Problems with bottling my first beer

[frankerzc]

Hey all. I finally got to the stage of bottling my first beer this past Saturday. It was a total PITA. My bottle tip filler kept getting clogged and building up pressure and disconnecting from the tubing. I realize this is my fault from having so much junk at the bottom of my fermenter. What can I do better next time/are there good filters for this I could purchase?

Here was my set-up once I got tired of the bottle filler blowing off:

 

[WBB]

I think the dept of health might have an issue if you went pro.

 

[frankerzc]

@WBB definitely will be bottling it somewhere different next time!

 

[Chorgey]

There's many videos out there on how to do this. Here's one...

 

[frankerzc]

There's many videos out there on how to do this. Here's one...

Thanks!

 

[GnenieGone]

1st..the obvious, no E-coli beer please. Next, the trub at the bottom of the fermenter is your problem. Rack to a bottle a few inches up. Also, you can cold crash to settle all material to help. On addition, get a bottling wand.

 

[Immocles]

Like pianoman said, elevate the end of the siphon a bit. I use a simple bag clip to keep it off the bottom.

 

[RPh_Guy]

I didn't watch the video but I have a couple thoughts:

Before bottling, most of us transfer the beer to another container, leaving the sediment in the fermenter (called "racking"). For one gallon batches I rack it to another 1gal glass carboy (jug).

This method allows you to dissolve your priming sugar in hot water and add it to the second vessel before racking, thus priming the entire batch at once.

Every beer fermentation produces sediment, that's not anything you did wrong. There will be sediment in the bottles too, which is also unavoidable.

There's also no problem with bottling in the bathroom if that's a convenient space for some reason.

Cheers

 

[davidabcd]

Didn't watch video.
As mentioned, transferring the beer to a bottling bucket is good. If you're bottling solo, attaching a bottling wand to the spigot of a bottling bucket makes things easy.

 

[madscientist451]

If your are pulling junk off the bottom of your fermenter, your siphon needs to be lifted. An auto siphon is well worth the money and I put a spring clamp on mine when I get it set to the desired height.
I quit using a bottling bucket a few years back and just put a domino dot sugar cube in each bottle. I mostly keg and only bottle maybe two times a year, but my thinking is less handling of the beer reduces oxidation.
That bathroom setup looks like a PITA, but if that's all you have use the sink, put a brownie pan in the sink to create a flat spot to hold the bottles, elevate the fermenter with an upside down bucket or something else.
Any spills go down the drain.
I like to fill 6-7 bottles, then cap them.
Also, put the caps in a small dish with star san so they are sanitized when you put them on the bottle.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Hey all. I finally got to the stage of bottling my first beer this past Saturday. It was a total PITA. My bottle tip filler kept getting clogged and building up pressure and disconnecting from the tubing. I realize this is my fault from having so much junk at the bottom of my fermenter. What can I do better next time/are there good filters for this I could purchase?

Speaking as a person who bottles their small batches directly from the fermenter (and I watched the video) :

• A small fine mesh bag over the bottom of the auto-siphon will help prevent clogging the tip of the bottling wand.
• Rather than tipping the fermenter by hand, build a small ramp to hold the carboy
  
• An "autosiphon clamp" may (or may not) be helpful. With gallon carboys, there's not enough neck space to fully attach the clamp.
• I fill all the bottles before priming and capping.

Some 1-gallon brewers will work to reduce the amount of trub that goes into the one gallon carboy. Check out the last couple of years of 1-Gallon Brewers UNITE! for ideas.

 

[Al Morse]

I didn't watch the video but I have a couple thoughts:

Before bottling, most of us transfer the beer to another container, leaving the sediment in the fermenter (called "racking"). For one gallon batches I rack it to another 1gal glass carboy (jug).

This method allows you to dissolve your priming sugar in hot water and add it to the second vessel before racking, thus priming the entire batch at once.

Every beer fermentation produces sediment, that's not anything you did wrong. There will be sediment in the bottles too, which is also unavoidable.

There's also no problem with bottling in the bathroom if that's a convenient space for some reason.

Cheers

I did this same process and it worked out awesome. Today was my first bottling day. I do have a bottling wand so that may have also made it a bit easier. After racking it to a secondary car boy there was barely any trub to deal with.

 

[Jimmybrews]

Hey all. I finally got to the stage of bottling my first beer this past Saturday. It was a total PITA. My bottle tip filler kept getting clogged and building up pressure and disconnecting from the tubing. I realize this is my fault from having so much junk at the bottom of my fermenter. What can I do better next time/are there good filters for this I could purchase?

Here was my set-up once I got tired of the bottle filler blowing off:
View attachment 655245

I’m definitely too new to offer advice but can share that it can’t wait to move to a system where I can mash and boil in the same container that has a bottom spigot. I find the siphon provided by Northern to be temperamental at best. No offense....just my observation.

 

[davidabcd]

The dishwasher door, opened, is a ready-made spot for bottling if you're going full-on siphon and have a dishwasher. It requires just a bit of tubing plus, as mentioned, that clip. I'm very lucky to have my wife as a more than willing "siphoner." She's far better now at it than I am since my job is to sit in, basically a lawn chair without legs, and fill each bottle. There's a diminishing return with having the liquid too high since the siphoned liquid could gain too much speed and foam the bottles.

You get full marks for creativity on using the water tank.

 

[ncbrewer]

In the video, I don't like the way the siphon tube ends above the beer level. It should lay on the bottom of the bottling bucket to minimize the amount of air introduced, and so it will mix the priming sugar solution into the beer. It should end at the bucket wall, on a tangent, to create a swirl, and as stated above, add the sugar solution first.

I also wouldn't bottle in the bathroom. There's an OSHA regulation against eating in a bathroom - probably should apply this to bottling.

 

[davidabcd]

Watched video.
They seem like some nice people but, in the main, not an ideal instructional video to follow. There were a few times the alarm bells went off, as in, "No, you should definitely not do that."
As mentioned above, not putting the end of the siphon hose in the correct spot. No grabbing the inside of the bucket or the pieces that contact beer once they've been sanitized. Granted, their hands may have been soaked in Starsan but that needs to be mentioned. No hanging over the edge and staring down into the bottling bucket. No talking over the bottling bucket.
I might just be picky but that's the kind of stuff where someone has no idea what went wrong after they followed "proper sanitation" practices.