Bottling!

I got to bottle my pale ale last night! Bottling is very exciting, because it is just one step closer to drink your brew! Unfortunately now I am very anxious yet I cannot touch my bottled beer for a few weeks, while it is conditioning.

I made this process easier by following my pre bottling checklist (look at previous blog), but just to be safe I sanitized the bottles again. My brew was in a carboy, bottling out of that can be tricky at first but it is actually very very easy, all you really need is a siphoning tube, with the pressure in the carboy and gravity both being used to my advantage; the process took roughly 30 minutes. My girlfriend helped me cap, which also helped my time. (I am going to make a video soon, because it is the easiest way to show peeps how to bottle)

I had a little problem: 5 gallons of beer and only 30 beer bottles. After bottling as you can imagine, I had some beer left over. It is not easy to dump beer, that I spent a great deal of time making. My fix was to use a 2 liter coke bottle, after some research although not recommended it does the job.... And I am using it as my guide for how carbonation is going. I will let you know how it worked out in a couple of weeks.

Before I forget, you need to mix a teaspoon of corn sugar in about a court of water, boil it while mixing and let it sit to cool down. Add this to your wort and mix well to blend it in. This will be the yeast food while carbonating, therefore it is a very important step!!!

Keep in mind that when it comes to bottling, bottles have to be designed to hold pressure build up. Beer bottles work best, and they are free because you can just take your friends empty bottles, clean them and cap them (caps are cheap). Stay away from mason jars, they vacuum seal but will not handle the pressure produced by the process of natural carbonation. Also stay away from hard alcohol bottles, such as; sky, jack etc... Unless you want a messy little explosion that will waist a LOT of your beer!

CHEERS!