Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

4 head bottle filler for $275

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Originally posted by morrillt View Post
    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
    We're doing hardly any, but plan on ramping up soon. We've used this on only one BBA barley wine. Roughly 36 cases of 750ml's However, we've let three local breweries tour the use of our amazing machine and they've loved it. It's probably run about 1,000 cases so far. No complaints from us or them.

    As far as hard numbers on O2, I haven't the foggiest. If you can afford a good DO meter, you can probably afford a better bottle filler. Hioh! All I can say is this thing works pretty well. As far as it being worse than a Meheen, it's a lot worse. Is a Meheen $60,000 better? Doubtful. Definitely not for a little brewery like mine. What's scary is how horrible ANY bottling system can be if used impatiently, improperly or irresponsibly. The basic functions are the same, there's just a handful of things you have to do to baby this sort of thing. Any brewer with any kind of machine has DO horror stories.

    We bottled a Red that had been sitting on draft for a bit as a test for the fillers so we didn't waste any of the expensive barrel aged beer we were bottling. Those Red bottles all got filled and then were all put in various scenarios for torture testing. For about three months they were stored in Hot, bright, improper storage areas as well as cellar and cold room storage. The results were pretty damn impressive if you ask me. Very little difference in beers from each area they were aged in. In a blind test there were obvious differences but none that was clearly the "worst." No oxidation characteristics outside of normal aging for a 3 month old fairly hoppy beer.

    Comment


    • Whoops,

      By the by, we have a 10BBL system. Have no plans on getting a different filler. We're running two more beers through this on Monday (about 1600 bottles if all goes well) and I'll report back. I think if you're like us, you're not rushing 5 days a week to fill pallets with beer. If you are, good for you. Might want to get a more "reliable" and faster method of filling. For us, we'll probably be shipping out bottles every 6 weeks once we get our feet under us with our distro. If we end up selling beer faster, then obviously we'll start to bottle-neck (no pun intended) ourselves, we'll try upgrading or going with a mobile bottling truck or something.

      Comment


      • Question; what is that gauge/valve connected to the brite on the vines and rushes gear?

        Comment


        • Originally posted by soia1138 View Post
          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.
          How do you know that???
          I make them but I have not sold any to the US yet, so it is a bit weird that you can tell how it´s works.
          I have not heard any issue about oxidized beer with the bottle filler that I make, so if you know anything that I don´t know, please tell me what is wrong.
          There is microbrewery that fill 200 bottles/hour with 2 bottle filler with only one man.

          There is also more than one microbrewery in finland that have bought 4 bottle filler so that they can fill 1600 bottles a day, but they are planning to be two that fill.
          I made the bottle filler because there wasn't anything that worked the way I wanted. I sell them to home brewer but they work so good that even microbrewery have started to buy them.

          Comment


          • Originally posted by Pilsner Kokaren View Post
            How do you know that???
            I make them but I have not sold any to the US yet, so it is a bit weird that you can tell how it´s works.
            I have not heard any issue about oxidized beer with the bottle filler that I make, so if you know anything that I don´t know, please tell me what is wrong.
            There is microbrewery that fill 200 bottles/hour with 2 bottle filler with only one man.

            There is also more than one microbrewery in finland that have bought 4 bottle filler so that they can fill 1600 bottles a day, but they are planning to be two that fill.
            I made the bottle filler because there wasn't anything that worked the way I wanted. I sell them to home brewer but they work so good that even microbrewery have started to buy them.
            Based only on what was shown in the video. There is absolutely zero foam to cap on. Disregarding the time it took from fill to crowning, which should be immediate (especially with zero foam), how could there be anything but oxidation. Again I'm only judging by the video which shows no foam at all. If the unit is capable of cap on foam and consistent fill levels then I would say it's a nifty unit for homebrewers. The other concern is the amount of head space in the bottle. In order to get a properly filled bottle with foam off of the filler unit it looks as though you would be spilling beer from the bottle. The angle needed to remove the bottle is too steep. Don't get me wrong its definitely a cool device for the homebrewer (given that it can cap on foam?), again I'm coming at this from a professional brewing point of view (we are on probrewer after all). Packaging is far away the most technically difficult part of brewing, so this is where the money should be spent if you want to be serious about any kind of quality and volume.

