schooner427
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Wow...I like cheap!!!!
For those of you that have used the BMBF, what about purging the bottle with CO2 ahead of time? I would think that this would be important if you were going to store your beer in a cellar for a while, right? I got some money for Christmas and I was thinking of purchasing MoreBeer's counter pressure bottle filler (http://morebeer.com/view_product/18279/104252/Counter_Pressure_Bottle_Filler), as I love the idea of carbonating in a keg and then bottling for cellar storage. Anyone store their beer for a few months in a cellar using a BMBF?
Wow, wow, wow...what a thread!!! My hat's off to you BM, lovely KISS design.
... in regards to carbonation and foam I would like to make some of my mead sparkling...will mead foam as much as beer during the bottling stage? Should the BMBF work good for mead? ...
Thanks for the design again, BM!
Ed
BierMuncher said:I have.
Purging the bottle with CO2 before filling is really not necessary. The exposure to oxygen is negligible and it is the beer that actually purges the air as you fill. If you give the bottles a quick tip holding the caps on with your finger....the beer will begin to foam. Just cap on foam and you're capping on CO2.
I've had beers in storage for months (and some barley wines and RIS's for years) using this method and there are no issues with oxidation. The only issue I've had is when I rushed the kegging process and as a result, when I returned the beers to room temperature in bottles, they resumed some minute fermentation and became over carbonated.
I haven't read all 89 pages, but I'm guessing my interpretation of the instructions is off - you don't fill the bottles all the way to the very top with liquid and then cap, right? Sounds like you'd fill to a normal level for bottled beer, get it to foam over, and then cap on the overflowing foam.
Is there any disadvantage to this method compared to the beer gun, bought or homemade? Biggest advantage seems to be that it's cheap and doesn't require the purchase of much of anything.
osagedr said:Yes, leave some space and cap on foam.
I used the BMBF before I had a beer gun. With the beer gun you can purge with CO2 easily before filling. This may not be that big a deal. You could have a second BMBF for only CO2 if you cared enough.
you don't fill the bottles all the way to the very top with liquid and then cap, right?
kombat said:I fill right to the very top with liquid, but with the bottling cane still all the way in the bottle. Then, removing the cane produces some headspace in the neck of the bottle (equal, obviously, to the amount of beer displaced by the cane when it was inserted in the bottle).
I suppose the advantage is you don't have to get the beer to foam and cap on it when you purge.
When you withdraw the beergun or the BMBF from the bottle this will lower the liquid level. When the level lowers it will draw outside air (oxygen) into the bottle. I would think you would still want to bottle on the foam so that you push out the oxygen that was drawn in.
Ed
If you have the nozzle/stem of the gun/BMBF inside the bottle and fill to top of the bottle this will push CO2 or any other gas (oxygen) out of the bottle. This leaves liquid and the nozzle inside the bottle. The problem that I see is when you withdraw the stem/nozzle of the beer gun or BMBF. The nozzle has displaced a bit of liquid and when withdrawn the surface of the liquid will drop to fill the space where the nozzle had been. The dropping of the liquid level will create a space that has to be filled by "something"...that *something* is a very small amount of CO2 that is being released but mostly it is the air outside of the bottle that is pulled inside to fill the newly created empty space.If you purge with CO2 first, there shouldn't be O2 in there as the CO2 is going to stay below the oxygen. Just a guess. Otherwise, what's the point of purging with CO2?
I was talking about the beer gun that allows one to purge before filling. If you have to foam the beer and make a mess with the beer gun even after purging, I really don't see the point of buying one over using BM's method with a bottling wand.
I dont think you need to cap on foam with a beergun since you can purge bottle, fill bottle, purge headspace, cap. I still see no need to get one and use the method in this thread.
So as you withdraw the beergun and the tip is just inside the mouth of the bottle you are able to put a little co2 in it to purge any oxygen drawn into the bottle? You are able to add the little bit of co2 in the same motion as taking the nozzle out of the bottle? I'm just not sure of the procedure for using a beer gun.
