Wow I haven't posted in a while. But I bought one. There are a few issues with it.
The assembly seems flimsy:
The whole frame assembly is made from plastic. I'm sure it's done this way for food prep reasons, but the entire time I use it I feel like it's going to snap in half, lest I move my hand too quickly.
Requires more source material than what you actually want to bottle:
You have to make more sauce than you think you need. If you have enough of your small batch to make 6 bottles, with this you'll end up only barely filling 5 of them. The rest seems to get lost in the device itself as the source runs out, there is nothing to keep feeding the line and thus, the sauce left inside goes wasted. I often have to unfasten the device from the counter (with c-clamps mind you) and hold it vertical to get the entire batch to flow through at the end. Sort of counter-intuitive once your source volume is consumed through the intake tube.
Anti-Dribble system still drools:
The anti-dribble system works... 75% of the time. If you have a hot vinegary sauce it still dribbles as you pull the arm back to draw more into the cylinder. It still requires something underneath to catch the drips, otherwise it ends up on the floor and you can slip and fall.
Nit Picky, but needed to be pointed out:
The foam used on the handle is the type of foam you often find on inexpensive garden tools you get at the local hardware store for $1... works and feels great for the first 6 months but then begins to harden up and shrink a bit. I can see this being crusty and falling apart 2 years down the road, leaving little black bits everywhere.
Accuracy is not always perfect:
When I first purchased one I was curious how the accuracy was, and if it was as good as it claimed to be. I put a large pot of hot water on the stove and cycled the water through the system (kind of like a forced siphon) so there was no air in the line. I adjusted the stopper with the provided hex key at exactly 5 oz of liquid. I took a series of 5oz woozy bottles and then proceeded to fill 24 of them with hot water using only the draw-press method you see in the video. Every bottle had various levels of water in it. Some bottles had less because somewhere in the system a bubble got through. I'd say it was close to even, certainly more accurate than if I did it by hand in a massive baster or injector, scalding myself in the process. But when I switched the water over to my Cinder sauce, the level was almost completely off. Perhaps this is the viscosity of the sauce, or something I didn't forsee... but the 5oz of water when translated into the sauce was about 1/2" below the normal fill line in each bottle, just about where the neck of the bottle starts to round into the the body. After filling each to the normal amount by simply pressing more into the bottle... I left the entire setup and put the water back in. The water was close to 5oz but the sauce looked like it was more like 4.25oz. That may be my error but I thought the cylinder concept worked on volume: 5oz in, 5oz out?
Makes quick work of larger batches:
Yes, an actual positive here. If you have to bottle 250 woozy bottles of hot sauce, it would take quite a bit doing it by hand with a baster and your sauce would probably change consistency as you approach the end of the batch. If you get on a roll and have good assistants, you'll make quick work of it, provided you aren't going for 100% dead on-accuracy of the fill each time. If it's ok with you that one gets 4.9 and another 5.1oz, then this will probably let you wrap up the filling process faster than you expect.
Breaks down to clean easy:
I don't mean break down as in broken, I mean break down as in taking apart to clean. I bought the FDA seals lit and it all comes apart easy to clean. The only thing that stays behind is the sauce color (I use tomato in my sauce and the plastics are now effectively tinted orange).
My conclusion:
For the price it was a so-so investment. I certainly love the fact that I'm not scalding myself handling the hot liquids in a giant 5oz turkey baster, having to fumble with funnels and account for steam and other hazards while filling hot glass bottles. It makes quick work of large batches by hand if you have 2 others helping you... this is not a 1 man system by any means. You'll still need someone to agitate the sauce and keep the line at the bottom of the pot, one to operate the lever and another to hand and cap the bottles for you. Trying to do this all yourself will make getting frustrated quick work. I salute the concept and the effort into it's design... I Really do. And for nearly $400 it's great when processing large batches. But this isn't the end-all tool for small batches. I'll continue to use this for bottling my samples with the assistance of my father to hold the pot and stir it while I curse about how tedious it is to fill 1.7oz woozy bottles with tiny necks.
Would I buy it again? Yes, if I had the money to spare, and I was filling orders of 50+. It's great to have, and I can see myself using this when I make boxes of 100 or 200 1.7 samples again.
Hope it helps out.
