The Little Bottler

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Dave S
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The Little Bottler

Post by Dave S » Wed Nov 07, 2012 1:37 pm

Anyone used one of these? I usually keg my beer, but sometimes I draw off a few litres into bottles, either just for comparison or to hand out to chums. I thought anything that lessens the pain of bottling is probably worth having at the price.
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Dave

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Re: The Little Bottler

Post by sbond10 » Wed Nov 07, 2012 2:01 pm

Yep I use one stops oxygen mixing to much in the mix saves waste and mess too. Plus I'm guessing if u got a pipe the right bore to fit over the tap outlet then you could bang tgis into the bottom of the keg to save you sucking. If you decide to keg and bottle sum.

Dave S
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Re: The Little Bottler

Post by Dave S » Wed Nov 07, 2012 2:07 pm

sbond10 wrote:Yep I use one stops oxygen mixing to much in the mix saves waste and mess too. Plus I'm guessing if u got a pipe the right bore to fit over the tap outlet then you could bang tgis into the bottom of the keg to save you sucking. If you decide to keg and bottle sum.
Thanks sbond10. Can't really visualise what you mean as I haven't seen one in action, but it sounds like it might be worth the money, especially if someone else buys it for me - can feel a santa's wishlist coming on :D
Best wishes

Dave

Underground Joe

Re: The Little Bottler

Post by Underground Joe » Wed Nov 07, 2012 2:17 pm

I would put this as one of the best pieces of brewing equipment that I own. Also superb value for money. Bottling would take so much longer without it.

Dave S
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Re: The Little Bottler

Post by Dave S » Wed Nov 07, 2012 3:18 pm

Underground Joe wrote:I would put this as one of the best pieces of brewing equipment that I own. Also superb value for money. Bottling would take so much longer without it.
Excellent, I think I'll go for one.
Best wishes

Dave

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gregorach
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Re: The Little Bottler

Post by gregorach » Wed Nov 07, 2012 3:29 pm

If you're thinking about bottling out of barrels, you might be better off going for just a bottling stick - the little bottle comes with its own tap attached (I think). With a bottling stick, you just need to cobble together something to connect the stick to the tap of your barrel - I use a very short length of 1/2" ID silicone tube, a 1/2" to 3/8" hose barb / John Guest stem, and a 3/8" John Guest coupler, which fits the bottling stick perfectly. I normally bottle a gallon out of each barrel rather than bottling whole batches.
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Dunc

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ajclarkson
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Re: The Little Bottler

Post by ajclarkson » Wed Nov 07, 2012 3:45 pm

Yeah I'm with Dunc on this one. I got the bottling stick and use it with some silicone tubing to mix between mini kegging and bottling. In either case though, little bottler / bottling stick is an excellent bit of kit, and something I should have had a couple of years ago when I was doing more bottling than I do now. Would have made life a lot easier!
Adam

Fermenting: AG#15 - Dubbel - Oh, Seven?
Conditioning: AG#14 - Pale Ale 3 (Challenger & Mt. Hood)
Drinking: Out! :(
Up Next: Oatmeal Stout, Hefe
Year To Date: 165 pints | Total: 775 pints

My Setup: Electric BIAB with a Dual Purpose Heat Exchange / Cooler

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Re: The Little Bottler

Post by sbond10 » Wed Nov 07, 2012 4:14 pm

No with the lil bottler you have a tap and wand separately you just shove the wand on the tap when required. That's what I meant before with the flexi pipe option. If you went with the lil bottler you fit the tap to your Fv and leave the wand off till bottling day. So rather than sticking a sypthon tube into the bucket if one day u wanted to fill a keg you'd shove a piece of flexi pipe on the tap instead of the wand.

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Re: The Little Bottler

Post by Dave S » Wed Nov 07, 2012 4:55 pm

I'm dithering now. I don't fancy having a tap on my FV - I'm with Dunc on that. I'll have to take a look at how the bottling stick works and make a choice. Maybe I'll get both and have a play.
Best wishes

Dave

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Re: The Little Bottler

Post by sbond10 » Wed Nov 07, 2012 5:01 pm

You can buy the stick/wand seperatly and do what dunc is suggesting. Just I've never understood how to get liquid flowing, asy understanding is you put a sypthon tube into the bucket and on the other end you put the wand/stick. But how the liquid gets from a to b is one little hurdle my brain has got to inderstanding

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Re: The Little Bottler

Post by Dave S » Wed Nov 07, 2012 5:35 pm

sbond10 wrote:You can buy the stick/wand seperatly and do what dunc is suggesting. Just I've never understood how to get liquid flowing, asy understanding is you put a sypthon tube into the bucket and on the other end you put the wand/stick. But how the liquid gets from a to b is one little hurdle my brain has got to inderstanding
I s'pose you could use one of those auto-syphons made by Young's where you get it flowing via a pump. I've also heard of people having short tube attachments on the 'b' end and a tap, so after sucking you close the tap and remove the tube you sucked on. There're a few possibilities anyway. Thanks for the input.
Best wishes

Dave

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Re: The Little Bottler

Post by sbond10 » Wed Nov 07, 2012 5:56 pm

Yeah I've thought about getting a sort of doctors sethascope set up so you have one end in the beer one with the wand attached too then one more with a syringe attached to it in a y. Formation then you draw back on the syringe to get the beer flowing. If this makes any sense then your doing better than me whesther it would work is another matter

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trucker5774
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Re: The Little Bottler

Post by trucker5774 » Wed Nov 07, 2012 6:02 pm

Just get one..............they're ace!
John

Drinking/Already drunk........ Trucker's Anti-Freeze (Turbo Cider), Truckers Delight, Night Trucker, Rose wine, Truckers Hitch, Truckers Revenge, Trucker's Lay-by, Trucker's Trailer, Flower Truck, Trucker's Gearshift, Trucker's Horn, Truck Crash, Fixby Gold!

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FV 1............
FV 2............
FV 3............
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ajclarkson
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Re: The Little Bottler

Post by ajclarkson » Wed Nov 07, 2012 6:06 pm

sbond10 wrote:Yeah I've thought about getting a sort of doctors sethascope set up so you have one end in the beer one with the wand attached too then one more with a syringe attached to it in a y. Formation then you draw back on the syringe to get the beer flowing. If this makes any sense then your doing better than me whesther it would work is another matter
Does make sense, and I think it probably would work! But when I used to use my bottling stick with a syphon I had an auto syphon like Dave said. It is a little bit of a pain to get going I used to trap a bottle between my feet, stick the bottling stick in so the valve was open, then pump the auto syphon. Once its going that's it, you can start and stop as you like just with the valve on the bottler.

I did this after not thinking it though, and just pumping the auto syphon like crazy. Of course that just increases the pressure inside the tubes, and I found out that bottling sticks make awesome rockets when they're flying across the kitchen!
Adam

Fermenting: AG#15 - Dubbel - Oh, Seven?
Conditioning: AG#14 - Pale Ale 3 (Challenger & Mt. Hood)
Drinking: Out! :(
Up Next: Oatmeal Stout, Hefe
Year To Date: 165 pints | Total: 775 pints

My Setup: Electric BIAB with a Dual Purpose Heat Exchange / Cooler

jonnyt

Re: The Little Bottler

Post by jonnyt » Wed Nov 07, 2012 6:32 pm

Just suck on the end of the bottling stick with it lower than the vessel containing the Beer!

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