OVHA Chat

Brag or cuss about your equipment.

First let me preface this post: I own the much touted(and expensive) B3 single-valved counter-pressure bottle filler, but have recently had to resort to the less glamorous hose-connected-to-the-picnic-tap method of keg to bottle filling. Even though the B3 device works well, it requires a lot of fine-tuning. The picnic hose connected to the short length of hose works much better than the B3 with much less tuning and much less foam than the B3 device.

I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT BROTHERS!!! I just bottled a couple of kegs with the glorious Blichmann Beergun. I actually found myself enjoying the pain-in-the-ass job of bottling, if that is possible. To express my love for this device I have composed this Haiku.(my first since high school)


Blichmann Beergun, Yeah!
I love the Blichmann Beergun.
Blichmann Beergun........sweet.


Anybody want to buy a B3 CP bottle filler cheap??


http://www.blichmannengineering.com/BeerGun/BeerGun.htm
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I like the Blichmann Beergun. Does make filling bottles easy. The only short coming is that it needs a holder, cradle or a holster to help keep it sanitary between bottles. At least I would find one handy. So I don't have to lay it on the counter top to cap on foam.

Got it on my to do list to make one.

Not that I want to turn this into a poetry thread, but I've been holding on to this haiku for quite some time...

Now that we have gained,
A couple extra brain cells,
Let's go burn them out.

Now, back to reality, I've been looking at some sort of counterpressure thingy, and I've seen the "beer gun" advertised, it's good to see a couple of people with some experience. Is there a waiting period or background check required for this type of firearm?

Not to long of wait at all. It's a Wonderful piece of equipment. Hell, you can slide the barrel down your throat, Squeeze the trigger and fill your stomach from the bottom up with little or no foaming problems. Just be careful not to press the CO2 injector button.

I have wondered how the beergun would work as a growler filler. Will you bring it to the brewery sometime so we can try it? There is a stainless steel growler filler available, but it should be gold for what they want for it.

Sure, no problem.

I received a new toy today, a beer engine. I bought it on ebay last Sunday. It arrived today (England to Evansville in 4 days). It needs some cleaning & polishing.

Beer Engine? Now you can build one of these.....

I love it but I'd want the wheal well seat. Pedaling while I'm drinking just to healthy.

Shirron update

Well, I finally got around to trying my Shirron plate chiller again. The first time I tried to use it was pretty much a disaster. It clogged after just a few minutes.
I was using gravity with too little of a drop to the fermenter and using pellet hops with no hop bag. This time I allowed for a greater drop to the fermenter and I also used a hop bag. Man, does this thing chill! It chilled my wort down to 55 degrees as fast as it drained into the fermenter.(about 7mins.) I had to cut the water flow way back to keep it from chilling too much. Clean up was pretty easy; I just back-flushed the wort side with water and soaked with PBW for a while. I ordered mine from Williams Brewing for about $85. Just about all of the major online brewing suppliers are now carrying it. I even seen a guy selling factory-second blemished chillers for $49 on Ebay. The Therminator are about $100 more and are advertised as being a little more efficent. Personally I don't see the extra cost being justified for my brewing setup.

I am a satisfied Shirron chiller user.

I'm going this rout for cooling.

http://www.mrmalty.com/chiller.php

Not many posts to this subject lately. Here goes......

Seen one of these in Lowes the other day. It only has a single gauge, but with such a small tank, I don't think that is a disadvantage. With a few mods, I think this would make a great, portable option for CO2. It even comes with a filled tank and the coiled hose. I believe that it uses standard paintball tanks. Hey, it will even power your nailgun!

http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=p ... J-6901-100

I saw that thing ... I think I remember the tanks for that thing being pretty expensive.

My new gadget is one of those hand-held CO2 chargers like Chris was showing at the kegging demo. However, I hook the thing up to a hose and hook the other end up to a carboy cap that's attached to my ported better bottle.

When bottling time comes around, I just attach this rig and shoot a little CO2 into the headspace - it makes bottling much faster and keeps oxygen off the beer (more or less).

Someone on the "Green Board" posted this picture of a siphon starter made from an outboard motor fuel squeeze pump. Clever.



The "Green Board" http://www.brewboard.com