Bottling Beer
It's bottling day. The beer was actually ready for bottling last Wednesday, but I have been busy and today was the first chance to get it done. I started out by sanitizing the bottles I had already cleaned. This was actually the most time consuming task since I rinsed each one with sanitizer and brushed them out.
After that, I moved my fermenting bucket to the kitchen countertop. I placed my bottling bucket on the floor and started the siphon to transfer the beer. At this time, I had also added my priming sugar. During this process, you siphon everything out, but leave the bottom inch or so with all the sediment that has settled. This gives you all the clear beer off the top. Here I am watching the siphon about half way through. Boy does it smell good.
From this angle, you can look down and see the fermenting bucket draining into the bottling bucket. There is a ring around the top from the fermenting process.
Here is the bottling bucket after the transfer is done. I managed to get about 4.5 gallons. I probably could have got a little more, but didn't want to risk sucking up some of the crud from the fermenter. I'd rather waste a little beer than get too much sediment in all of the bottles.
Here is the sediment (crud) that was left over that I've been referring to. It mostly consists of the yeast, but also has some other hops and barley particles that got into the first transfer after the boil.
And the bottle filling begins. I had my empty bottles behind the bucket by the sink. I would fill a bottle and put them on the counter in the left of the picture. You can see I've already completed a few of them. Marcia helped me as I filled the bottles, she would place a cap on the top.
After I got all the bottles filled, I began capping them. I do this with a hand tool that puts a crimp on.
Here's the first fully complete bottle. It's capped and ready for 2 more weeks of rest before drinking time.
I managed to fill 42 bottles. That's 7 six packs of beer. During the process, I poured some into a glass for sampling. At this point, the beer is still flat, but you can get an idea whether the batch is going to be good or not. Great news, it tasted pretty darn good. It should get even better with two more weeks of aging in the bottles.
After that, I moved my fermenting bucket to the kitchen countertop. I placed my bottling bucket on the floor and started the siphon to transfer the beer. At this time, I had also added my priming sugar. During this process, you siphon everything out, but leave the bottom inch or so with all the sediment that has settled. This gives you all the clear beer off the top. Here I am watching the siphon about half way through. Boy does it smell good.
From this angle, you can look down and see the fermenting bucket draining into the bottling bucket. There is a ring around the top from the fermenting process.
Here is the bottling bucket after the transfer is done. I managed to get about 4.5 gallons. I probably could have got a little more, but didn't want to risk sucking up some of the crud from the fermenter. I'd rather waste a little beer than get too much sediment in all of the bottles.
Here is the sediment (crud) that was left over that I've been referring to. It mostly consists of the yeast, but also has some other hops and barley particles that got into the first transfer after the boil.
And the bottle filling begins. I had my empty bottles behind the bucket by the sink. I would fill a bottle and put them on the counter in the left of the picture. You can see I've already completed a few of them. Marcia helped me as I filled the bottles, she would place a cap on the top.
After I got all the bottles filled, I began capping them. I do this with a hand tool that puts a crimp on.
Here's the first fully complete bottle. It's capped and ready for 2 more weeks of rest before drinking time.
I managed to fill 42 bottles. That's 7 six packs of beer. During the process, I poured some into a glass for sampling. At this point, the beer is still flat, but you can get an idea whether the batch is going to be good or not. Great news, it tasted pretty darn good. It should get even better with two more weeks of aging in the bottles.
posted by Virgil | 7/22/2007
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