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  • Small brewery bottle rinsers

    Ok brewers who are way to small to bottle but someone made you,
    What are you using for rinsing of the bottles (actual rinser used and sanitizer type-or just water). Do you rinse? Do you soak? Did you buy an expensive piece of equipment? Did you make something? got pix?
    We are a small brewpub who has no buisness bottling but need to and want to do it right.
    Can you help?
    Thanks!

    Oh, if you have a meheen with a built in rinser, no need to reply. Mine is HDP 4 head CP filler with no rinser attached. Thanks
    Matt Van Wyk
    Brewmaster
    Oakshire Brewing
    Eugene Oregon

  • #2
    Hi,

    We rinse with fresh clean potable water. We use one of those spiffy two spout homebrew style bottle rinsers placed in a stainless trough with a few stainless posts to put bottles on upside down to drip for a moment before loading them on the filler.

    I feel pretty silly rinsing thousands of bottles this way. I think there must be a better way, but it is quick, easy, clean, and reliable. But in fact, when I bought my Meheen from Avery they were ignoring the Meheen rinser in favor of a similar method. For thousands and thousands of barrels. So... take that as you will.

    Best of luck,
    cheers,
    Ron
    Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales

    Comment


    • #3
      When I worked at Kalamazoo/Bell's in 1989/1990, we rinsed enough bottles for 22bbls each week using a single spout Jet Bottle Washer! We would rinse the bottles the day before filling and cover them with cellophane.

      Comment


      • #4
        Bottle tree

        When we used to bottle by hand at a brewery in europe I made a bottle tree out of SS/ rinsed with peracidic acid. 30 bottles a shot.
        Dave
        Brewhouse Tech
        San Diego
        David Meadows
        Brew House Technologist
        TECHNOBREW
        (619)840-3311
        david@technobrew.com

        Comment


        • #5
          At the house I worked in in Washington, just about all bottle sales were in house. So we would do between 12 and 20 cases a day. Rinsed with a homebrew style jet sprayer hooked up to a 1/2 barrel of pressurized P3 solution, shook them dry and filled them up with a homemade 6 head counter-pressure filler.


          John

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          • #6
            For as small a run as you will be doing I would think a bottle tree or two and a jet washer or two would cover your needs and be very low budget.

            Check here for pics...
            Enjoy a wide selection of beer bottles, including 12 oz., 22 oz., EZ-Cap, and Belgian beer bottles. We also have specialty bottles and growlers.
            Joel Halbleib
            Partner / Zymurgist
            Hive and Barrel Meadery
            6302 Old La Grange Rd
            Crestwood, KY
            www.hiveandbarrel.com

            Comment


            • #7
              I have a 2 head HDP designed to fill 1.9L growlers and 500ml bottles. We wanted a unit to wash, rinse and sanitize both bottle sizes. We had a unit that came with a BOP system we purchased that was originally a reataurant sink. We adapted it to do a 3% hot caustic wash (a BW spec), hot water rinse and cold water rinse with a sanitizer metered in. The end result is a commercially acceptable cleaned bottle. I'm not sure what the total cost of the conversion was but I can check for you.
              Attached Files
              Last edited by Rob Creighton; 01-23-2008, 05:18 AM.

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              • #8
                I'm with Ron on this one.
                We use a couple of small homebrew type pump rinsers. One with a dilute acid sanitizer and another for a rinse. One pump on the sani, and two on the rinse. Fancy purpose built rinsers look nice, but in most cases actually take more time to load, rinse, unload, than it takes to do things manually.
                We use a 4 head gravity filler. The person unloading and rinsing can more than keep up with the bottle filler.

                Bob
                Saint Somewhere Brewing

                Comment


                • #9
                  Here are some pics of the rinser we used to use when we were filling with our HDP 3 head filler. We would stand between a pallet of bottles and the rinser - which was hooked up to a corny keg filled with sanitizer.... and draining from the cooler/rinser into another corny keg, switching kegs as they emptied. We would typically fill 3 or 4 bottle trees at a time. I am happy those days are over.... but it worked well when we needed it.

                  And I have to give credit to Andy from Andrews Brewing in ME.... I definitely copied his design for the most part.
                  Attached Files

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                  • #10
                    thanks

                    Thanks for the replies everyone. These are all great ideas and it is the type of "rig something up ideas" that we figured we would have to come up with when we saw the prices on purpose built rinsers. Thanks also for sending pix.
                    Keep em coming if you have more.
                    MAtt
                    Matt Van Wyk
                    Brewmaster
                    Oakshire Brewing
                    Eugene Oregon

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      I received a request for some info on the material we used for the tubes that go into the bottle on the rinser..... tried to PM you, but you mailbox was full - so here it is:

                      I used a tubing ordered from Mcmastercarr, here is the part# and description:

                      8627K51 2 Each White Delrin Tube, 1/4" Od X 1/8" Id, 5’ Length.

                      It was a bit pricey for shipping, but worked well. I replaced all the tubes after about 18 months because they started cracking.

                      good luck!

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                      • #12
                        probably from my assistant. Thanks for reminding me to clean out my inbox.
                        Matt Van Wyk
                        Brewmaster
                        Oakshire Brewing
                        Eugene Oregon

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          that was me

                          Hey thanks alot for the info. I will call McMaster. And I guess its time to clean out that mail box. Cheers

                          Kyle

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                          • #14
                            I built one out of PVC and 1/4" pipe nipples for $40 that does 12 at a time. It sits on a 30 gallon plastic trash can filled with sanitizer. We use a submersible pump. We use this on our manual single head filler. I can send you pics. e-mail me or PM.

                            dave@ofallonbrewery.com

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