.

 

[Murcluf]

Hi all,
I've been using 740ml Pet bottles since I've started and am starting to move over to glass (375ml-330ml). With the 740 ml pets I'd leave about 3/4 to an inch from the top using the bottling wand for headspace and have never lost a bottle. My question is how much headspace do you leave in a glass bottle I don't want to over fill or under fill. I gather it all depends on what bottles you use, my main concern would be the long necked stubbies.

 

[therook]

I leave about the same as what you would get in a commercial size bottle wether that be a bush stubby or normal stubby.

Rook

 

[Wortgames]

Do you use a bottler? If so, it should leave the perfect headspace if you remove it when the beer is right up to the rim.

 

[Murcluf]

Do you use a bottler? If so, it should leave the perfect headspace if you remove it when the beer is right up to the rim.

yeah I do, it just looked like a big gap compared with the 740ml pets. and its been about 2 years since I bought a commerical so I wasn't sure of what to do :huh:

 

[Wortgames]

yeah I do, it just looked like a big gap compared with the 740ml pets. and its been about 2 years since I bought a commerical so I wasn't sure of what to do :huh:

I know what you mean, and I agree it isn't very scientific - the geometry of the bottle affects the amount of headspace left behind by the bottler.

It's just what I've always done and I'm not aware of it causing any problems - not to mention that trying to tweak the headspace is going to mean a lot more stuffing around while bottling, which I don't think I could be bothered with!

 

[JCG]

Ive found the best way is to clean bottles as you drink them. That way come bottling day i dont have 30 tallies to clean and sanitze, Ive found if the glass is clean and cant see dirt in it just a shot of morgans one shot sanitizer swirled in each bottle does the trick. I sanitze the caps in a solution of the one shot as well.

JCG

 

[lucas]

hehe... I started this thread over a year ago now, so i guess i should throw in the method i found to be very efficient (although moving to kegs is something I will never regret)

1. rinse bottles as soon as their contents are emptied. half fill them, then put your hand over the top and give them a good shake to get the yeast sediment off the bottom, empty and rinse again. so long as you get all the crud off now the bottles wont need cleaning again
2. on bottling day rinse each bottle with a no rinse sanitiser. I ended up getting a bottling tree and pushdown pumpy thing which made this a breeze. i found that 2-3 pumps was plenty to get a good amount of contact and rinse out any dust or dead bugs. put the bottles on the tree to drain until the tree is full.
3. you've now got a dish full of sanitiser (from the pushdown squirter), so chuck all your bottle caps in there. this is probably not strictly needed, but it's no extra effort as you already have the solution and you can just grab each cap straight from the sanitiser as you fill bottles
4. bulk prime. yes, it means you have to rinse (and have spare) another fermenter, but it sure beats measuring sugar out into each bottle, or even stuffing about with carb drops. you also get better control over the amount of carbonation and better consistency between bottles.
5. fill each bottle and rest a cap on the top, then fill the next. put the whole batch into bottles before you start capping. its easier to do the same thing over and over, more quickly.
6. stop smoking, or chewing gum or just stop wasting money on crap you dont really need. put all the saved cash into a money bank and buy kegs. they really dont cost that much when you factor in the value of your time, and how much of it you waste on bottling.