Experiments in home brewing - Part 2 - Bottling Day!!

Finally, after a wait of 10 days in my primary fermentation, 14 days in my secondary fermenter, I have gotten my first beer into bottles.

This is much more of an in depth operation than it sounds like.....

First you must sterilize EVERYTHING from the siphon to the bottles to the caps to the dishwasher rack that I used to put the bottles on.   It would really be an unfortunate event to contaminate my beer after all of the other work I have put into it!!  Then you need to add some additional sugar for the yeast to munch on in the bottle, then you need to siphon out the beer from the glass carboy to a bottling bucket.  Then fill each bottle 1 by 1, topping them all off correctly, as the bottling wand seems to leave too much space.  Then you need to cap each bottle by hand.

Many people that home brew keg their beers, which as a loft dweller is kind of out of the question for me, but after taking about 3 hours to sanitize, bottle and clean up from just a small batch, I certainly see the appeal.

All I need to do now is wait about 2 weeks for the beer to carbonate up.  Can't wait!

Upcoming beer adventure : Partial Mash Belgian Wit with bitter orange peel and coriander.