New Brunswick Craft Brewers Association
Brewing => Miscellaneous => Topic started by: robcoombs on November 05, 2015, 05:29:32 PM
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I'm looking for something to fill bottles with. Currently I put bottles in the freezer, turn down the gas pressure, keep the bottle tilted. But I still get a foamy mess to deal with. I was wondering if anyone has tried one of these growler fillers, or has another solution?
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I use pretty much the same method but I first make sure the bottles are not only cold but wet as well. If I fill for consuming within a day I just fill my bottles with cold tap water and wait a couple minutes then fill with a growler filler. If it's to save at all I refrigerate the clean bottles then just before filling I sanitize them with cold star san and fill.
You might want to look into a beer gun or the traditional bottle conditioning method.
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I bottle with a beer gun which is great but....no matter what we've tried the first half dozen or so bottles are a foamy mess. Even if we take a break for a half hour or whatever, its the same mess for the first half dozen when we start up again. Bottling sucks.
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I guess I should have specified. I only want to fill a few bottles at a time to take to an event. Or share with someone else. I still bottle condition appropriate styles but I keg hoppy beer and would like a less messy method of sharing.
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Hey Rob, I bought one of those but don't find it helps me much. It certainly doesn't hurt with foaminess, but it just is messy. After I'm done filling and close the tap, I find there is beer still in the growler filler tube, presumably because of physics? Anyway, as soon as I pull that filler off the tap... bam... beer on the floor.
I've found success lately by doing what Roger does... cold water rinse, turn the PSI down to 4 and I fill off the tap directly. This is just for quick consumption though. I have a blichman beer gun for long term bottling that works good once you figure it out.
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I use those growler filler adapters for pretty much the same purpose (only filling a few bottles here and there). I have one for Perlick taps and one for Standard taps but they can be hard to put on, especially the Perlick one I find. I usually end up using a vinyl tube that fits over the taps instead.
I still get a lot of foaming once in a while especially for highly carbonated beers but this is what seems to work best for me:
- Rinse/sterilize the bottles/growlers (make sure they are not dry, wet decreases friction and causes less foaming).
- Rinse/sterilize the growler filler/tube and connect to sterilized tap.
- Turn down the CO2 regulator completely
- Purge the keg of CO2
- Slowly turn on CO2 regulator and fill about 1/2 pint of beer into a glass or more (the beer in the lines seems to be the foamiest).
- Slowly fill the bottles while throttling up the co2 regulator (Slow and steady at around 2-3 PSI usually)
- Once done, return regulator to normal serving pressure.
- Drink the glass of beer you poured yourself as a reward for a job well done.
- Repeat last step as many times as needed
There are probably easier/quicker ways but that seems to work best for me. :cheers: