I have had a busy day off as usual. Today I bottled my Scottish 60 that had been fermenting for two and half weeks. I also am in the middle of brewing my Breakfast Stout. On top of that I had my usual duties of watching the kids.
I have decided to outline my bottling process with words and pictures.
The first thing I do is to gather all the bottles, bottling bucket, bottle tree, sanitizer and other equipment I will need to bottle a batch of brew.
Once everything is out and set up I measure my priming agent, which in this case was 52 grams of dextrose. I add this to a microwave safe measuring cup with 1 cup of water. Then I cover with plastic wrap and microwave for probably about 4 minutes. I like it to boil for at least a minute. Then I take that out and put it in the freezer, still covered with plastic wrap. While this cools I start sanitizing bottles. This batch is five gallons so I did about 52 bottles to be on the safe side. I use a bottle tree with a vinator on top filled with star san. This to me is the fastest way to sanitize. I just give each bottle three pumps on vinator with shoots the sanitizer into the bottle, then I let it drain on the tree. It takes about 5 minutes to do this amount of bottles.
After I have sanitized I then take the sugar water out of the freezer and prepare to transfer the beer into a bottling bucket. I put the primary fermenter on the counter and the bottling bucket on the floor. I use an auto-siphon to transfer the liquid. Once I start the flow I added the priming sugar to the bottling bucket just as the transfer starts. I put the hose in the bottling bucket so the liquid forms sort of a whirlpool as it transfers this mixes the sugar in evenly while not aerating the beer. Oxygen is your enemy at this point, it will stale the beer faster giving it a sort of wet cardboard flavor. So the less sloshing and splashing at this point the better.
My next step at this point is to pour a beer and give the beer a few minutes to settle down. Today I went with a Schwarzbier that is just done with its two week carbing phase. This will get much better with a few more weeks in the bottle.
After I pour the beer I move the bottling bucket on top of the fermenter on the counter. To bottle I had a short length of hose to the spigot and then put the bottling wand right on that. I find this not only keeps things off the floor where little hand like to mess with them, I actually do less work this way. I only have to transfer the bottles once from the tree to the counter and I fill and cap there. I used to add a six foot length of hose and bottle on the floor. This was uncomfortable and not very efficient for me. I stand right at the counter and fill each bottle and then cap in groups of 24 bottles. In other words, I fill 24 bottles and then cap them. Then I get 24 more bottles and then fill and cap them.
Then once all the bottles are filled and capped its time to label, box them up and clean up. I use a sharpie to label each cap with an initial or other mark. This time I chose the number 60 being that this is a Scottish 60\-. These will sit at room temp for about 2 weeks and then I will try one to make sure it is carbed and to judge how much longer I want it to condition. I usually go from 4-8 weeks for conditioning depending on the recipe. Usually the darker the beer the more conditioning it needs.
After I got all cleaned up from making the bottling mess and fed the kids lunch and such. I decided to brew. I have this Breakfast stout recipe that I am looking forward to. It is about 30 minutes into the boil. It will ferment for about two weeks and then be in the bottle for about 5-6 weeks.
