First Attempt at Bottling, lessons learned.

The Homebrew Forum

Help Support The Homebrew Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

DamageCase

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 15, 2012
Messages
151
Reaction score
3
Location
Leeds, West Yorkshire
I bottled my Festival Pilgrims Hope last night/this morning, whether successfully is yet to be seen. It's up in the warm upstairs room at the moment so I'll have to keep an eye out for either successful secondary fermentation, non at all, or exploding bottles :pray:

The whole process has taken absolutely ages. Washing the bottles (empties I've collected form parties), and sanitising them in my tiny kitchen sink took a couple of hours in itself since I did all 40 odd at once. I batch primed, using a pressure keg as a bottling bucket without a push stem which made the actual bottling tricky and slightly messy, especially as I had to tip the keg for the last couple of bottles. Long story short, lesson learned, invest in proper bottling kit and work out a faster method of washing bottles. Have any of you got any tips on the latter?
 
I hate bottling....that's 1 of the reasons I changed to cornies....but having said that 2013 will see me bottle more. I would have liked to have had a go with the secret santa this year, but has I had not one single bottle...no can do.
Just lately I've had an idea of making a bottling tool/lance whatever...to fill say 4 bottles at once. :clap:
 
I use one of these which are easily available from HB outlets:
bottle_washer_and_drier_2.jpg
About £30 for both the washer and tree.
 
To make the job easier and quicker +1 for the kit that Bob suggests, plus one of those tap rinsers where you push the bottle on and water flows. :D
 
:lol: Sounds like my first bottling session. Took me about four hours! The second batch I bottled was only just over an hour and the third was about 50mins. So it does get easier!

As said above you'll need to get yourself some kit to speed up the process. I just got the bottle rinser (the one that can sit on top of the bottling tree) It's only about £11 from Morley homebrew store and really sped up my bottling day. Hated putting it together though - damn spring thing wouldn't sit right. :roll:

I might get the bottling tree when I've saved up a little more.
 
oh and a bottling stick is very useful, it goes on the end of your siphon and stops a lot of the spillages. Should only be about £4.
 
Back
Top