            Comment


            • Originally posted by export! View Post
              Question; what is that gauge/valve connected to the brite on the vines and rushes gear?

              http://static1.squarespace.com/stati...2/IMG_3826.jpg
              Flow meter for carbonation.

              Comment


              • Originally posted by Pilsner Kokaren View Post
                How do you know that???
                I make them but I have not sold any to the US yet, so it is a bit weird that you can tell how it´s works.
                I have not heard any issue about oxidized beer with the bottle filler that I make, so if you know anything that I don´t know, please tell me what is wrong.
                There is microbrewery that fill 200 bottles/hour with 2 bottle filler with only one man.

                There is also more than one microbrewery in finland that have bought 4 bottle filler so that they can fill 1600 bottles a day, but they are planning to be two that fill.
                I made the bottle filler because there wasn't anything that worked the way I wanted. I sell them to home brewer but they work so good that even microbrewery have started to buy them.
                It would be great if you had a picture of those 4 filler together, I'd love to see how they did it and what their bottles/hour rate is

                Comment


                • Originally posted by export! View Post
                  Question; what is that gauge/valve connected to the brite on the vines and rushes gear?

                  http://static1.squarespace.com/stati...2/IMG_3826.jpg
                  More specifically, looks like this:

                  McMaster-Carr is the complete source for your plant with over 595,000 products. 98% of products ordered ship from stock and deliver same or next day.


                  They're sometimes called ball gauges. It has a little floating ball to measure the flow of the co2 regardless of pressure. When carbonating they are invaluable since setting the PSI is guesswork without it.

                  Comment


                  • Update

                    Just bottled 110 cases on Tuesday. It's Friday now. Sorry for the late update.

                    Everything went off without a hitch. We bottled two different brands, including a BBA Stout and then a brett-aged beer. This means we will be disassembling everything and boiling whatever we can boil and replacing everything that can't (i.e. tubing and stuff that's cheap). I'll let you all know how that goes as well.

                    The biggest thing I would say that took up time was capping. We ended up yelling a lot at the guy running the capper, but that's more because we're mean than anything else. The magnet broke off the bell of the capper meaning we had to manually hold it in place over each bottle. Not a fast process. Eventually we hit a stride. We had way too many people helping which was nice. We started at about 945 cleaning and sanitizing, started our first keg around 1030 and finished bottling around 430. We lunched for about 45 minutes in there somewhere. Also, we were bottling off kegs (which adds time since you have to stop, go get a new keg, purge the system and start again) which I would say added about 30 minutes overall between all 13 or so kegs we had between the two beers. That puts the total bottling time at around 4.5 hrs which means about 290 bottles an hour. Not too shabby.

                    I'll try to borrow someone's DO meter and take some measurements from the draft kegs we have of these beers and the bottles. That might help figure out if these things are worth a damn.

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by Smlsound View Post
                      Just bottled 110 cases on Tuesday. It's Friday now. Sorry for the late update.

                      Everything went off without a hitch. We bottled two different brands, including a BBA Stout and then a brett-aged beer. This means we will be disassembling everything and boiling whatever we can boil and replacing everything that can't (i.e. tubing and stuff that's cheap). I'll let you all know how that goes as well.

                      The biggest thing I would say that took up time was capping. We ended up yelling a lot at the guy running the capper, but that's more because we're mean than anything else. The magnet broke off the bell of the capper meaning we had to manually hold it in place over each bottle. Not a fast process. Eventually we hit a stride. We had way too many people helping which was nice. We started at about 945 cleaning and sanitizing, started our first keg around 1030 and finished bottling around 430. We lunched for about 45 minutes in there somewhere. Also, we were bottling off kegs (which adds time since you have to stop, go get a new keg, purge the system and start again) which I would say added about 30 minutes overall between all 13 or so kegs we had between the two beers. That puts the total bottling time at around 4.5 hrs which means about 290 bottles an hour. Not too shabby.

