Economy Size Geek

I finally finished my Counter Pressure Bottler tonight. For those of
you who don’t brew - basically when you start out - you bottle. It’s a
huge pain. (I’m freshly reminded since I’m going to be bottling a Duvel
clone this week) As soon as you can most home brewers move to Kegging.
It’s easier to clean, setup, and serve.
Then eventually you run into a situation where you want take some of
your keg beer with you. That’s all well and good except taking a long a
keg is often a lot more than you need. Also in my case sometimes I want
to give away some of a batch (since everyone can’t always be camped out
at my house drinking). For example I went to FooCamp and I wanted to
take some of my home brew to share. Since my CP didn’t work I was forced
to buy beer in California.
That’s where this little device comes in. Basically it allows you to
take beer out of the keg (under pressure) and put it into a bottle.
There is some small risk of oxidation when you cap it, but it is pretty
minor all things considered. This means you get to have the best of
bother worlds. The ease of kegging, with the convience of bottling what
you want to have portable.
I started building mine some time ago. It just didn’t work. I was
kicking myself when last month I got the latest issue of BYO (Brew Your
Own) and it actually had a guide to building one. I figured out two
parts of my design that were messed up. First -there is a centra 1/4″
tub running from the top of the apparatus to the bottom. I didn’t
realize this. Because mine tube didn’t run all the way from top to
bottom the filler never filled (because there was no way to release the
pressure). Once I saw the picutres in the magazine I finally understood
what I had done wrong.
That mean a trip off to Lowes for some fittings. I have to admit I’ve
have officially learned more that I care to about metal piping (flare,
compression, and standard). It took me 45 minutes staring at the rack
of parts in Lowes to buy something, which I thought might work but
something seemed wrong. It was a 1/4 -> 3/8″ compression piece.
When I got home I realized what was wrong with the piece. Basically the
whole in the middle of the piece was too small to allow a 1/4″ tube thru
it, which is a problem since as I mentioned the main tube has to go from
the top to the bottom or the thing doesn’t work.
I ended up reading the article to see where I buy this mysterious part
because I couldn’t find it at Lowes. Then on the second page the answer
was provided - no one sells such a part. You just take the compression
piece and drill it out. Which I did - and now it works!
Also the second picture is an addition to the system that makes it even
easier to use. Basically this little device is a CO2 splitter. This way
I can take the co2 tank hook it up to the splitter and get both the
Counter Pressure and keg working at the same time.

I finally finished my Counter Pressure Bottler tonight. For those of
you who don’t brew - basically when you start out - you bottle. It’s a
huge pain. (I’m freshly reminded since I’m going to be bottling a Duvel
clone this week) As soon as you can most home brewers move to Kegging.
It’s easier to clean, setup, and serve.
Then eventually you run into a situation where you want take some of
your keg beer with you. That’s all well and good except taking a long a
keg is often a lot more than you need. Also in my case sometimes I want
to give away some of a batch (since everyone can’t always be camped out
at my house drinking). For example I went to FooCamp and I wanted to
take some of my home brew to share. Since my CP didn’t work I was forced
to buy beer in California.
That’s where this little device comes in. Basically it allows you to
take beer out of the keg (under pressure) and put it into a bottle.
There is some small risk of oxidation when you cap it, but it is pretty
minor all things considered. This means you get to have the best of
bother worlds. The ease of kegging, with the convience of bottling what
you want to have portable.
I started building mine some time ago. It just didn’t work. I was
kicking myself when last month I got the latest issue of BYO (Brew Your
Own) and it actually had a guide to building one. I figured out two
parts of my design that were messed up. First -there is a centra 1/4″
tub running from the top of the apparatus to the bottom. I didn’t
realize this. Because mine tube didn’t run all the way from top to
bottom the filler never filled (because there was no way to release the
pressure). Once I saw the picutres in the magazine I finally understood
what I had done wrong.
That mean a trip off to Lowes for some fittings. I have to admit I’ve
have officially learned more that I care to about metal piping (flare,
compression, and standard). It took me 45 minutes staring at the rack
of parts in Lowes to buy something, which I thought might work but
something seemed wrong. It was a 1/4 -> 3/8″ compression piece.
When I got home I realized what was wrong with the piece. Basically the
whole in the middle of the piece was too small to allow a 1/4″ tube thru
it, which is a problem since as I mentioned the main tube has to go from
the top to the bottom or the thing doesn’t work.
I ended up reading the article to see where I buy this mysterious part
because I couldn’t find it at Lowes. Then on the second page the answer
was provided - no one sells such a part. You just take the compression
piece and drill it out. Which I did - and now it works!
Also the second picture is an addition to the system that makes it even
easier to use. Basically this little device is a CO2 splitter. This way
I can take the co2 tank hook it up to the splitter and get both the
Counter Pressure and keg working at the same time.