Mini bottler / little bottler improvement

[snakepie@hotmail.com]

Hello all,

My mini bottler WAS slow and I couldn't find many hints and tips on the web to make it quicker. So I took it apart, used my noggin and improved the bottling time:

Experiment:

46 seconds to fill a 440ml bottle (needle fully compressed)
30 seconds to fill a 440ml bottle (needle not fully compressed and held slightly off the bottom of the bottom for optimum speed)
End result to fill a 440ml bottle (needle fully compressed)- 19 seconds

So what I did (took me 15 mins):

1. Took about 2mm off the needle end so when fully compressed it would flow at the 30 second rate (no longer needing to hold slightly off the bottom).
2. The adjoining piece between the tap and the tube had a small hole - restricting the flow of water/beer. So I widened the hole using a cylindrical file until it matched the internal diameter of the pipe which fit into it. (dont make this too large or the pipe will simply go all the way through the adjoining piece making it useless).
3. The plastic nib (the rubber washer sits agaist this) has a larger circumference than desired so I made this smaller using a bit of rough graded sandpaper.

I can now fill a 440ml bottle in 19 seconds (when fully compressed)
Total improvement - 27 seconds hence more than doubling my bottling speed. I hope this helps you to do the same.

Regards

Gareth

[daddies-beer-factory]

Hi there,
I have removed the entire valve from the bottom of the tube , so I have a little bottler tap - into a 1/2 metre of 3/8" plastic tube - into the little bottler plastic wand.

the flow is controlled by the tap, so I line up about 20 bottles on the open door of my dishwasher & put the bottling bucket on the counter top.

I adjust the flow so it fills up a 500 ml bottle in about 10 seconds, then quickly whip the plastic wand into the next bottle.

Cut my time in half - I can fill 80 bottles & cap in about 3 hrs

Regards

[snakepie@hotmail.com]

Hmm- nice idea and modification!

I'm going keep playing around with my method to cut the time down even more. I just don't like the idea of mess and more importantly wastage of our precious liquor.

Would be interested to hear other peoples ideas and thoughts with their mods?

[Cpt.Frederickson]

I've started using a similar mod to daddies-beer-factory, but I'm using a bottling wand that isn't spring loaded for exactly the reasons you outlined. Much quicker, but just have to be careful as it pours out pretty sharpish if you touch the needle by accident!

[Dave S]

I use mine as-is, mainly for filling mini kegs. One thought that occurs to regarding increasing the flow rate is, the faster the flow rate the greater will be the aeration, which we don't want.

[Dr. Dextrin]

Interesting idea, but do you get more frothing? I imagine the first bit of beer will be hitting the bottom of the bottle much faster now...