Should bottling take this long?

[Old Speckled Ben]

Just bottled my latest kit (woodford's wherry) and it was the first outing for my shiny new equipment

Bottling stick
Bottling/priming bucket
Bottle tree

It was also the first time I've used proper glass bottles (and so therefore my new crown capper)

Anyway, I had to give all fourty bottles their scrub, sterilise, rine, take their labels off and load on to the bottle tree, then siphon in to the sterilised priming bucket, attach the bottling stick, fill the bottles, cap them, then store for priming and clean everything up

Basically, all of this took four hours this morning

Am I too slow, or is this how long it takes? Lol

[EoinMag]

Just bottled my latest kit (woodford's wherry) and it was the first outing for my shiny new equipment

Bottling stick
Bottling/priming bucket
Bottle tree

It was also the first time I've used proper glass bottles (and so therefore my new crown capper)

Anyway, I had to give all fourty bottles their scrub, sterilise, rine, take their labels off and load on to the bottle tree, then siphon in to the sterilised priming bucket, attach the bottling stick, fill the bottles, cap them, then store for priming and clean everything up

Basically, all of this took four hours this morning

Am I too slow, or is this how long it takes? Lol

Bottling takes a while alright, I reckon it's worth it for the different beer it produces, that said I like my budget barrels for the cask ale too, well I prefer the casks, but bottles have their place.

[Beer O'Clock]

You can eliminate part of the process by pre-rinsing. When I finish drinking a bottle, I rinse it out then spray a couple of squirts of Starsan into the bottle. I then cap these with reusable plastic stoppers.

When it comes to bottling, all you then need to do is invert them onto a bottle tree to drain the excess (although not essential) thus saving washing and sanatising on the same day.
When I aquire more bottles I spend a bit of time between brews cleaning then squiting with Starsan for my next lot of bottling.

Job's a guddun'.

[steve71ni]

I rinse well any bottles i intend to use for brewing once i've emptied the contents, dry them on the bottle tree and then store them covered until use, i've never worried about scrubbin bottles out. When it comes to bottling day, i use a no rinse sanitiser (starsan at 1.6ml/litre) to sanitise each bottle ( i have the little washer attachment for this), I leave them back on the tree to drain the excess out. I don't worry about removing labels, there's really no need. I also use Coopers carbonation drops, 1 per bottle for ales, which means i can bottle straight from the fermenter. This reduces the overall time required. I've never timed this operation but it can't be more than an 1 1/2 hours for a 20L batch.
cheers,
steve.

[trucker5774]

I use PET bottles. I rinse the dregs out under the tap as soon as I have poured a beer. The night before bottling day they are submerged in a large bucket of bleach. On the day drained and 3 quick rinses under the tap. Bottling stick attached to FV about an hour to 90 mins in total.

[AceMcAce]

If you were doing the labels at the same time as bottling, then yeah, it takes chuffing ages.
I spent the a whole day last week soaking, cleaning crusty sediment, and taking the labels off 170 bottles that I'd acquired. It's a pain in the backside job, but if I spend a day doing it now, it means that I have 170 bottles that I never have to do it with again.
For me bottling a 40 pint kit takes about an hour from start to finish including sterilising everything. 2nd FV and Little Bottler are a must for me. I've just invested in a bench capper and will be trying this out on monday. Hopefully this should make it even easier for me. I'd been using a cheap plastic twin lever one, and after bottling about 160 bottles with it, I could feel it was giving up the ghost on one side. Fingers crossed this one will last me an eternity!

[Old Speckled Ben]

Mind if I ask what you paid for your bench capper?

[thedeckking]

It defo takes ages if you've got labels to remove, next time will be quicker. As mentioned above make sure you rinse your bottles after drinking as this will save you having to scrub them out. I do this and then store them upside down to keep the dust out. On bottling day I sterilise the bottling bucket and all the kit with a bleach solution and then use the same solution to sterilise the bottles. I have a little adaptor (there's one HERE but I got mine from my LHBS)that screws on to my outdoor tap for rinsing the bottles. You put the inverted bottle on it and press, it then squirts water at full mains pressure (which is good around here) to rinse out the bleach and any bits of crap from the bottles.

It takes 2 minutes to make up the bleach solution in the bottling bucket. I then leave it for 40 minutes to do it's job. Takes another 5-10 minutes to transfer the bleach to the bottles. Once they've sat it's a 5 minute job to rinse and then 15-20 minutes to fill the bottles and cap. Overall it takes me around 2 hours to bottle 40 pints but alot of that time is waiting for the bleach to work, so the free time tends to get spent putting the next brew on. I still bottle some of my brews but the majority now go into corni's. Takes 2 minutes to fill the keg, attach the gas and that's it. Once you've had a corni you never look back.

[batey1963]

I have a separate fermenter which I use as a bottling vessel. Buy some baby bottle sterilising tablets from ASDA, 99p. Fill the bottling vessel up to the top, using 6 tablets. Then open the tap and fill 40 bottles with this liquid. Refil the fermenter to the top with anyother batch of sterilising solution (another 6 Tabs) There are 56 tablets in the pack. Leave these two items to stew overnight. Next day put your empty bottles into a bath of cold water. Swill and they are ready. Empty the bottling vessel and rinse out. Syphon from the FV into this vessel with the required amount of sugar to prime. Apply little bottler and off you go.

Day 1 should take you 30 minutes and day 2, 1 hour. In 3 years I have never had a bad brew. (oops that's torn it).
Best of luck,
Martin.

[Simon7]

For all the work you've done there your time seems about right, next time I'd suggest cleaning and removing labels as a job to be done before bottling day, in small batches.

I recently started using Beer O'Clocks method of Starsan and plastic caps as soon as I've emptied the bottles and it's saved me loads of time on bottling day. And the Starsan looks expensive at first but it lasts for ages, I'd say it probably works out cheaper than sterilisers that require rinsing

[brianboru]

i second the barrel for cask style ale.....also have ibrew bottles and 2 taps....also great 5liter a go instead of 10 bottles....also used mini kegs reused form lidl...( hassle with rust/ leak/ have to drink it all fast) but a real glass bottle is great ....i bottle half mine and use ibrew/ 1 L bulmer/magner bottle etc etc anything to ease the load

[Old Speckled Ben]

Thanks for the advice, guys

I have to admit that when I'd done the 20th bottle, then looked round at the other 20 I'd got to do, I was getting a little bit disheartened lol

Oh well, I suppose it's a good excuse to do more kits to get my practice in

I'll def be rinsing and cleaning as I go....I'll even insist that the few people I'll slow to have some of the brew can only have some if they return the nice clean bottles lol

[Stomach]

When ever I fiish a bottle, it gets cleaned out and left to soak to get the labels off. The plasticy lables wont come off like this and those bottles go to the recycling bin.

Good bottles lables for removal, Black Sheep, all Badgers, Penlon (local brew) Wyre Piddle and a host of others!

All my bottlwes go into 2 FVs for overnight sterilisation, so bottleing day is rinse and fill. And re lable if I have made any!

Cheers.

[AceMcAce]

Mind if I ask what you paid for your bench capper?

It was just over £30 from my LHBS

[jason123]

Mind if I ask what you paid for your bench capper?

It was just over £30 from my LHBS

Them two handled cappers are a waste of space. Bench cappers are far superior. £30 well spent and you'll never regret buying it. It should outlast a dozen two handled crappers and still be going strong.