Author: Marshall Schott

When I presented my idea for The Brü Bottler to my wife a few months ago to buy a bunch of parts in bulk, put them together by hand, then package and ship them myself, all with the noble goal of providing homebrewers an inexpensive yet effective solution for bottling from taps, she responded with an emphatic, “I think that’s gonna be more work than it’s worth.” She expounded on this by pointing out all of the time I’d have to invest in the process from cutting stainless tubing and piecing each bottler together to managing payments and shipping. Of course, in typical prove-you-wrong fashion, I disregarded her concern and went for it. I started by cutting 25 pieces of stainless tubing that were 4′ in length into 12″ pieces, it took 6 hours altogether, leaving me with 2 blisters on each hand and very sore wrists. Measuring and cutting the vinyl hose was easy, it only took about 45 minutes. Once the stoppers and nozzles arrived, I took to the task of piecing everything together, which involved sliding both ends of the vinyl tubing over the slightly larger diameter barbed nozzle and stainless wand.

This. Was. HELL.

Blisters, sore hands and shoulders, burnt fingers. I hated every second of it. But I eventually finished, it took 8 hours over 3 nights. I was done, that felt good.

Prior to releasing The Brü Bottler, I figured the 25 units for each faucet type would take me a couple months to sell off, that I’d be able to casually package and ship a few per week without much stress. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Within hours of the announcement, every available unit was spoken for and my inbox was filled with brewers asking when more might be available. What the hell had I gotten myself into?!

With the help of my generous wife, the following two weeks were spent organizing payments, figuring out the best way to address envelopes in bulk, packaging the bottlers, and eventually getting them shipped. The day the last one was dropped off at the post office was glorious, though I continued to be contacted by people curious when I might have more available. That’s when it hit me…

My wife was right.

I’ve neither the time nor interest in maintaining what is essentially a manufacturing gig, it pulled me away from what I enjoy doing, writing about brewing stuff, and made my hands hurt. So, I guess this is a long way of saying: I’m out! I will not be selling The Brü Bottler henceforth.

| Building & Using The Brü Bottler |

Fortunately, building a single bottler isn’t that difficult, and given the apparent interest, I thought I’d give a DIY as well as a walk-through on how to use it.

Acquire The Parts

The Brü Bottler consists of essentially 4 parts that can be found online for reasonable prices, and some of which you may already have lying around in your brewery. Here’s a list with linked images to places I found that sell the parts for a decent price.

Growler Filler

The most popular compatible faucets are made by Perlick, which do not have threaded spouts like the Perlick 400, Vent-Matic, and Intertap options. Because of this, growler filler nozzles come with o-rings that keep the filler snug inside the faucet. Unfortunately, it seems not all faucets of the same type are consistent in terms of the spout’s inner diameter, meaning the nozzles might be either slightly loose or a little tight. I tested various nozzles for Perlick 500 and 600 series faucets, the ones pictured/linked here are those I found worked best.

Stainless Wand

After testing out stainless wands of varying outer and inner diameter, I finally settled on 3/8″ OD, because it fits nicely in standard rubber stoppers, and 1/4″ ID, which allows for enough restriction to ensure a clean and smooth flow. If you’re looking to save a couple bucks, the tubing piece of a 3/8″ plastic bottling wand works just as well, though it’s not as durable and more susceptible to scratching.

Vinyl Tubing

For The Brü Bottlers I sold through the site, I went with a 15″ length of 3/8″ OD x 1/4″ ID vinyl tubing, which fit rather tightly over the 3/8″ OD stainless wand. However, I’ve heard from a few folks that they swapped out the tubing for a longer piece in order to allow more options for filling location, such as on top of one’s keezer.

As most brewers know, tubing doesn’t last forever and has a tendency to get pretty nasty even with good cleaning and sanitation practices. Because of this, I recommend buying some in bulk, it’s cheap and makes swapping out tubing-gone-bad really convenient.

