Advice on Bottling Line/Shorts

[Amanda]

Hello fellow brewers,

After each run of our bottling line we are left with a varying number of "shorts". These bottles contain anywhere from 5-11ounces of beer, and can amount to upwards of 250 bottles. These bottles are labeled and capped with nowhere to go. Currently we give them away to employees, but I was wondering if anyone has a better solution. All comments are appreciated. Thanks

[Matthew Hill]

Trade 'em!

Trade 'em to a hog farmer along with your spent grain. You should be able to at least get a hog a year with that kind of volume.

[pbutlert]

short pours

Giving them away is your only option, or "marrying" them on the line, and sending them back thru the capper. It is against the law to sell them, check with the TTB- just a few months ago they conducted some audits around here, and one of the local breweries was fine heavily for selling short pours. Record them as waste on your reports.

[BrewinLou]

Shorties

If you do not mind me asking, how many case run are you getting that many shorts?

As the boss says, "Yall drink them up now".

The farmer does like a little brew every now and again.

[brewsurfer]

My advice is to throw them away and give your bottling crew a case a week of properly filled bottles. This will have some good results. Your filler operator will learn to adjust the bowl pressure to ensure the correct fill and you will have less misfills (ever notice how you don't have overfills?). Your bottle crew will feel just as appreciated and their friends will never taste oxidized beer from your place and will spread the gospel of your good beer. You won't waste as much glass, beer and etc. Create a quality assurance program and make all the team part of it. The case per week goes to QA/AC and no tax issues. It takes time and effort, but misfills can be fixed at the bowl. If not, have a talk with your cellarman.
Cheers and good luck!

[Michael Murphy]

we dump the beer out and throw them back on the line, at this point the bottle itself is worth more than the beer. If they are nearly full I take a few for myself. we usually catch them before it goes through the labler.

[Greenbrewmonkey]

Hello all,

Our bottles are labeled before heading into the filler (pressure sensitive labels that don't stick well to wet bottles), but we also try to grab short fills, empty and send back through rinsing and filling.

I agree with brewsurfer. Throw away any that make it through, and give your line folks "good" fills. Maybe even some sort of a program with lower waste equaling more beer, or some other sort of incentive (lunches?) By allowing short fills to be taken home free, you only encourage a steady supply of them.

Or so I believe.

Cheers,
Ron
Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales

[CallerFromLA]

BBQ Beer Sauce

If I had an abundance of bottled beer that I could not sell, I would cook with it. Even better, to keep some sales, you could make a bbq-beer sauce (or mustard, etc.), bottle that, and then sell it!

Cheers,
--Jake Tringali

[Amanda]

Thank You!

THANK YOU for all your suggestions and insight!