4 head bottle filler for $275

[WitsEnd]

I am wondering if this might be due to using tubing thats too big, or some other issue? i am using 1/2inch line from keg to root of manifold and 1/4 inch lines to each of the beer lines.....

My work around right now is that I turned one of the 5 manifold lines into a burping air line which I just burp every 5 minutes, I am not sure if this is something though that I should have to do?

is 3/16 tubing the answer? Are the issues I am having within acceptable expectations?

Your keg pressure is dropping and co2 is coming out of solution. I had the same problem.
Not a regulators are created equal. Even if the regulator says it is holding pressure, the flow going through it might not be enough to keep the right head pressure on the keg.

We swapped a cheap regulator out with a Micromatic and that issue went away.

[KFBass]

Fascinating stuff everyone. I'm looking for a very small scale solution to run off a few bottles, and it looks like a 2 head version of this design is in my future. Kudos to all of you using it for much larger runs. I am a big fan of the GW kent manifold as a sort of filler bowl. That's genius.

I don't know if this solve the problem of an auto shut-off valve, but I figured I could give a little insight into how commercial rotary type fillers work. The bottle is vacuumed, and pressurized to the same pressure as the bowl above it containing all the beer. Once they reach the same pressure, this alleviates the back pressure on a spring loaded valve, which then opens and allows beer to flow by gravity. Gas is let out through a vent. Once the beer covers the vent tube, nowhere else for gas to go, so the entire filling operation stops. Then the pressure in the bottle is let out slowly (snifter valves), the bottle passes through a thin stream of water (Fobber) and foams, then is capped.

So I think an auto shut off valve could work, but you would either need a way to alleviate the pressure after filling. The rotary fillers use the pressure in the filler bowl to pressurize the bottle, and there is actually a tube running from the bottle up through the entire filling valve into the bowl. The vent tube would have to be less of a PRV, more just like a needle valve that vents co2 with a dip tube. It'd take some figuring out, but if anyone can do it I think you guys could figure it out.

[Smlsound]

Vines and Rushes style build

We just bit the bullet on this because we wanted something for smaller runs. Such as the beer in this video which is a Bourbon Barrel Aged Barley Wine. There isn't enough of it to ask for a mobile bottling line to come do it, and we wanted to use 750ml bottles rather than bombers. Anyway, it worked really good. Our first test keg was a different beer and it was very, very carbonated. Those are a lot trickier. It's a cat and mouse game with the pressure in the bottle and the keg. In our case, we were running the bottles at a high pressure, around 12 psi on the filler gauge. We just kept turning pressure higher until the beer stopped foaming. It's definitely not as fast as a Meheen or and rotary filler, but you're getting a co2 evacuated bottle, non-foaming fill and an inexpensive design.

Also, as is mentioned in this thread, the fittings for gas and beer have been reversed. This helps, but these things are pieces of s**t. The stoppers are slightly too small, which can sometimes bypass, the ball valve on one of ours leaks, constantly letting gas through the filler (which makes it really fun to take the bottle off after it's full---POP). All that to say, you can get them dialed in within the first case and they will do their job with coaxing and plenty of monitoring. In our case, we filled about 400 bottles in about 3 hours including setup and cleaning. We could definitely have gone faster if we had been trying to maximize the process. Once we got them filling foam free, we didn't make any efforts to have them fill faster.

Feel free to email me any questions: scott at sanctumbrewing dot com.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Hislz5PwuE

[Southline]

pressure relief valve

Ok.. I've been waiting for MoreBeer it have the bottler in stock. I lost my patience and ordered the parts to build my own.

Does anyone know where to source the pressure relief or something similar? I was thinking about also tying them into one larger relief but I could see issues with that.

Thanks, Adam

[ickmund]

Does anyone know where to source the pressure relief or something similar?

Did you find something that worked? I'm in your shoes - have all the parts but the relief.

Been thinking about something like this: http://www.amazon.com/Control-Device.../dp/B007GDY3CU

[JustinL]

Fox counter filler

you can always go with the fox counter pressure filler way, just use a valve.

http://www.foxxequipment.com/parts.php?id=7649

[Southline]

Did you find something that worked? I'm in your shoes - have all the parts but the relief.

Been thinking about something like this: http://www.amazon.com/Control-Device.../dp/B007GDY3CU

If the needle valve I have now does not work out this might be worth a try. Price is good. I do wonder if the range is too large or the control pressure is not fine enough. A few other things got in the way so I haven't tried anything yet.
Justin: thx for the link but it's too late. I've already built everything else, just need the relief valve.

[ickmund]

If the needle valve I have now does not work out this might be worth a try. Price is good. I do wonder if the range is too large or the control pressure is not fine enough. A few other things got in the way so I haven't tried anything yet.
Justin: thx for the link but it's too late. I've already built everything else, just need the relief valve.

Which needle valve do you have now?