                      I'll try to borrow someone's DO meter and take some measurements from the draft kegs we have of these beers and the bottles. That might help figure out if these things are worth a damn.

                      those do measurements would be cool! PLLLSSS

                      Comment


                      • what the heck am i doing wrong..... foam city

                        My process

                        Backstory: we are waiting for a 10bbl system to arrive and brewing on a 1bbl pilot and carbonating and bottling from kegs with 1/2 inch lines t-ing into both sides of gw-kent manifold, into 3 morebeer counter pressure deluxe fillers....


                        Ok first off we had kegs in a 40 degree coldroom, somehow temp coming out of this thing in bottle is 50-55 so there is that.

                        1. We were carbonating at ~ 13 psi at 40 degrees. Pouring glasses via picnic before bottling all looked good.
                        2. throw the regulator at 10, set counter pressure to 5 -> 90% of bottle is foam, pure 100% foam.
                        tried regulator at 15, counter at 10 -> still foam city
                        3. no matter what I do I am pouring pure 100% foam
                        4. wasted a couple kegs.... no idea where to start....

                        The brewer who use to work with us got this thing working but htey left suddenly and are out of pocket... where do i start?

                        Idears?
                        Last edited by morrillt; 03-17-2016, 04:27 PM.

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by morrillt View Post
                          My process

                          Backstory: we are waiting for a 10bbl system to arrive and brewing on a 1bbl pilot and carbonating and bottling from kegs with 1/2 inch lines t-ing into both sides of gw-kent manifold, into 3 morebeer counter pressure deluxe fillers....


                          Ok first off we had kegs in a 40 degree coldroom, somehow temp coming out of this thing in bottle is 50-55 so there is that.

                          1. We were carbonating at ~ 13 psi at 40 degrees. Pouring glasses via picnic before bottling all looked good.
                          2. throw the regulator at 10, set counter pressure to 5 -> 90% of bottle is foam, pure 100% foam.
                          tried regulator at 15, counter at 10 -> still foam city
                          3. no matter what I do I am pouring pure 100% foam
                          4. wasted a couple kegs.... no idea where to start....

                          The brewer who use to work with us got this thing working but htey left suddenly and are out of pocket... where do i start?

                          Idears?
                          Well, I wouldn't worry about the regulator pressure or the bottle pressure. As long as you're not pushing it to dangerous levels, that is. Basically, foam occurs for a few reasons, in your case the temperature rise forces Co2 out of solution. Big difference between 38/40 and 55/56 as far as saturation and psi. The other issue is a gas and/or pressure imbalance. If you charge the bottles with pressure and are keeping them under pressure with nothing but Co2 in the bottle, then the co2 has nowhere to go. If it's foaming, it can only be that there is either not enough gas, not enough pressure, the temperature is too high or a combination of the three.

                          I would say get the kegs cold and keep them cold. Your coldroom temp is not directly correlated to the beer inside, ESPECIALLY if you store your kegs on the concrete floor. Concrete sucks out temp way more dramatically than you'd think. Simply stacking the kegs you're going to be bottling on other, non-bottling kegs the night before will get them cold.

                          The other thing is to make sure you're purging for a good couple seconds to eliminate that as a variable.

                          The next thing is to observe the foam level as you're filling. Set your keg regulator at whatever, we set ours at 15 and never touch it. As you purge, the gauge will read a certain value, then as you fill, it will most certainly drop. Adjust the screw/bleeder valve until you don't see foam as it fills. Don't worry about what the gauge reads yet (unless it goes REALLY high or something). Some of our bottles have had to be filled at 12 psi in the bottle. If that pressure keeps changing, check for leaks (a stopper, a valve, bad seating, etc). Once you find what works in the bottle, watch them as you purge and fill. The Achilles Heel to these things are those stupid bleeder valves. Sometimes they stay exactly where you want em' other times they have to be adjusted on EVERY fill. Again, it's not necessarily a certain magical pressure, it's a matter of observing the foam and putting more pressure in the bottle to keep the co2 in solution. If you don't give it anywhere to go, it won't get out.

