How To Use A Little Bottler

The Beginner's Guide To Bottling Beer Using A Little Bottler

One of my least favourite steps in making beer is the bottling stage. I do prefer to bottle rather than using barrels but it can be a bit of a fiddly and messy job. Firstly your bottles need to be sterilised, then primed with sugar for the secondary fermentation stage. After that, you need to syphon the beer from your fermentation vessel into the bottles.

This is where the messy bit comes in. If you are trying to stop the flow of beer through a syphon tube or tap and then move the full bottle to one side with the other hand, whilst moving the next bottle into place, things can get a little tricky.

That's where the little bottler comes into its own. The picture above shows the device quite well. At the top left, you can see a red and white tap which replaces the existing one in your barrel. If you don't have one, then it can quite easily be fitted. Below the tap is a detachable clear 34cm tube (the length of a 1 litre PET bottle) on the bottom of which is a white needle valve shown bottom right of the picture.

As soon as the beer starts to pass through the tube, the valve is closed stopping the flow. When the needle is pressed up into the tube by pushing against the base of the bottle, the flow resumes.

So now you can switch the tap on, reach for the next bottle and offer it up until the valve touches the bottom of the bottle. Beer flows until the botttle is filled. At this point you lower the bottle stopping the flow and move the filled bottle away. Screw on the cap, grab your next bottle and away you go again.

Now bottling becomes so much easier. You have both hands free to bottle with and there is a lot less mess. Just one important thing to remember though; don't forget to sterilise your little bottler as well as all of your other equipment.

You can buy a little bottler at these homebrew stores: -

Little Bottler from Goodlife Homebrew

Little Bottler Complete from Home Brew Online