FastRacks for Drying Empty Bottles

[FastRackCrew]

Hi Guys - what do you think of our new product called FastRack!

They are used for drying and racking empty bottles - we're taking over the Bottle Tree!!

http://www.thefastrack.ca/main/homebrewer

 

[Scott Ickes]

New?  I've been using them for a while now.

 

[Beer_Tigger]

Instead of advertising the product, how about someone write a review?

 

[Scott Ickes]

I love them! 

Once my bottles are sanitized, I put them in and they drain nicely, as I'm bottling.  Once I've bottled and capped, I then rinse the outside of my filled bottles under warm tap water to get any stickiness removed and stack them in the racks and let them drip dry.

I have two of them.  They don't take up as much space as a bottle tree.  I didn't like the idea of a bottle tree, because you had to sanitize it, since the stem goes up inside of the bottle.  Sanitizing a bottle tree didn't seem like it would be very easy.

With the racks, I just clean them and then dunk them down into a bucket of starsan water and their sanitized.  Simple design.  I don't have the tray that goes under it, but I don't need it.  I have a rolling cart that I put a towel on and put my racks on top of that.

 

[nuggetmania]

Used this product at last bottling session , made things easier for us . I had all bottles washed and sanitized and put in Fast Rack to air dry before my helper ( wife ) got home .
Good heavy duty racks and tray should last a long time and we have shown this to some folks that gave up brewing as they had a hard time with bottles ... think we may have cranked them back up to brew lol.
I just rack from second stage to the bottling bucket and set the Fast Rack in front of the wife and she is off and running ...er , bottling !

 

[Maine Homebrewer]

Kegs.

 

[nuggetmania]

LOL not at the "keg " stage yet , still a bottle baby taking small but enjoyable steps !

 

[jtoots]

You're a lucky man, nugget... my wife hates helping me bottle.  Thankfully the beergun is a pretty easy one man operation.  Ditto Maine, KEGS.

They look a bit unstable when stacking, nugget any comments on that?

 

[nuggetmania]

Not at all unstable , well with the two that I use , they are pretty heavy duty and lock together , easy to carry from one place to the next ! Just the tendency to be a little slippery when wet of course the Star san makes everything slippery until it dries .
Yupper she is a good gal , she shows interest in all my hobbies , but this one is her fault as she got me started .
We popped open a week in the bottle Summer Ale last night and my Red Ale is about gone . Going to pick up the pumpkin ale tonight and get it in the fermenter tomorrow . I will be moving away from the kits this fall as my Nugget hops are doing real well and we have bee hives so I want to try a small batch of something using those ingredients , but I digress ... Yes for someone just starting (like myself ) out the Fast Rack is a time and trouble saver and not all that expensive . 

 

[Maine Homebrewer]

My wife grudgingly helped me with bottling. She much prefers kegs.

 

[Scott Ickes]

Kegs.

I just picked up two used kegs at my LBHS to go with the chest freezer I got off of craiglist, so I'm on the road to kegging.  I'm going to do a Keezer Build thread as I progress through it.  I'm going to build a 5 tap coffin style keezer.  I have to do it in stages because of financial restraints, so the thread will be going for a while.

Now, what do I do with 1000 bottles?  I'll keep a decent supply of them for competitions, brew club meetings, etc.  I just don't think I need 1000 of them.  I'll probably donate them to the "new" brewers in our club.

 

[Maine Homebrewer]

Now, what do I do with 1000 bottles?

I put out an ad and within days someone picked them up. He asked for the capper too, but I kept it. Just in case.

 

[jtoots]

I've been trying to do a better job of bottling at least a few from each keg for variety and special occasions, so IMO keeping the capper is key.

 

[Scott Ickes]

I just kegged my first two batches.  I still bottled 6 of each.  I used corn sugar in the kegs, since they won't be tapped for a while.  It's a good thing I used the Beersmith carbonation tool.  I didn't realize that the amount of corn sugar for kegs was different than it is for bottles. 

Now I just need to get the keezer project going, so that I can get the kegs on tap.

 

[Roadrocket]

I often make a 23 litre batch and put 9 liters into a half size keg and the rest into bottles.