Filling Bottles & Growlers from a Keg

Bottle filling devices
These are the two devices I use for filling bottles and growlers with carbonated beer from a keg. These are taken straight from Ken Schwartz's design for a Poor Man's Counterpressure Bottle Filler. The bottle cap is just there for scale. The one with the smaller stopper is for filling 12oz bottles and the larger one used for filling 2L swing top growlers. The design is the same in both cases.
To assemble one of these, carefully drill a hole in the top of the stopper from the midpoint beween the edge of the hole and the edge of the stopper to a similar spot on the bottom of the stopper. Be carefil not to let your drill run to the edge of the hole or the stopper. Ken says to use a hot needle, but I found that did not work very well for me and a very small drill bit did.

Now do some shoving. Shove the basketball needle through the hole, leaving just the tip showing on the bottom of the stopper. Make sure any rubber residue gets cleaned out of the needle holes. Shove the tire valve on the top of the basketball needle. Shove the tubing in the top of the stopper. Shove the copper in the tubing from the bottom of the stopper. You are done assembling!

Growler Filling
The same basic procedures used for filling 12oz bottles can be used for filling these 2L swing-top growlers, with one adjustment. You see, the pressure in bottle or growler (about 10psi) is pushing up on the stopper trying to make it fly out of the bottle. Since the 12oz bottles have about 1/2 square inch of area, it only takes about 5lbs of finger pressure to hold it in. The growler stopper, on the other hand, might be 3 square inches, so it pushes up with 39lbs! That's too much for my thumb and forefinger, so I had Kent Manufacturing make me up a "Growler Strap." The strap goes vertically around the bottle and holds the stopper in. Other than that little detail, filling one of the growlers is just like filling the little bottles.

Bottle Filling
Hold the tire chuck on the tire valve to pressurize the bottle. The tire chuck should be attached to the same pressure as the keg so their pressures will be the same.

Vent the bottle by lifting the stopper slightly. Do this pressure/vent cycle 2x, then on the third one, hold the pressure in the bottle.

Grab the faucet once the bottle pressure matches the keg pressure.

Open the valve and see that (almost) no beer flows. That's because the pressures match between the keg and the bottle, so there is no differential to push the beer one way or the other.

Slowly release the pressure in the bottle allowing beer to gently flow from the keg to the bottle. I take about 30sec to fill each bottle and have almost no foaming at that rate, even with warm bottles.

When the bottle is nearly full, close the valve.

Before removing the stopper, release whatever pressure remains in the bottle. If you just lift off the stopper with a WHOOMP, it will make the beer foam.

Quickly cap the bottle, and that's it! No more waiting 3 weeks for bottle carbonation. This bottle is ready to go right away.

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Last updated January 3, 2007

Bottle filling devices These are the two devices I use for filling bottles and growlers with carbonated beer from a keg. These are taken straight from Ken Schwartz's design for a Poor Man's Counterpressure Bottle Filler. The bottle cap is just there for scale. The one with the smaller stopper is for filling 12oz bottles and the larger one used for filling 2L swing top growlers. The design is the same in both cases. To assemble one of these, carefully drill a hole in the top of the stopper from the midpoint beween the edge of the hole and the edge of the stopper to a similar spot on the bottom of the stopper. Be carefil not to let your drill run to the edge of the hole or the stopper. Ken says to use a hot needle, but I found that did not work very well for me and a very small drill bit did. Now do some shoving. Shove the basketball needle through the hole, leaving just the tip showing on the bottom of the stopper. Make sure any rubber residue gets cleaned out of the needle holes. Shove the tire valve on the top of the basketball needle. Shove the tubing in the top of the stopper. Shove the copper in the tubing from the bottom of the stopper. You are done assembling!
Growler Filling The same basic procedures used for filling 12oz bottles can be used for filling these 2L swing-top growlers, with one adjustment. You see, the pressure in bottle or growler (about 10psi) is pushing up on the stopper trying to make it fly out of the bottle. Since the 12oz bottles have about 1/2 square inch of area, it only takes about 5lbs of finger pressure to hold it in. The growler stopper, on the other hand, might be 3 square inches, so it pushes up with 39lbs! That's too much for my thumb and forefinger, so I had Kent Manufacturing make me up a "Growler Strap." The strap goes vertically around the bottle and holds the stopper in. Other than that little detail, filling one of the growlers is just like filling the little bottles.
Bottle Filling Hold the tire chuck on the tire valve to pressurize the bottle. The tire chuck should be attached to the same pressure as the keg so their pressures will be the same.
Vent the bottle by lifting the stopper slightly. Do this pressure/vent cycle 2x, then on the third one, hold the pressure in the bottle.
Grab the faucet once the bottle pressure matches the keg pressure.
Open the valve and see that (almost) no beer flows. That's because the pressures match between the keg and the bottle, so there is no differential to push the beer one way or the other.
Slowly release the pressure in the bottle allowing beer to gently flow from the keg to the bottle. I take about 30sec to fill each bottle and have almost no foaming at that rate, even with warm bottles.
When the bottle is nearly full, close the valve.
Before removing the stopper, release whatever pressure remains in the bottle. If you just lift off the stopper with a WHOOMP, it will make the beer foam.
Quickly cap the bottle, and that's it! No more waiting 3 weeks for bottle carbonation. This bottle is ready to go right away.