Fill Your Own Bottle Equipment

[EchoJoe]

We're spinning up a fill-your-own bottle experience in our taproom. For now, we'll likely just use a barrel thief to extract from the barrel - and I'd like to pull this right from the barrel if possible. Some bigger distilleries have fancier equipment, but I'm having a hard time even finding a spigot or faucet that I trust. I'm thinking I would need a tapered thread on the opposite side to bite into the wood of the barrel and prevent leaks.

We tried drilling a whole for a beer tap as a proof of concept, and just didn't trust that the threading would hold and not leak.

Any ideas? What am I even trying to look for? Searching isn't getting me very far.

[FIVE x 5 Consulting]

Hard problem! 
St. Augustine down in FL has one solution, pretty clever. Looks like a pretty standard beer tap (not even a Perlick). It's not actually coming from a barrel, but it looks like it is...

 

If you want help with the regulatory compliance side of this plan, drop me a line. I've helped a few distilleries execute "fill your own" experiences (there are some major gotchas you may not have considered).

[Kindred Spirits]

All the "Old Timey" barrel taps were smooth bore, but most are threaded now.

https://barrelsunlimited.com/product/4-inch-brass-spigot/

With a threaded setup you have to make sure the gaps in the valleys of the threads are filled.

The old style you just can't be shy about hitting in and they work great. Main thing for both is making sure the hole is the proper size and not ovaled out at all. Might be worth it to grab some forstner bits to make sure of that.

[EchoJoe]

6 hours ago, Kindred Spirits said:

With a threaded setup you have to make sure the gaps in the valleys of the threads are filled.

That's my primary concern. We're worried about leaking somewhat, though hopefully a little barrel wax can help with that. The big concern is that it fails entirely, the spigot pops out overnight or when no one is watching, and we lose the whole thing.

[Kindred Spirits]

8 minutes ago, EchoJoe said:

That's my primary concern. We're worried about leaking somewhat, though hopefully a little barrel wax can help with that. The big concern is that it fails entirely, the spigot pops out overnight or when no one is watching, and we lose the whole thing.

Worst case you could stand them up at night if you are that concerned, or dump the barrels into totes that they could fill from.

[JNorris]

All DSP operations must happen on bonded premises, that includes bottling; so doing this in your taproom is the first issue I notice.  

I have spoken to the TTB about this a few times.  Make sure you know the regulations and how to do this compliantly before you institute a program like this. 

[Cru Bottling Systems]

Hi EchoJoe,

We are introducing a small, single unit mechanism for customers to fill their own bottle as part of their tasting room experience. It will automatically fill a per-determined amount (in our case 750ml) and has a built in mechanical stop to prevent overfilling, spillage, etc...

We will have the unit at the CBX/CBE Tasting Room Expo in Reno on May 7th and 8th, and we will have it at the ADI show in Baltimore this August.

Reach out to me (DM, email (steve@crusystems.com) and I can get you more info.

Thanks !

-Steve

[EchoJoe]

On 4/3/2024 at 3:58 PM, JNorris said:

All DSP operations must happen on bonded premises, that includes bottling; so doing this in your taproom is the first issue I notice.  

I have spoken to the TTB about this a few times.  Make sure you know the regulations and how to do this compliantly before you institute a program like this. 

Yep absolutely. By "in my taproom" I mean at my location. It's in bonded premises.

[EchoJoe]

FYI for anyone searching for this later, I did find a vendor with a product we're going with. Once we have it installed and in use for a while, I'll try to remember to report back on my experience.

https://www.singleshotbarrelworks.com/

[EchoJoe]

Following up here- have loved this so far. It's definitely pricier than some other options you might be able to come up with yourself, but the visual is fantastic. It makes it so much cooler than just filling a bottle from a tap. Everything has held together really nicely, and the owners are great to troubleshoot with, especially when we were figuring out how best to set this up to make it work best for us. I'd buy this again.