Bottling

It’s been about two weeks and my latest brew is ready to journey from the carboy to the bottles. This particular brew is supposed to be an IPA but…seeing as I’m not much of an IPA person, I might have sweetened it out with a little too much honey. This is my first beer I wasn’t sure about.

One issue I ran into was during the initial fermentation. The first burst of activity blew what hops I couldn’t filter out up into the throat of the carboy and into my blow off tube. This created a small issue when I changed out my blow off tube for the airlock. There was a crust that formed in the carboy throat and it was blocking everything. I ended up having to clear the block before I could put the airlock on.

Very carefully I used a sterilized spoon to clear it, while trying very hard to keep it from falling into the beer. I did pretty well, thankfully. After that it was all a waiting game.

After two weeks it was time to bottle. This is the first time I had a cloudy beer, I mean really cloudy. There was a lot of sediment at the bottom of the carboy and the beer itself was not as clear as I had hoped. Not a big deal but, like I said, I wasn’t too sure about this brew.

Bottling went well with my usual setup. I used honey as my charging sugar for bottling. This time I used smaller grolsch bottles than I normally do. I did this with the intention to give some of this brew away and not loose my cobalt blue 16oz bottles.

There were no issues during bottling besides the fact that my auto siphon broke last time I bottled and I need to get a replacement. It still works but the curved neck broke off and the interior tube gets easily stuck in the outer tube…oh well, that’s a good excuse to go to the homebrew supply store.

I ended up with six 12oz and two 16oz bottles of beer. Keeping my fingers crossed on this one turning out.

What’s brewing

Been a little busy around here so sorry about the lack of updates. Here’s the latest…I’ve recently bottled my latest batch of brew. This one is a Chocolate Maple Porter; another Brooklyn Brew Shop kit. The bottles have aged more than the two weeks they recommend and are now cold in the fridge. I sampled my 3/4 bottle and it wasn’t bad…a little on the bitter chocolate side, but not bad. 
My wonderful wife has delivered a coffee and doughnut stout kit to me for my birthday…now all I need is more bottles. The recipe calls for coffee and coconut flakes…I really need to think about this one and see if I can modify it a little.
I’ve designed a logo for my homebrew and it's been sitting around since I started back in October now just have to find the time to color it in. I’ve posted a photo of it here. What do you think? If anyone knows how to do coloring in Adobe Illustrator CS5 please let me know.

Bottling your first brew

You’ve patiently (or not) waited the two weeks for the fermentation to finish. If you are like me you probably took a peak each day to watch the yeast bubbling away. Now the time has finally come to bottle your brew.

Since I only brew a gallon at a time I only have to fill 6-10 bottles at a time. The bottles I use are 16 oz grolsch bottles in cobalt blue. I get 6 and 3/4 bottles of beer off of a one gallon brew.

The first step is washing and sanitizing the bottles. I wash the bottles inside and out using a bottle brush then I throw them in the dishwasher for a full cycle to make sure they are really clean. After they dry I soak the bottles in a sanitizing solution and place them back in their case, upside-down wrapped in paper towels. I really should get a bottle tree since it would make this step a lot easier.

To prime the bottles I use some maple syrup mixed with some water to thin it out. This is according to the instructions on the kit recipe.
I then siphon off the beer from the carboy into the pot with the primer. I’ve been pretty successful with my auto siphon for this step.

The hard part for me is trying to not get a lot of sediment out of the carboy. I have been really careful about not letting the siphon hose touch the bottom and I usually leave a little too much brew at the bottom but I’d rather be safe than sorry.

I next set up my bottling line in the kitchen with the primed pot on the stove at an angle and my empty bottles on a tv tray next to the stove. This puts the bottles at a lower level than the pot on the stove.

The first time I bottled I only had my auto siphon and my hose with a clamp. I got the hang of filling the bottles before I started by practicing with water and a bottle I wasn’t going to use. I figured out the hose clamp was harder to close than I thought.

Six and 3/4 bottles filled in about 20 minutes and they went back in the closet for another two weeks. Waiting is still the hardest part.