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The
rubber stopper with the hole will provide a tight fit for
the copper tee. Have a look at the photo to see how mine
was put together.
The copper tee itself allows for two connections outside the bottle. These are
for liquid in, and gas in/out. The top connection I used as liquid in, simply
for a straight-through (and therefore simple) mechanical line down into the bottle.
The side connection is for gas in/out via the football inflating needle and valve
extender onto the air chuck.
Unless you can get rubber stoppers exactly the right size, they will need some
mechanical adjusting. I have a wood lathe at my disposal, so I simply turned
the stoppers down to the right size to be a tight fit into the copper tee. Don’t
be put off if you don’t have this kind of machinery. Some careful work
with a hobby knife should see you through this step. |
For the liquid ‘in’ line and the inflating needle,
simply drill a hole roughly the right size until you get a snug
fit in the stoppers. You don’t want the holes too loose
or they will not be capable of holding enough pressure.
The small inline tap should be installed on the liquid line close
to the bottle end. While it is not strictly necessary, it will
make filling much easier if you have it. The brass tube that
fits into the rubber stopper should be a size for a good fit
with your
liquid line. The liquid line needs to be fitted to the brass.
A handy way to soften the line to get it on the tube is to heat
it
with a hair-dryer. Make the tube a touch shorter than your smallest
bottle to fill. Take into account that the brass tube should
be tight in the upper-most stopper and have enough past this
to connect
on to the liquid line.
The second brass tube should be the next size up on the first.
They come from hobby shops in incremental (imperial) sizes that
make a snug connection with each other, much like a copper joining
tee will make with its piping. This second piece should be shorter
than the inside length of the first piece, but long enough to
slide down to the bottom of the largest bottle. I have bottles
ranging
from standard VB 375ml size to a PET bottle that holds 1.5 litres.
My brass tubing will cater for these and all size bottles in
between by simply sliding the second tube on the first to adjust
the fill
tube length. If you have the tube at maximum length for a bottle,
you will minimise splashing and retain most CO2.
The final thing to do is test your filler, especially testing
for pressure holding capacity.
Using the filler
It pays to practice to get it right. I have filled various bottles
to simply test them for an evening drink until I was happy
with the final product for long-term storage or for bottling for
competitions.
Make sure your gas bottle can keep the same pressure on the
keg and bottle to be filled. This means using a tee connection
like
the one available from ‘Purple Pig’. I don’t
know what it is called, but this connector is a press-fit,
pressure holding device. You can join pressure hoses, or make
tee junctions,
or elbow bends etc. They are extremely versatile because they
are easy to disconnect which means quick re-configuring of
your gas
system.
Sanitise anything that will come in contact with your beer.
This includes the filling line and the bottles themselves.
1. Put gas pressure on the keg
head-space.
2. Fill the liquid line with beer
from the keg. Fill into a glass and taste a bit and then turn the
inline tap off.
3. Gas and burp the bottle.
Put the filler in the bottle (ensure it won’t pop out
under pressure). Push the air chuck onto the valve extender
to put some CO2 into the bottle. Burp
the bottle
and repeat until you are happy you have purged O2 out and only
CO2 remains (this will minimise the staling effects of oxygen).
4. Ensure the bottle is at
keg pressure and quickly put a valve cap on to stop leakage.
(I found that the valve extenders have
a slow leak, which can be used to advantage. The valve cap
controls leakage depending on how tight it is).
5. Open the liquid in (in-line)
tap and allow the beer to begin to fill the bottle. If the
pressures equalise, no beer will
flow. Adjust the tension of the valve cap to adjust the rate
of filling
of the bottle.
6. Allow the bottle to fill
to the required level. When full, turn off the liquid in. Burp
the gas head pressure and cap
the bottle
quickly. For another bottle, resume at step 3.
Conclusion
This bottle filler was made in a hurry because I needed to get
some beers packaged for a competition without knocking too
much gas from them. It was a fun project and I was delighted
it turned
out to be effective, simple and cheap. There are some good
fillers available commercially which will probably do a better
job than this one. They will also look better in your brewery.
But
if you
want to make your own, it might be hard to find a simpler design.
Cheers,
Arnie Wierenga
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