Your in Switzerland too, I noticed the Brau und Rauch shop bucket, I came across your video looking for advice for bottling with the Blichmann beer gun, great video now I know how to use it with out reading the instructions : ) I am in Lenzburg.
I usually connect the co2 to the bottom tap and fill with the lid on. A small lighted flame next to the air lock bung indicates if the barrel is full when the flame is extinguished. Also usually pour the priming sugar in first to mix thoroughly . But that's just the way I do it. Great vid👍
When you start the transfer you should definaetly remove the yeast lock. You mentioned you kept it on because you "didnt want oxygen in there". You get oxygen even with the yeastlock. Remember the fermentation bucket creates negative preassure that suck air in when its emptied so even if air goes thorugh the yeast lock, oxygen isnt magically filtered out by the water in the lock. Worst case is that the water in the yeast lock is contaminated and that water gets sucked into the fermentation bucket introducing unwanted stuff. I strongly advise removing it.
It was bottling that made me stop home brewing beer the first time! I just found the amount of space it takes is amazing! Because if you are like me, and like to have two or three different types of beer to choose from, and you have 40+ bottles per batch, that's a lot of bottles to store! Because even when you start drinking your beer, you still need to keep the empty bottles to use again in the future! That's why I decided to move over to pressure barrels, one 5 gallon batch of beer = one clean barrel! But my next move will be cornelius kegs, because I find plastic pressure barrels can be a bit temperamental, and it can be a bit of a pain to know how accurately how much co2 you have! Not only that, but by the time you pay for a plastic pressure barrel, then the right cap you need it adds up to the same sort of price has a reconditioned cornelius keg! The only downside is like you rightly said at the beginning, it's nice to be able to give someone a bottle of beer to try, unless you can trust them to give you your expensive swing top bottles back! Lol.😆
haha yes bottling is a lot of work!! I've moved on to kegs and converted a fridge into a two tap kegerator. I also have a Blichmann beer gun so i can bottle up some beer to give to friends if i want!!! I still keep a stash of cap style bottles to give away.
Thanks for making this video. Lots of great tips that I found really useful. Definitely loved the consideration given to purging oxygen. How did yours end up, was it worth the extra effort? Do you still do it to this day?
I've since moved on to kegging but i do bottle from time to time - i now hook up a Blichmann BeerGun to the keg but it essentially does the same thing by purging the bottle with co2 and then filling from the bottom with beer.
Hi Ben, this was some time ago so it's hard to recall but i think i got through a pack of 6. I think a better option these days is to use a sodastream canister with a mini regulator and adapter - together with something like the blichmann beer gun. I'm also now using a fermzilla so i can pressurise the fermentor so the whole process is completely oxygen free.
Just started brewing a few days ago. In theory, could you not just have kegged in that small 5L keg you had? I want to brew NEIPAs and thought that small cheap keg system you had could be a good start but I might be wrong
yes indeed i was using those small kegs at the beginning but i didnt really like it because you still have to prime it with sugar as the kegs cant handle too much pressure and the little co2 chargers ran out quickly when dispensing. You also cannot pressure transfer into them - so they are essentially the same as a bottle except you can plugin a tap to dispense. You can now buy great little 5l litre kegs that are miniature versions of the bigger ones and can handle the pressure - havent tried them out but they look great for someone without a kegorator. You can get them with the charger capsule adapter or you could get go with something like a small sodastream bottle with an adapter to hook it up to the keg.
@@theculturebrewingchannel5619 Thanks for the reply mate. You just saved me a bunch of time. My plan is to do something like this just without the taps (going to use a picnic tap haha) www.ikegger.com/blogs/ikeggerworld/how-to-build-a-4-tap-mini-kegerator-yourself-in-one-hour. But I need to get my bucket game down before I get too excited. Cheers mate
