By Soon after most brewers begin kegging, they find the need to fill a few bottles for competition or to give away. If all they are filling is a couple of bottles, then there is no better way than the Poor Man’s Counter Pressure Filler. It can be fabricated for less than $10, and works like a champ once you get the hang of it.
If you are filling a six pack or more, then you start to yearn for a better solution to bottle filling from a keg. I looked at the currently available models on the market, and most were either too costly, or forced me to move a keg in order to use the filler. I found this unacceptable, so I decided to build my own. What set’s my design apart from the rest is that I can hook it up to any keg without moving the keg in just a couple of seconds, and I can fill any size bottle from a small squatty 7 oz, to a Champagne bottle. Also I can switch the stopper and fill growlers, or other bottles.
Here is a picture of my filler.
I originally planned to sell the filler to homebrew shops and let them sell them to the public. With the homebrew shop markup being as much as 100%, most people would look for a cheaper filler.
Then I decided to make custom built fillers to match each individual system for those interested, but most people still opted for a less expensive filler. For the time being I have decided to stop making custom fillers.
If you are in the market for a Counter Pressure Bottle Filler and would like to find out what I think about a particular filler, or what I would suggest, please drop me a line and I will be glad to help you in any way I can. There are at least two decent fillers currently on the market.
Mike Dixon