Counter Pressure Bottling Station

I wanted a hands free setup to take some of the hassle out of counter pressure bottling. The actual filling mechanism is somewhat crude, but those details are unimportant. You could mount a standard cp filler to a piece of plywood to accomplish the same thing. The nice thing about it is that it is spring loaded to hold the filler in the bottle without having to use your hands. I won't give dimensions because I made it out of scraps lying around and didn't use a tape measure. The only dimension that I would recommend is that you measure is the place for the keg to set. Make it large enough for a coke keg so that either type will fit. The base is extended far enough to the left to accomodate a bench capper.

Front view showing a corny connected and ready to start filling. The left valve is the beer in, the right one the gas in. They are standard brass 1/4' ball valves.

Back view showing where the corny goes. I have fastened qd's on both lines, with a corny QD gas in fitting tee'd into the gas line.This QD is for my CO2 connection. This supplies CO2 to both the keg and the filler without having to change fittings on the CO2 tank. My gas line is long enough to reach up from the floor.

The basic premise of the filler is that the filler mechanism is mounted on a piece of plywood that slides up and down in grooves in the mahogany strips on each side. This pic shows the top of the unit, a detail of the grooves that the filler mechanism slides in.

This pic shows the cp filler mechanism mounted on the sliding piece of plywood. You could purchase a cp filler and mount it in a similar manner if you don't want to build the filler mechanism. The two ball valves look a bit strange because they are encased in a glob of Bondo. I made little wooden forms, put the valves in, then filled it up with Bondo. While it was still soft, I put some coarse thread drywall screws into the Bondo thru the back, countersinking the heads. I then removed the wood forms. This holds the valves very rigidly.

These pics show a closeup of the assembly with & without a bottle on it. The black item between the filler tube and the vent tube is a heavy spring fastened to the base and to the sliding plywood. There is a stop in one of the grooves to allow the sliding head to bottom out without the filler tube touching the base. The spring is bent in an L shape at the bottom and fits into a 1/16" hole. Actually, there is a series of these holes in a vertical pattern 1/2" apart to allow the spring to be adjusted for different bottle sizes. You can see one hole below the one the spring is attached to. Also, you can see that the filler tube is bent outward slightly. This is to make it easier to push a bottle up onto the stopper, lift up the sliding head, push in against the back, and lower down onto the 2" ledge.

NOTE: I have since made a slight change. After several uses, the spring wanted to slip out of the hole at the bottom end. I bent the bottom of the spring into a loop, and used a 1/2" long hex head screw in the hole to hook the spring onto. I can still adjust the height, and the spring no longer slips out.

This last pic is a close up of the gas in QD post connected to the gas in line. I dropped a 1/4" dia. SS washer into the bottom of the QD post, then a 1/4" od Oring, then screwed the QD onto a 1/4" brass close nipple (already in the tee) with copious amounts of silicone caulk on the threads. This was to prevent the edge of the brass nipple from interfering with the poppet in the QD post, and it helps seal the connection even better.

My basic procedure is like this:

I prepare my setup by first sanitizing about 25 bottles and placing on a bottle tree to dry. I set the bottler on my countertop, leaving a little space on the left for my sanitized caps, and place the bottle tree to the right of the bottler. I connect my keg to the bottler and connect the CO₂ line. Pressurize to 20 psi.
Place a sanitized cap on the capper (it has a magnet on it to hold the cap).
I also sanitize as I go. I place the clean bottles (in cases) off to the right, and a 5 gallon bucket of sanitizer between the sink and the bottles.
I grab a bottle in my right hand, push it up onto the filler tube to the stopper, continue pushing up against the tension of the spring until the bottom clears the ledge, push it away from me to the back of the bottler, lower it until it rests on the ledge.
Open the vent valve (the needle valve to the right - this is normally already open from venting the previous bottle).
Open the gas in ball valve (the one on the right).
Wait a few seconds to purge the air from the bottle, then close the vent valve.
When the bottle is pressurized, I close the gas in ball valve.
Open the beer in ball valve.
GENTLY crack open the vent valve. The filler tube is a couple inches up from the bottom of the bottle (so I can fill 7 oz bottles too), so until the bottle is filled to the tube, I fill quite slowly.
Open the vent valve more to increase the flow.
When the beer level is about an inch from the stopper, I close the beer in valve. The pressure releases thru the vent valve and a little foam builds up (just enough to fill the head space).
When the pressure is released, I grab another empty in my right hand, grab the full one in my left hand, raise the full one, pull toward me to clear the ledge, lower until the bottle is free from the filler. I immediately put the empty on with my right hand (no drips lost).
Open gas in valve.
Cap the full bottle.
Put fresh cap on capper.
Close the vent valve
and so forth ...

As mentioned, I sanitize my bottles as I go. During the time bottles are filling, I will variously add bottles to the sanitizer, pull bottles out of the sanitizer and put them on the tree, etc. These steps are done on an as-needed basis, trying to keep the bottle tree half full (20 or more bottles).

The carbonated beer is at anywhere from 13 to 18 psi. To keep the CO₂ from outgassing, I maintain a higher pressure on it at all times until ready to cap. I use 20-25 psi depending on the carbonation level of the beer.

Added 2/1/00:
After having used it for over a year now, I can't think of anything that I would change. It works great, and bottling is not a chore for me anymore. Just last weekend I bottled 5 cases of brew from 4 different kegs, and was done in less than 2 hours, including setup and cleanup.

Added 8/11/04:
After experiencing some slight oxydation in some of my CP filled beers, I've decided to begin adding a single PrimeTab® (NAYYJASC) to each bottle just before capping. I believe that this will feed the yeast and enable them to better scavenge any oxygen in the bottle, while keeping sediment to a minimum. While I really like having sediment free beers, a little bit is a small price to pay for better quality beer.