[kinetic]

I saw this bottle filler and I immediately thought of putting 4 of them together to make a version of what's been discussed here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORAu5o7QnFs

I think with a 4 way manifold it should work and the buttons might make it easier to operate.

Any thoughts??

Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk

[I H8 UM]

you can always go with the fox counter pressure filler way, just use a valve.
http://www.foxxequipment.com/parts.php?id=7649

We bought one of these, you have to turn the knobs a lot of times to open and close. Not good for this use.

[Smlsound]

I saw this bottle filler and I immediately thought of putting 4 of them together to make a version of what's been discussed here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORAu5o7QnFs

I think with a 4 way manifold it should work and the buttons might make it easier to operate.

Any thoughts??

Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk

This would totally work! I don't think it'd be easier or faster though. Also, I wonder where you can even buy this thing...

For all the weaknesses of the Morebeer filler, it's very, very fast once you get it going. One guy can operate three easily (four is kinda sketchy), and get many cases an hour, two guys can FLY when each operating two fillers and get even more. This design seems like it would take some baby sitting each time you hook up an empty bottle. You'd have to put a bottle on there, press one button for gas, press another for purging, then turn a valve to fill it. Sounds easy, but with the three way on top of the morebeer ones, you set a bottle in there and turn the gas on, letting it purge while you hook up the next bottle(s) and then swing it on over to the beer side. Pretty simple. Within a matter of ten seconds you can replace all four bottles and have them filling without pressing or holding anything.

Just my two cents. I am biased since we took the time to weld one of these frames and made them with morebeer fillers. Here's a video I already uploaded in case it got lost https://youtu.be/7Hislz5PwuE , but I was doing this one handed for the video with 750ml bottles. We got going really fast when we got the groove down.

[Smlsound]

An improvement on basic design

I wanted to also mention that attaching the manifold which feeds the filler to the same cross-beam as the fillers is a flaw. We didn't think of that until we'd already built it. Basically, if you're going to build one like this, you should weld a bar across the top to mount the manifold that feeds the fillers. It doesn't need to move. There's enough slack on the lines to let the fillers move up and down for various bottles sizes. If you mount it separately, you avoid the awkward elbow/sightglass combination that you can see in ours and vines and rushes rigs. Just FYI if you're gonna dive in. It's a simple improvement that'll make even easier to use.

[kinetic]

This would totally work! I don't think it'd be easier or faster though. Also, I wonder where you can even buy this thing...

For all the weaknesses of the Morebeer filler, it's very, very fast once you get it going. One guy can operate three easily (four is kinda sketchy), and get many cases an hour, two guys can FLY when each operating two fillers and get even more. This design seems like it would take some baby sitting each time you hook up an empty bottle. You'd have to put a bottle on there, press one button for gas, press another for purging, then turn a valve to fill it. Sounds easy, but with the three way on top of the morebeer ones, you set a bottle in there and turn the gas on, letting it purge while you hook up the next bottle(s) and then swing it on over to the beer side. Pretty simple. Within a matter of ten seconds you can replace all four bottles and have them filling without pressing or holding anything.

Just my two cents. I am biased since we took the time to weld one of these frames and made them with morebeer fillers. Here's a video I already uploaded in case it got lost https://youtu.be/7Hislz5PwuE , but I was doing this one handed for the video with 750ml bottles. We got going really fast when we got the groove down.

You're right about it not being necessarily easier or faster, but I still see some advantages over the 3 way valves. I've seen many people reporting faulty/leaky valves and this would, to some extent, reduce that problem.

I was thinking that a single person could operate two at the same time and he would switch to the other two while the first ones are filling. Then go back and forth... But that will probably put a lot of stress on a single operator, I'll have to run some tests.

I'm still trying to figure out if the filler is worth the $385

Nice vid by the way! I can't wait to get my bottling station going... I'm still in the planning stages.

Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk

[soia1138]

I saw this bottle filler and I immediately thought of putting 4 of them together to make a version of what's been discussed here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORAu5o7QnFs

I think with a 4 way manifold it should work and the buttons might make it easier to operate.

Any thoughts??

Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk

If you like insanely oxidized beer then this would work well for that and take forever and a day to get said oxidized beer. As for the 3 way valves, the leaking valve is easily fixed by reversing the beer and gas side barbs. There is a set screw on the gas side which will need constant tightening to stop gas from bleeding through. When reversed it has no issue stopping beer flow. Our experience after building one of these types of multi head hand counter pressure fillers is this; yes it works, it's slow, it gets you by for a bit in a pinch. The fill quality isn't great and if you are serious about brewing beer and packaging you will very quickly do as we did and find a way to pony up and buy a Meheen. Looking back at using this filler it was a laughable waster of time and money honestly.

[morrillt]

two questions

What kind of bottles per month are you guys producing with this system, is anyone making like 10,000 bottles or at that lvl is this system no longer appropriate?

Also anyone have any hard numbers on disolved oxygen.

We are going from 1 to 10 bbl system, and are internally divided around being able to use this system for the 10bbl system.

Thanks
Todd