Disappointed With First Bottling Attempt Using Syphon

[Newt Dundee]

Well, after 17 days in the FV I decided it was time to bottle my first ever brew yesterday. I'd cleaned and sterilised all my bottles and equipment the night before and spent ages making sure I'd got everything to hand and I was ready to go.

I'd lifted the FV up higher for syphoning, primed all my bottles, covered surfaces... everything was on hand.....

And then it all went wrong.

I've read a lot about avoiding getting air into the brew in order to avoid oxidation (I think). Bearing all this in mind, my heart sank as soon as I was filling the second bottle, the very top of the syphon tube on to the stick had kinked. It started to restrict flow and subsequently air started feeding back up the tube. It looked more like a bubble tube than a syphon.

I tried time and time again to lift the tube and take the kink out, but the increased flow just caused the beer to splash in to the bottle. I really felt like I couldn't win either way.

I'm definitely getting a little bottler for next time, but is this brew a write off or do I stand a chance with at least some of the bottles?

[Spooneys regular]

Don't write it off until you've tried it pal, you never know. And don't be too disappointed if your first batch tastes like pish, most do, mine did. Its a learning curve the first few batches you do. Little bottlers are great, sometimes get clogged with a bit of rogue trub but their far better than syphoning. Also worth investing in another FV with a tap to use as a bottling bucket.

[Newt Dundee]

Cheers Spooney, I genuinely feel better knowing that if I've fouled this one up I wouldn't have been the first person to have trashed their first brew. It's just frustrating knowing that I've tried to do everything by the book, spent months reading about it all, and then I foul it up at the final hurdle!

A second FV and a little bottler are definitely on the cards, along with a few other things on my Christmas list.

Something I did notice yesterday, I genuinely did lose 3 litres of beer whilst bottling, either through spillage or not being able to get the last bits out. Is this the norm, or do different methods tend to work better than others?

[timbo41]

First things first...beer will most likely be fine.
Hints: get a little bottler
If doing say 40 bottles fill 10 and loosely cap..don't use capper yet..the little bottler will leave about an inch headspace. Residual and priming fermentation will help rid the bottle of any air if left a few minutes,then seal caps.
Yes,you rarely get a full yield...at least I don't. Its one vagary of homebrewing you have to accept. We don't have the equipment to extract every last drop like commercials.
Finally...Newt, chill out! Beer has been about a long time, the methods of production are well established. Suggest you google lambic beer See how that's made...and counted as some of the finest beers made!!

[Doctor_Paul]

Ditto timbo - the beer will be absolutely fine.

[orlando]

Don't overly concern yourself. It will likely only be a problem for long term storage and as this is your first brew I doubt there's any chance of that . In bottle the yeast will scavenge a little of the oxygen anyway. So get another brew on, learn from the experience and relax, it will all come right. But don't think for one minute that one day it will all be perfect every time, where's the fun in that

[barneey]

+1 for the little bottler and a dedicated bottling bucket

[seymour]

Ditto timbo - the beer will be absolutely fine.

+1

[cookoff]

your beer is fine, yes i would get the little bottler.

i first started off using silicone type tubing, i also used to use a pair of forcepts as a tap.

now exclusively use the little bottler, its just easyer.

i find the best method for bottling is to have the tube touch the bottom of the bottle, allow the beer to flow, then stop it when the beer gets to the neck of the bottle. pull out the tube, then you have the perfect amount of airgap for good gassing of the beer. seal with a crown cap. and you are done.

a friend of mine doesnt do this, he puts the syphon tube at the neck in the bottle, and turns the syphon on. his bottles are half full, and there is alot of air in their.

[cellone]

Another vote for the little bottler, easy to use and leaves the perfect amount of ullage. I used part of a baster as a funnel once, it worked.

[Newt Dundee]

Cheers for the response guys, I'm feeling a lot better about things

Been looking in to the little bottler, and there appears to be 2 types. One comes with a tube you attach to the tap, and the other appears to have a screw fitting. Is there any advantage or benefit between the 2? I can see the tube fitting being a lot more flexible and it also seems to be the most common type.

[oldbloke]

The one with the screw fitting goes straight onto fermenting vessels with a suitable outlet. The other goes on a siphon tube.
My original kit came with a siphon tube with the anti-trub wand at one end and a tap at the other - simple enough to control flow with the tap, but you need both hands at the bottle end of the business.
Now I have a bottling wand. I start the siphon just like the old days, turn off the tap, and join the wand to the tap with a short piece of tubing. Tap on, bottling wand now controls flow, only one hand required, so the other can fiddle with the demijohn or whatever.
I like to leave only about a half inch headspace, which means going round the bottle nudging the wand's valve against the neck after the main fill. No biggie.

The in-bottle conditioning fermentation will mop up any oxygen that's got into the brew, if it wasn't too much. Don't worry about it (apart from owt else, it's done now)

[cellone]

I use the type that's fitted to a barrel or vat. As oldbloke said it leaves one hand free, so as I fill one swingtop the other hand is closing the last and opening the next.