Bottling Day

So, I come back to you after completing another exciting step in the brewing process, bottling. This is one of the steps that I have been most excited about, because it is one step closer for me to be able to finally DRINK MY BEER. My beer was on a two week fermentation schedule so it was awesome to see it finally get to this step. My beer had stopped showing signs of fermentation about three or four days before I had hoped to bottle, so I was pretty sure It was time.  I had been taking any free time that I had while my beer was fermenting to clean and take labels off of all the bottles. I had been saving longnecks (must be pop off) bottles before Christmas, so I had more than enough bottles ready to go for the whole process. I tried many techniques to take the labels off but decided the best way was to boil some water and place the bottles in the water. This along with some light scraping and rubbing got the labels off with ease.  I purchased some bottle caps, dextrose priming sugar, bottle scrubber and a racking cane from Beer Crazy In Urbandale IA.  http://www.gobeercrazy.com/  They have a large selection of brewing supplies along with a nice selection of craft beers. On the morning of bottling I used BBrite cleaning solution along with my bottle brush to clean the fifty-six 12oz bottles that I had ready to go along with two 24oz bottles. I then sanitized all of the bottles and let them air dry. 

 After sanitizing all my equipment, it was time to transfer from my fermenting bucket to bottling bucket, but first I had to mix my priming sugar. Priming sugar is used for carbonation in craft beers. I started a pot of water on the stove to boil, after it had started to boil, I mixed in the priming sugar covered it and let it cool in the fridge.  I used priming sugar that was pre measured for five gallon batches which made it nice.  After my priming sugar had cooled I poured it into my bottling bucket.  I filled my racking cane (siphoning unit) with sanitizer and siphoned some into a bowl. I then used the clip on my siphoning hose to stop the flow, I placed the racking cane into the fermenter and siphoned the rest of the sanitizer into a bowl and then began letting my beer flow into my brew pot, which I was using as a bottling bucket.  After the beer had mixed well with the priming solution and I let the little bit of sediment that had gotten through settle, I began to bottle.  With my racking cane, came a bottle filler that is spring loaded to allow for easy bottling. I manned the bottle filler and my good friend Keith McCarthy manned the capper. The bottle filler allows you to fill the bottles to the brim and then when you take the wand out there is perfect room for carbonation. Keith used bottle caps that we sanitized before hand, to cap the bottles. We ended up with forty-three 12oz bottles and the two 24oz bottles.  It will take about a week for the bottles to condition, then they will be properly carbonated.  I did taste the un-carbonated beer and was disappointed that there was a slight sour taste, which could mean wild yeast. But we will find out how everything taste after conditioning. Sorry for the lack of pictures didn't have my camera with me at the time.