Beer bottling
Happy New Year to one and all!
Â
Are you like me and find the bottling of the beer the worst part of making homemade beer. It is the messiest and slowest part of the job. Previously I have got round some of the heart ache by bottling beer in 2l plastic pop bottles. A 5 gallon batch of beer only then uses 11 bottles. Not so bad to wash and clean up.
Now the last few brews I’ve made I’ve preferred to bottle them in 1 pint glass bottles. It means you don’t have to drink 4 pints in one go, moving the beer around is so much easier. But now I have to clean 40 bottles.
Suddenly this is now taking a couple of hours to bottle the beer.
So what can be done about it. Well the method I use is proving very good. You will need two things a bottle tree and a steam cleaner.
Firstly set you bottle tree up, the on I have holds 47 empty bottles, if you are not familiar with a bottle tree they basically hold you empty bottles upside down to drain and dry. When they are full they look like a Christmas tree of glass bottles.
Now we need a little discipline here, when you empty a bottle rinse it under hot water, getting out any yeast sediment, then place it in the bottle tree to dry.
Once the tree is full you are ready to brew. When you are ready to bottle, line all the bottle up on the draining board, power up the steam cleaner. I then squirt steam into each bottle in turn for 20-30secs, at this point the bottle will be too hot to hold. Work your way down the the line of bottles, when you reach the end you’ll probably have to empty the water from each bottle.
Prime your bottles with malt sugar or however you prime your bottles, and fill.
It takes less then 30mins to sterilise the bottle this way, a lot less mess than filling each one with sterlising fluid and rinsing each one.
January 24th, 2009 at 4:37 am
It sounds a good idea but your a bit vague about of the type of steam cleaner you are using. Is it the type you see at bus depots for steam cleaning engines?
January 24th, 2009 at 5:40 am
Great idea, but what steam cleaner are you using? I have a wallpaper stripper steamer - will that do?
I have just started brewing after about 11 years, so my methos was a bath of steralised water - takes ages
January 24th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Dave, great tip and thanks for the email post-out to draw attention to it. It sounds like a fab idea, and when I have some cash to invest in my hobby I may well put it to this use! I actually find the most irritating part of the whole process is cleaning the labels off. I am very fond of St Peter’s ale bottles, which are the world’s most beautiful bottles, with the world’s most irritating sticky labels. The steam cleaner may well help here too. What brand of cleaner do you use?
Steve
January 24th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
Addition:
At least with cleaning off labels this only need to be done once. You are right, cleaning and sterilising bottles is consistently the most irritating part!
January 28th, 2009 at 11:59 pm
Very innovative. Am sure this method must be saving you a great deal of time. Wish I had the patience to go through the whole process.
February 1st, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Dave!
I keep trying to send you an email and replying to the one you sent, but it always comes back as ‘mailer demon failed’! Do you have another email address aside from the @homebrew site?!
All the best
Bob.
February 26th, 2009 at 9:29 am
Please, whatthw name of your steam cleaner.
Thanks,
Bob
April 27th, 2009 at 1:10 am
Great stuff. Nice to read some well written posts that have some relevancy !
April 30th, 2009 at 7:59 am
Thanks for sharing the post. I remember the all useful thig of this post. I try to use it.
May 4th, 2009 at 11:42 am
Dave-
I can relate! Sterilizing and bottling used to be such a timesink for me - I couldn’t stand it.
I’ve since switched to kegging my homebrews. It saves me time over the above process, plus I feel less beat down after each batch. My recommendation would be to reserve the bottling for special occasions only and instead use a home kegging kit and those old Pepsi style kegs (a.k.a. Cornelius or “corny” kegs). Email me if you have questions about how…
And if you can swing it, buy a kegerator for storing the kegs. I recommend getting one with twin taps so you tap and serve two of your brews at once, or perhaps 1 homebrew for yourself and 1 commercial beer for guests.
Cheers~
May 10th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
I put my bottles in the oven for 20 mins at 120 deg C to sterilise them. Like you i rinse them out after use. The oven thing is just to make sure thye are sterile.
Jim
May 20th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Your blog is so informative … keep up the good work!!!!
June 1st, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Very interesting! I should try it next time…
June 1st, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Thats a really cool method of cleaning the bottles. I just got into homebrewing, I’m on my third batch now. And I’ve been cleaning them the old fashion way.
June 11th, 2009 at 1:10 am
Great idea.
June 15th, 2009 at 11:18 am
I ALLWAYS THOROUGHLY RINSE MY BOTTLES AFTER A BEER, THEN PUT STRONG STERILISING SOLUTION IN, ABOUT AN INCH OR SO AND USE THE PLASTIC CAPS YOU CAN BUY TO KEEP THEM FRESH. THEN WHEN I COME TO BOTTLE UP A BREW AGAIN THEY ONLY NEED RINSING OFF. ONLY TAKES ABOUT AN HOUR MAYBE THAT WAY.
June 16th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
Good tips! I’m juuuuuusst starting to get a feel for this homebrewing stuff and I’m reading all I can about the process before jumping in. Many folks have this love-hate situation with their bottles, this could help. TNX!
Scotts last blog post..Beer Review - Long Trail Belgian White
August 14th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
I find the entire bottling process very time consuming. I’ve converted to using a corny keg and dual tap kegerator.
However, this method sounds nice because it’s shortened the worst part about bottling: the cleaning. The pouring and storage space are the other cons.
August 14th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Good tips, thanks for sharing. Which type of steam cleaner are you talking about?
September 2nd, 2009 at 2:36 am
This method is great. It will save your time and cleaning and sterilising bottles is consistently the most irritating part in a daily life.
October 2nd, 2009 at 2:49 am
I simply fill my bottles with water and then add a few granules of granular pool chlorine - leave for an hour, rise and you’re ready to bottle
October 4th, 2009 at 4:16 am
I tried drying them by using the hairdryer because I didn’t have room to hang them up… some of my friends even put the bottles in the microwave… that doesn’t sound healthy to me!