I think most home brewers cannot stand bottling; the process takes a long time, makes a mess, requires various and sundry pipes, hoses, clamps, crimpers, caps, and more, and when you are done all you have is two more weeks to wait for the beer to do its thing and at last....maybe you can drink it. I've been kegging for years, it works well, its simple, its easy, and if done right you can be drinking new beer in a few hours. however when I make beer for other people I bottle because it makes more sense.
I recently bottled a batch for some one, a much delayed father's day brew that I just got into the bottles last night. the process was pretty much as I've always recalled, long, messy, and slightly frustrating (I bought the wrong sized tubing). There was however one change that made the overall process much better. Easily the most annoying part of bottling is dealing with the bottles, getting them clean more specifically. when I was saving bottles I would remove the labels, and rinse them before setting them aside, this streamlined things a little, but last night I added a new piece of equipment that made the final cleaning and sanitizing of everything much better; the dishwasher.
In the past this processes included a bottle brush, a sprayer, an iodine solution, and an awkward top heavy thing made of water and glass and a sharp dangerous mess waiting to happen. this time I put the bottles in the washer, set it to sanitize, added iodine, threw everything else on the top rack, and watched a movie, technology is great.
-ITBrewer
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