4 Head Bottle Fillers - I need you opinion...

[crushday]

WMT Community! I'm considering buying a new bottle filter - a four head single unit (two to choose from) or buying four single fillers. Looking for opinions and experience.

It might be helpful to know WHY I'm considering such a purchase. Last year in 2020, I bottled over 2000 bottles doing approximately 150-225 each time. It basically takes me a full day to prep and fill and another 1/2 day the next day to clean everything and get it filled again (barrels, carboys, etc...). I'm using a bottling system (vacuum) now that takes 100% of my attention while filling. It works great but the number of bottles to fill is such that it's too time consuming and inefficient.

I'm having a bottling party (myself and 4 others) on Saturday, May 1st and I'm going to bottle about 750 bottles. Moving forward, I'll be bottling less often but about the same number as in past years.

Here are the units I'm considering. Let me know if you have a suggestion, please.

Tivoli Bottle Filler with Electric Float (Approx. $2700 outfitted with the pump)
(I would buy the additional pump to fill the reservoir)



Enolmaster 4-Head Vacuum Bottle Filler (Approx. $2900)



Enolmatic Vacuum Bottle Filler (get four) ($365 x 4)

 

[RickD]

This is so over my head. Paul Simon would call it lasers in the jungle. Imho and fwiw, the Enolmatic seems to me to offer more flexibility in workstation design and help keep your bottling crew out of each others way. Plus there may be days when you only need one or two heads maybe? They need to put a corking turret on those beasts.

 

[CDrew]

The Enolmatic is pretty satisfactory. If you have 1 floor corker, than the person running the corker can likely keep up with the output of 2 Enolmatics, assuming there is a person assigned to each. I've bottled 250 bottles in a day by myself with the enolmatic. With help, I could have doubled that.

And I don't use the siphon straw thing they supply with it. I feed it directly via a valve and hose barb from an Intellitank.

The other machines are beautiful but likely overkill.

I agree that there are many times that you'll be doing a small run of 5-15 gallons and for that the Enolmatic is ideal and quick. And much easier to clean than the other machines.

 

[crushday]

The Enolmatic is pretty satisfactory. If you have 1 floor corker, than the person running the corker can likely keep up with the output of 2 Enolmatics, assuming there is a person assigned to each. I've bottled 250 bottles in a day by myself with the enolmatic. With help, I could have doubled that.

And I don't use the siphon straw thing they supply with it. I feed it directly via a valve and hose barb from an Intellitank.

The other machines are beautiful but likely overkill.

I agree that there are many times that you'll be doing a small run of 5-15 gallons and for that the Enolmatic is ideal and quick. And much easier to clean than the other machines.

Drew, thanks for the input - it's persuasive. I'll keep you posted...

 

[Mcjeff]

I thought I remembered seeing one for sale on Marketplace so I looked it up for you. Go big or go home?
Also found a used on on eBay. Maybe closer to your scale:

And last but not least. In the book The Homebuilt Winery by Steve Hughes there are instructions to make one.

 

[stickman]

Yea, it's difficult to say what's best. I don't have any experience with these units, so not much help, but if you're spending the money, that Tivoli sure does look nice, as @CDrew indicated maybe a little overkill but still nice, you only need one person to work that machine.

 

[NorCal]

Hey @crushday, I don't have any experience with the first two. I've heard hit/miss feedback on the Enolmatic. I've had hit/miss success on that eBay 4 bottle filler. The biggest problem was consistent fill height and not having to add/remove wine after filling and before corking. I'm sure most of the success/ problems is due to the set up.

My pre-covid bottling line has 5 stations: bottle cleaning, filling, corking, labeling, capsules and an extra person to move boxes. Each station is capable of doing their step in 30 seconds; 2 bottles per minute. But, we typically will complete 3 bottles in 2 minutes. The line will run as fast as the slowest operation (bottle neck).

My point is, if you only have 5 people and could fill the bottle every 15 seconds versus 30 seconds, all the other stations would need to be able to keep pace as well. So while you may be able to put wine in the bottle fast, you would also need to address the capacity of all the other stations as well, as well as double the number of helpers.

 

[crushday]

Hey @crushday,
If you only have 5 people and could fill the bottle every 15 seconds versus 30 seconds, all the other stations would need to be able to keep pace as well. So while you may be able to put wine in the bottle fast, you would also need to address the capacity of all the other stations as well, as well as double the number of helpers.

Norcal, extremely helpful analysis. I hadn't put it all together like you suggest. You and @CDrew have me revisiting the drawing board. No sense in wasting hard earned resources through the exercise of ignorance. I'll report back...

 

[Raptor99]

@NorCal I like those wooden wine bottle holders in the photo. I've been looking for something like that to hold the bottles upright while racking. Did you buy those or make them yourself?

 

[NorCal]

Back when I put a bunch of effort into making my own auto-fill bottler (failed), I designed an vacuum fill mechanism in my head. I found that someone made the design I was thinking of, which was made out of welded stainless steel $80. (I’ll take a pic next time I’m in the garage). I tried finding it for someone years later and couldn't, but it could be out there.

I can do hundreds of bottles in a row and not had to manually change the fill. If there was sufficient help before and after the fill station, it could fill 100 bottles an hour.

 

[NorCal]

@NorCal I like those wooden wine bottle holders in the photo. I've been looking for something like that to hold the bottles upright while racking. Did you buy those or make them yourself?

I made them.

I saw the need after someone bumped a table with a bunch of bottles standing loosely and what a mess that would create if they fell over. Here is a better picture. Woodworking isn't my deal, so they are not pretty, but they are functional.

 

[Raptor99]

They look great! I may copy your design when I get a chance to try this.

 

[NorCal]

Crushday, if I was planning on doing 750 bottles in a day. This would be my thinking.

- have all the wine racked/SO2'ed prior to bottling day
- Make filling the bottle the bottleneck @ a conservative 40 seconds.
- 750 * 40 seconds = 8.5 hours of actual bottling time, which will be a long day with breaks and lunch.
- I would break it up into 3 or 4 sessions, 15 - 25 cases at a time.
- I would try to have at least 7 people total, but if only 5, I would sanitize all the bottles ahead of time

Set up a straight line production line where you progressively hand off the bottles to the next station to avoid double handling the bottles.

bottle cleaning ---> filling ---> corking ---> labeling ---> capsules

I haven't had anyone (that wasn't talking or drinking too much) not be able to keep up with the 40 second bottling station. Putting wine in the bottle seems to be the achilles heal of a big home winemaker bottling day. It would be important to have a solid solution for that, so there isn't a lot of wasted time and having to manually top up / remove wine from bottles.

 

[stickman]

Here is another discussion on this topic.

https://www.winemakingtalk.com/threads/high-capacity-bottling-900-bottles.70171