Homebrew Blog

I just got done bottling yet another batch of beer. This is my second batch in two weeks. Luckily I will have a lull in my brewing and bottling after my orange beer gets bottled in a couple weeks. It is also only 2.5 gallons of beer instead of 5. I would really like to keg but I think I have finally gotten my bottling day process down to where it takes as little time as possible.

Today I sanitized in my dishwasher for the first time. I ran 50 bottles on the sanitize cycle with heated dry. I used no soap and I have vinegar in my jet dry dispenser. I also have been bottling right at the bucket with my bottling wand attached to the spigot with just a couple inches of tubing. I really like this because it less moving of the bottles. I just put all the bottles in the dishwasher, and once the cycles done I put them on the counter where I fill, cap, clean, label, and box the batch. I used to sanitize at the table and move them to the floor and fill with a wand on a six foot hose. I would fill and cap on the floor then move the batch to the table to label and box up.

Here is a new product I saw at my Homebrew shop. They are called Brew Balls.

Its basically balls with different density rates and they fall into the brew as the alcohol goes up. It would eliminate the need for taking constant hydro readings and wasting beer. I would think you would still want to do OG and FG readings. By the way these were 25 bucks at my LHBS. A little steep for me. It's a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.