                          Comment


                          • Sounds good, question when you talk about

                            The other thing is to make sure you're purging for a good couple seconds to eliminate that as a variable.

                            are you talking about purgiing the bottle or the keg, assume bottle but wanted to be sure....

                            I have read various things about keg head space that continuess to mystify me....

                            Thanks!
                            Todd

                            nues
                            Originally posted by Smlsound View Post
                            Well, I wouldn't worry about the regulator pressure or the bottle pressure. As long as you're not pushing it to dangerous levels, that is. Basically, foam occurs for a few reasons, in your case the temperature rise forces Co2 out of solution. Big difference between 38/40 and 55/56 as far as saturation and psi. The other issue is a gas and/or pressure imbalance. If you charge the bottles with pressure and are keeping them under pressure with nothing but Co2 in the bottle, then the co2 has nowhere to go. If it's foaming, it can only be that there is either not enough gas, not enough pressure, the temperature is too high or a combination of the three.

                            I would say get the kegs cold and keep them cold. Your coldroom temp is not directly correlated to the beer inside, ESPECIALLY if you store your kegs on the concrete floor. Concrete sucks out temp way more dramatically than you'd think. Simply stacking the kegs you're going to be bottling on other, non-bottling kegs the night before will get them cold.

                            The other thing is to make sure you're purging for a good couple seconds to eliminate that as a variable.

                            The next thing is to observe the foam level as you're filling. Set your keg regulator at whatever, we set ours at 15 and never touch it. As you purge, the gauge will read a certain value, then as you fill, it will most certainly drop. Adjust the screw/bleeder valve until you don't see foam as it fills. Don't worry about what the gauge reads yet (unless it goes REALLY high or something). Some of our bottles have had to be filled at 12 psi in the bottle. If that pressure keeps changing, check for leaks (a stopper, a valve, bad seating, etc). Once you find what works in the bottle, watch them as you purge and fill. The Achilles Heel to these things are those stupid bleeder valves. Sometimes they stay exactly where you want em' other times they have to be adjusted on EVERY fill. Again, it's not necessarily a certain magical pressure, it's a matter of observing the foam and putting more pressure in the bottle to keep the co2 in solution. If you don't give it anywhere to go, it won't get out.

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by morrillt View Post
                              Sounds good, question when you talk about

                              The other thing is to make sure you're purging for a good couple seconds to eliminate that as a variable.

                              are you talking about purgiing the bottle or the keg, assume bottle but wanted to be sure....

                              I have read various things about keg head space that continuess to mystify me....

                              Thanks!
                              Todd

                              nues
                              Correct. Purging the bottle.

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by kinetic View Post
                                It would be great if you had a picture of those 4 filler together, I'd love to see how they did it and what their bottles/hour rate is
                                Here is an image of our setup with 4 fillers. (Svartå Bryggeri, Finland) The carbon dioxide is connected through all four fillers and then to the beer tank. The beer is carbonated at room temperature in the tank and cooled on the way from the tank to the filler. The beer tank can handle pressure up to 3 bar and for normal carbonation levels, we use about 2,2 bar. Not the optimal setup, but we work with what we have. In the video by "Pilsner kokaren" you linked to (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORAu5o7QnFs), the filling is rather slow. By adjusting a screw on the backside of the filler you can increase the outflow of carbon dioxide. One person can fill and cap almost 200 half litre bottles in one hour with our setup. With 0,33L bottles, four fillers at once is too much to handle for only one person.

                                About the oxidation issue mentioned by soia1138. I understand that capping on foam is the preferred method, and a Meheen would be nice to have if it dropped out of the sky. But for a brewery of our scale, that is simply not an option. We considered a CP filler for about 8000 € when instead this solution came up. Does the same thing for a fraction of the cost. So far, we haven't experienced any problems with oxidation. Works well enough for us.

                                Click image for larger version

Name:	fyllare_s.jpg
Views:	1
Size:	95.3 KB
ID:	190976

                                Comment

                                Working...
                                X