Cedar Rapids Brewing Society

Hey , I built one of these to see how it works, and I can say it's AWESOME. I did make some adjustments to the design, but it works great. If anyone's interested I can bring it tonight, if I stop at home after work. You can find it pretty easily by googling biermuncher bottle filler

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/we-no-n ... gun-24678/
http://homemadesodaexpert.blogspot.com/ ... iller.html

1. Get an old racking cane, cut off the straight section into a filling tube.
2. Get an old #2 stopper
3. Stick the (sanitized) filling tube into a picnic tap. It fits perfectly.
4. Put it through the stopper, all the way down into the bottle you're filling (so the stopper's in the neck, and the end of the cane is on the bottom of the bottle).
4. Dial down the CO2 to 1 PSI or however low you can go.
5. Fill; it'll be under pressure, so occasionally squeeze the stopper to release pressure and continue filling.
6. Cap on foam.

My only argument for the beer gun would be that the smaller internal diameter of the tube allows for less expansion of the CO2, between the keg, and the bottle. I get pretty much foam free filling of my bottles, and have had them remain carbonated for over a year.

That said, this looks like a pretty cheap alternative. Before I had the beer gun, I used one of those bottling wands (the ones with the little spring loaded stopper in the end) inserted in a cobra tap. That worked the same as this, and was fine. I wouldn't go back now though. My Blichmann beer gun is one of the few brewery gadgets I have bought, that I would buy again.

I get no foam. The stopper is the key. it keeps everything under pressure.