Tubes for filling growlers?

[gabewilson50]

I was at Silverado Brewing in Saint Helena, CA the other day and the bartender hooked the hose to the spray wand on the espresso machine and ran steem through it for about 15 seconds before filling my beer in a box. It was a nice touch.

Only a good idea if the wand NEVER touches milk. If it's used for steaming milk, you're introducing lipids to your growler that will collapse your foam. Otherwise, I'd rather see the hose go into the bar dishwasher or get dipped in the bar sanitizing rinse than see it steamed with a milk wand.

[Chip D]

We use the Perlick Faucets also. We took the ends of and machined them down leaving a ridge on the end so the hose will not come off. Heat them up with hot water to get them on. Use a 3/8 ID X 3/4 OD to get the right fill height. Length is 13 3/4".

Last year we filled 150,000 growlers. We fill 720 growlers in 30 minutes with 8 faucets.

Chip DeForest
Berkshire Brewing Company

[BeersmithMT]

WOW! Chip, that is some serious growlerage! I will never whine about a 200 growler day again.

[beauxman]

Holy crap! What kind of market are you in and how do you sell that many growler fills? Over 2400 BBLS of growler fills in a year? 17 growlers per hour every day of the year? 3 growlers per minute per faucet? I would say you hold the world record for growler fills.
-Beaux

[sudsy]

This might help

Here's a link to an inexpensive growler filling tube:

http://www.kegworks.com/product.php?productid=18982&cat=394&page=1

[Sir Brewsalot]

Good God that's impressive. At those rates, a dedicated/automated packaging line might be more effective, but it doesn't sound like it's slowing you down either way.

I assume you're not filling from kegs, but a serving tank? All those keg changes would seriously slow things down.

We took the ends of and machined them down leaving a ridge on the end so the hose will not come off.

So, did the machining leave a burr along the edge, or was it something more significant? Photo would be VERY helpful... we usually just retire the piece of tubing when it loses it's grip on the faucet.

Cheers,
Scott

[MickDuffs]

Our Growler Filler

My brother came up with a filler that works great for us. We use S/S Perlick valve seat forward faucets. We took a stainless dip tube from a corny keg and cut it to the length of a growler. We unscrew the Perlick spout and we slide the corny dip tube into the spout along with a corny dip tube "O" ring. The flare on the dip tube fits the spout perfectly. Then we screw the spout/tube onto the faucet and fill the growler. It works great if you have enough room between the faucet and the drip tray. If you use Perlick faucets like ours you should give it a try. I will attach some pictures to help explain it.

Cheers,

Mickey Mahoney -MickDuff's Brewing Co.

[pbjbrew]

I think that it's an amazing accomplishment to fill 150,000 growlers in a year, but I think it should be noted that Berkshire Brewing is filling them assembly line-style (but by hand) in the back of the brewery to distribute to outside accounts. They aren't being sold to waiting customers in a tap room. It's even more impressive that they fill 22 oz bombers the same way - directly from taps mounted on jockey boxes, with a volunteer bottling crew. According to their website they've filled 90 cases in 47 minutes. I wish I could get my paid crew to work half that hard