Beer Gun or Counter Pressure Filler??

[BrewBlender]

Which one is better?

[Bugeater]

For simplicity and ease of use, go with the beer gun. I have one and love it. It is more costly than the counterpressure filler, expecially if you build the CPF yourself.

Wayne
Bugeater Brewing Company

[dannypo]

I have never used a CPF but I just used my new beergun yesterday and it couldnt have been easier. I love this thing, its simple, fast and effective.

It is a little on the pricey side but well worth it in my book.

[rich]

Save your money. Go ghetto and build this for $6. It's a cheapo that's from an old Zymurgy artical, with a Ken Schwartz improvement, and a few tweeks of my own.

It uses:
-a piece of 3/8 od 1/4id copper
-rubber stopper
-football inflating needle
-tire valve on a short piece of tubing
-picnic faucet.

Works great.

[linuxelf]

Hey, that's pretty slick. I've already got a picnic tap on my keg, can I just plug the copper tube directly into that and not even have to disconnect my beer line to switch from tap to counterpressure filler?

[rich]

I've already got a picnic tap on my keg, can I just plug the copper tube directly into that and not even have to disconnect my beer line to switch from tap to counterpressure filler?

Yes, the copper tubing fits nice and snug into th picnic faucet. The only down side to this poor boy filler is there's no way (in the current model) inject co2 only for purging. I use an empty keg for that.

After purging just plug this baby up. Extend the pinic faucet handle backward to lock in open position and the beer will flow until pressure equalizes (an once or two), then depress the tire plug valve to fill. I fill at 4psi.

[DannyW]

If you rig up a tire chuck to plugin to your CO2 system, you can purge via the tire valve and basketball needle.

I also found that using narrower copper tubing helps with headspace management. The larger the tube that goes in the bottle, the larger the headspace.

There are some pictures on this mangled webpage that show the tire chuck, but not the brass pneumatic QD that connects it to the CO2 bottle

[rich]

If you rig up a tire chuck to plugin to your CO2 system, you can purge via the tire valve and basketball needle.

Groovy, thanks for the tip.