Rubber Stopper with Hole

Not every stopper is created equal, so make sure you only use those with a standard 3/8″ airlock hole, as it will fit the stainless wand just right. Depending on what you plan to fill, you may need to get a few different sized stoppers, which is fine because they’re pretty cheap. Most standard beer bottles use a #2 stopper, some glass growlers accept a #6 stopper perfectly while that may be too small for others, and I’ve even used a #10 stopper to fill larger mouthed stainless growlers with ease. As someone who hates not having something when I need it, I’d recommend picking up a bunch of different sized stoppers– #2, #3, #6.5, #8, and a #10.5 ought to have you fairly well covered.

Assemble The Bottler

Assembling a bottler is pretty easy and shouldn’t take longer than a few minutes (putting 75 together sucks). Since the inner diameter of the vinyl tubing is smaller than the outer diameter of both the stainless wand and growler filler, putting them together can be a pain in the ass. To make this easier, I recommend soaking either end of the vinyl in boiling water for 1-2 minutes to soften it up before putting it all together. To ensure a solid seal, I push the vinyl tubing approximately 0.5″ onto the stainless wand and all the way onto the barbed end of the nozzle.

Once both ends are connected, you can run the warm sections of tubing under cold water to stiffen the vinyl and create an airtight seal. Then, all you have to do is slide on the right sized rubber stopper for the vessel you’re filling.

Using The Brü Bottler

Sort of like riding a bike, using The Brü Bottler might take a little getting used to, but once you’ve got it, it’s a cakewalk. What follows is the method I’ve found works best for me, you can riff on it to suit your own needs.

Step 1: Clean and Sanitize

In order to avoid contaminated beer, it’s important to clean and sanitize The Brü Bottler as well as the bottles you will be filling. I recommend first soaking the unit in a good cleaner such as CraftMeister’s Alkaline Brewery Wash followed by a second soak in the sanitizer your choosing, I prefer StarSan. Ready a small bowl of sanitizer for your bottle caps near your bottling area as well, it’ll make capping go smoothly. Finally, adjust the stopper on The Brü Bottler so that the tip is ½” above the bottom of the vessel you’re filling.

Step 2: Prepare Your Bottling Station

As with most bottling processes, using The Brü Bottler often results in some dripping of beer, which can be easily dealt with by placing a towel under your faucets. If you will be bottling alone, I recommend also preparing a clean and sanitized pitcher within which you can place the stainless wand while capping between fills. I tend to prefer filling bottles pulled directly from a bucket of StarSan, but the vessels can also be prepared ahead of time; laying a paper towel dampened in StarSan over the bottle openings can help keep contaminating critters out.

Step 3: Setup The Brü Bottler

Before attaching the nozzle to the faucet, I like to pour myself at least 6 ounces (or a pint) of the beer I’m bottling in order to chill the faucet, which will help to reduce foaming. Next, I attach the bottler to the faucet and open the tap briefly to replace the air in the The Brü Bottler with cold beer.

Step 4: Fill, Cap, Repeat

Then it’s time to start bottling! Place the stainless wand into the vessel and with one hand firmly holding the stopper in place, open your faucet. A few ounces of beer will immediately flow into the vessel then quickly slow down as the back pressure equalizes with the serving pressure. I like to maintain a complete seal until the flow of beer stops and any foam subsides, then I allow the pressure in the vessel to push the stopper out just enough so that I can control the flow by gently pushing the stopper back into the vessel’s opening. Once the bottle or growler is filled all the way to the brim, I close the faucet, remove the bottler from the vessel, let the stainless want dangle in a sanitized pitcher, cap, and repeat. The Brü Bottler is sized such that, if filled to the top, a perfect amount of beer will remain in the vessel once the wand is removed.

For those who wish to keep the mess as contained as possible, filling over a cheap dish pan is an effective solution. Personally, I fill over a plastic table and don’t mind the few seconds it takes to wipe it down with a sanitizer when I’m all done. Whatever floats your boat.

Step 5: Cleaning & Storing The Brü Bottler

When I’m finished filling, I give the bottler another quick soak in cleaner followed by a hot water rinse. I then briefly spin the The Brü Bottler over my head, using centrifugal force to pull most of the water out, after which it gets hung to dry.

That’s really all there is to it. If you have any questions or thoughts on The Brü Bottler, feel free to leave them in the comments section below!

*IMPORTANT* The Brü Bottler DOES NOT WORK on standard chrome faucets! Do not try unless you want to be sprayed in the face with beer.

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