As I posted on HomeBrewTalk this week:
The beer gun arrived yesterday.I’m glad that I spent the extra $20 on the accessory kit. It had everything I needed. Unless you have tubing, flange connectors, ball lock connectors and other nuts and bolts just laying around, it would be a pain to remove all of that from my kegerator setup so the accessory kit was perfect.
Also, it says on instructions you need a dual output CO2 regulator. I had that but, since I’m usually a multiple keg setup, this works as well – http://www.midwestsupplies.com/4-way-co2-distributor-5-16.html. So my splitter or dual regulator. The only thing that’s good about me having the dual regulator is that i can do a higher PSI for the O2 purge on the beer gun and another for the bottle fill. That was nice.
Moving on, it was a slow start but eventually, I got a rythym. In 3 hours, I brewed a Belgian Saison and while that was boiling / cooling / siphoning to primary, I filled 12, 1-litre swing tops of my 12.5% barley wine, another 10 22-ounce bombers of my smoked chocolate imperial stout and finished up with 3, 2 litre swing top growlers full of my previous Belgian Saison.
This freed up these three kegs (some were half empty) for some other beers and I can let that stout and barleywine age for a few months before I enjoy them.
So, $100 for the beer gun + $150 for the regulator + $50+/- in bottles but it’s all reusable.
Thought I’d post that for guys that have kegs but want to bottle things for friends, parties or competitions. This is pretty nice.
I definitely have love for the blichmann products, as I believe I’ve shown you : http://www.alanmarcero.com/brewsystem.jpg
I’m all for DIY brew systems, but I’m not a welder, I’m a computer programmer. I have enough hobbies as it is and I didn’t want to waste time getting together a mediocre brew system on the cheap. Well worth the $2,000 investment given that I brew once a week during the warm months and I expect my Blichmann system to “last a life time”.
I’m surprised, though, that you decided to bottle instead of just buying more kegs. I never do beers over 8%, hell, rarely over 6%, so I can’t say I’ve had an urge to bottle. But is that why you went for bottling instead of getting more kegs? So you could bottle up your high ABV beers?
I personally have 10 corny kegs. :)
What you have is exactly what I’m saving up for now.
I bottle right off the tap line of the kegerator with a half foot cut vinyl tube. Have you ever tried that method? Do you think the beer gun would be superior (and worth the extra $) to get & use to fill? I worry about the beer becoming oxidized due to the initial rush of beer out of the tap, does the beer gun do a solid job of minimizing this?
The beer gun allows you to easily flush the bottles with CO2 before filling. I wouldn’t store anything long-term, such as the barely wine he bottled, using the method you mention.
That being said, I use the method you mentioned exclusively, but I only bottle for parties and to give as gifts.
I’ve heard the opposite but we’ll see when I open a Barleywine in about a month. More kegs..yeah, that is certainly an option but I wanted a portable solution where I could fill a few bottles to send to friends or take to a big party we have coming up.
I DID also order some of those plastic tap faucets for my corny kegs so I can just take 2 kegs in the back of my car with the CO2 tank and pour beer right off the tap so that’s also an option.
But I have heard otherwise on what you were saying about extended storage with this method. If you’re right, I’m out $150 in beer which would suck.
No no, I wouldn’t do extended storage using the method Jonathan mentioned. The beer gun is a fine solution for long-term aging in bottles that where filled from kegs since it purges the bottle with CO2 before filling.
Filling bottles/growlers with just a tube at the end of the keg tap is the method I wouldn’t use for extended storage. It would be fine for even a month or two, though, longer if kept cold. “cap on foam” is typically what it’s called.
Ah okay. Noted. I didn’t sanitize the bottles just rinsed them out. Sprayed star san on the tops and on the beer gun between pours which is probably good enough. We’ll see.
Ahh that makes it nice! I have a fermenting barley wine and was going to bottle condition it out of the keg if that makes any sense. Basically rack from secondary fermenter on top of priming solution in the keg, purge with co2, give the keg a few shakes and mixes and then bottle right off of the kegerator. Any 02 introduced will should be eliminated by the yeast in the bottle if I’m not mistaken.
You’re on the right track, dude. Honestly, I’ve tried to find ANY reason NOT to just let that bad boy sit on the primary trub for months and months. You could just let it sit in the primary for a year with no off flavors. Worth a shot if you have nearly-constant temps. Just my advice. Putting it in a keg takes it off the yeast.
Hey Jonathan. A lot of guys have made their own counter-pressure fillers. I’m VERY bad at engineering and decided to just buy a pre-built system. So, no experience with the prior. I know I tried a 750ML growler fill right off the tap and the beer was flat when we opened it about 3 hours later. That’s really the only thing I’ve tried.
This is pricey but it’s the most popular method even at some nano-breweries that bottle their own beer without a dedicated system.