Ed
Do you need to use a full size racking can or can you cut it down some?
Having just skimmed the pages... I was wondering what BMBF is...
Per google it was: The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, BMBF
Thank got for the youtube video i found.. lol
Is there a video of the OP's process buried in this thread anywhere?
i've been bottling a few brews with this method but have had a concern come up and want to see if anyone else has been dealing with the same thing.. I take my keg that is carb'd to specs, clean and freeze my 12 or 22 oz bottle, drop the CO2 pressure to about 2psi and fill the bottles and cap on foam. However, when i go to open the bottles after a few days or few weeks, i get little to no gas noise when popping the cap. The beer itself is carb's fine in the bottle but just concerned that i get zero sound og gas escaping. Is there something i need to worry about or is this common?
I'm getting ready to bottle some chocolate stout that has been sitting and aging in my keg and afraid to bottle this if it goes flat or bad if i'm doing this process wrong.
Thanks!
Here's a proven method for bottling your beer from the keg without an expensive beergun. I've been doing this for over a year and bottled dozens of cases this way. Every beer I've ever entered into a competition has received consistently high scores for carbonation.
Go ahead and keg the entire batch and get it to your desired carbonation.
To do this, you'll need a liquid hose with a picnic (cheap plastic) tap attached. The longer the liquid hose the better. I use about 7 feet. This provides adequate pressure to prevent foaming. The end of a racking cane fits very snuggly into the picnic tap nozzle. (Make sure the cane is pushed all the way into the nozzle of the tap) Go to your local HBS and buy a drilled stopper (I think it is a #2) that will fit over the other end of your racking cane. The end tip of the racking cane should be cut at an angle to allow free flow of the beer.
You now have a racking cane extending from your picnic tap with a stopper about midway up the cane. The idea is that this racking will go to the bottom of your bottle and the stopper will slide down snug onto the neck of the bottle.
It will help to chill your bottles ahead of time. Giving them a quick rinse in cold water will also keep foaming down. Recently, I've taken to just rinsing the bottels and have zero foaming problems.
Now follow these simple steps:
This last step is important because capping on foam means you've purged the oxygen from the bottle and it will store much longer.
- Shut off the gas to your keg momentarily and open the (keg) relief valve to bleed excess pressure from the the keg.
- Turn the PSI on your regulator down to about 5. This needs to be a slow gentle process.
- Go ahead and open the tap and drain some beer into a waste bucket. This will prime and cool the lines.
- Now place the bottle filler into the bottle with the stopper pushed down snug onto the bottle neck. Open the picnic tap to the locked position.
- The bottle will begin filling but slow to a stop as the pressure builds
- Gently push the side of the stopper to allow the pressure to "burp" out of the bottle and the beer will begin to flow again.
- Continue the fill until beer (not just foam) begins overflowing and turn off the tap.
- Quickly move the rig to the next bottle and repeat.
- When all the bottles are full, give each one a quick "burst" of beer from the tap to top off.
- Move the bottles to your capping bench and place a cap on each bottle.
- Before locking down the cap on each bottles...tip the bottle on its side and back (holding the cap on with your finger of course). This will cause the beer to begin to foam.
- Place the capper on the cap loosely and as soon as the foam begins to overflow...lock down the cap.
It will help to contain the mess if you load all of the bottles into a short five gallon bucket. I can usually fit about 13-15 bottles into one.
It sounds more complicated than it actually is. Very easy and you can get a sixer filled in about 5 minutes. Move the bottles to a fridge and open when ready. I just opened a porter this afternoon that I bottled this way about ten days ago and it was perfect.
From here on, I will keg everything and bottle off a twelve pack or so for keepsake and travel.
I recently (10/14/07) openned another Porter from my March bottling session and it was still just perfect. Nice puff of CO2 cloud in the neck of the bottle. Good foaming action during pour. Good thick head...and the beer laced nicely all the way through.
Notice the angled cut of the racking cane. Very important.
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