After increasing our batch size, we were faced with bottling 500 bottles instead of 50. We needed something to save us time! We could only find expensive bottle fillers, so we decided to make a simple and cheap one.
We're so happy with the design that we figured it could be worth sharing. Especially because we were not able to find any simple DIY bottle fillers when browsing the web.
It uses bottling wands that are attached to a stand with a shelf to rest the bottle on while it is being filled.
Parts needed:
2 Bottling wands
2 Airlock gaskets
4 Feet silicone tube
1 Bucket
2 Spigots
2-3 plastic boxes make assemble stand (use quite thick plastic)
If you're a DIY person I guess you can figure out how to make your own version from the pictures below. It needs to be fitted to your bottle size.
The wands will start filling as you push the bottle up to release the valve in the wand. The pressure is maintained by letting the bottle sit on a small shelf while filling.
The wand is held in place by an airlock gasket. This allows for enough flexibility to tilt the wand outwards when inserting it into the bottles and lifting the bottles up past the shelf.
The airlock also allows for easy adjustment of height/length of the wands. This is critical to make sure valve is kept open while bottle is resting on shelf.
Make sure to drill a small enough hole for the gasket. Just enough to be able to insert the wand through it. If it is too wide the height/length of the wand might not be maintained when pressure is applied.
We designed out bottle filler to fit 4 wands, but because the wands keep filling beer until the bottle is removed we found it very hard to manage more than 2 bottles at a time.
Two drawbacks of the design:
1) The wands keep filling the bottles until they are removed. Hence you have to keep a close watch to not over fill.
2) The system uses gravity, so you have to lift the bucket quite high to get a high flow rate. And if you have a lot of beer, you have to replace the bucket quite often. We have a plan to solve this with a pump that refills the bucket (controlled by a liquid level switch).
We're so happy with the design that we figured it could be worth sharing. Especially because we were not able to find any simple DIY bottle fillers when browsing the web.
It uses bottling wands that are attached to a stand with a shelf to rest the bottle on while it is being filled.
Parts needed:
2 Bottling wands
2 Airlock gaskets
4 Feet silicone tube
1 Bucket
2 Spigots
2-3 plastic boxes make assemble stand (use quite thick plastic)
If you're a DIY person I guess you can figure out how to make your own version from the pictures below. It needs to be fitted to your bottle size.
The wands will start filling as you push the bottle up to release the valve in the wand. The pressure is maintained by letting the bottle sit on a small shelf while filling.
The wand is held in place by an airlock gasket. This allows for enough flexibility to tilt the wand outwards when inserting it into the bottles and lifting the bottles up past the shelf.
The airlock also allows for easy adjustment of height/length of the wands. This is critical to make sure valve is kept open while bottle is resting on shelf.
Make sure to drill a small enough hole for the gasket. Just enough to be able to insert the wand through it. If it is too wide the height/length of the wand might not be maintained when pressure is applied.
We designed out bottle filler to fit 4 wands, but because the wands keep filling beer until the bottle is removed we found it very hard to manage more than 2 bottles at a time.
Two drawbacks of the design:
1) The wands keep filling the bottles until they are removed. Hence you have to keep a close watch to not over fill.
2) The system uses gravity, so you have to lift the bucket quite high to get a high flow rate. And if you have a lot of beer, you have to replace the bucket quite often. We have a plan to solve this with a pump that refills the bucket (controlled by a liquid level switch).