Bottling Day

So Jan 25th was bottling day.  It is easy to set it and forget it with the wort fermentation and now waiting for the bottles to set up, but when its out and I'm "playing" with it, it seems like forever till i can taste it.  I have been collecting some used bottles and have one box of new plastic screw tops that I will be using.  I run all the bottles through the dishwasher with out detergent and at a high heat.  When the finish I rinse them out with a sanitizer before filling.

Next step is to boil the priming sugar in 2 cups of water and then let it cool so I want to do this before I start with the rest.  Easy to boil, remember to cover it while it cools (you can make a mini ice bath if needed, that's what I did).
My brother in law said that bottling could be messy so I started the process in the tub.

Here is the fermented wort and my bottling bucket.  Oh yeah, don't forget to sanitize everything.  My bottling bucket has been fully sanitized.  I kept the wort in the fermenting bucket because I started another batch in the glass carboy.  (Bottling for that will be this weekend, I may post about it also, but I forgot to take pictures).

This is the wort unveiled!!!  YAY!!! It smells like beer.  Yes I did try it and yes it was kinda good.  If I was served it in a bottle I would not be happy but as my non-carbonated wort to beer creation, I was as please as Dr. Frankenstein.  You can see a slight ring of trub around the top of the wort (trub is the sentiment left behind from the yeast, most of it will be at the bottom of the fermenter by now). 

Getting ready to transfer the wort using my handy auto-siphon.  The auto-siphon has a knob at the bottom so it wont sit on the bottom in the trub, but I held mine up any way.  Slowly siphon the wort from the fermenter into the bottling bucket.

Here is the transfer.  At this time I checked my priming sugar mix and then added it into the bottling bucket also.  The bottling process went pretty well and I must say the screw top bottles were much easier to cap as I went.  A piece was broken on my regular bottle capper which made that task seem crazy difficult until I rigged it up.  I washed my fermenting bucket and flipped it upside down on the counter, then I placed a square cutting board on top (to give it more flat stability).  I then placed the bottling bucket on top of that to give me a good gravity feed.  I filled in a large metal bowl so any drippings would be captured and placed bottles on a towel after filling to catch drips.  Filling was easy, a little time consuming but pretty easy.  Sorry forgot to take more pictures.  I will try to capture some of the bottling process this weekend on batch number 2.

Beer concern

So my beer has not shown signs of fermenting as of yet.  (No bubbling)  I am not sure how much specific temperature regulation affects it, but that doesn't seem to be a major concern any talks about unless your doing a Lager.  The guy at the supply store suggested I try to increase the temperature (I had it around 60 degrees) to between 65 and 70.  He also recommended adding more yeast and suggested K97 German ale yeast.  I added the additional yeast last night and moved the wort to a slightly warmer location.  Now we continue to wait.

Beer again

So I wont go through the whole process but Ill at least explain the progression of pictures as I go.

This first step is to boil water (most anybody can do that).  Once you reach 150-165 degrees cut the heat and add a mesh bag that contains the crushed grains (in this case 1 lb. Vienna and 8 oz. Caramel) and steep them for 20 minutes, remove them and then return steeped water to a boil (now called wort, pronounced wert).  That is the stage pictured above.  Once boiling add Dried Malt Extract, Liquid Malt Extract, and corn sugar and return to boil (My kit had 3.3 lb. Munich LME, 1 lb. Amber DME, and 1 lb. Corn Sugar).  Return it to a boil and then add the Hops (which is actually the flower of the hop plant, part of the hemp family --- hop and hemp, I guess that makes sense).  The first hops are boiled for 60 minutes and are designed to add bitterness offsetting the sweetness from the grains.  After 55 minutes a second hops is added for a more aromatic brew.  That is the stage captured below.

You can see the green foam, this kit used hop pellets (which are processed hops compressed into pea sized tablets and are more commonly used in brewing then whole hops or hop leaves).  The next step is the most challenging, after 60 minutes you need to reduce the temperature from a boil to 60 degrees as quickly as possible.

I made an ice bath by filling the sink with cubes and cold water, with this I was able to reduce the temperature to about 80 degrees within 5-10 minutes, 60 degrees however was over an hour away.  I can see the value of having a wort cooler here.  At this point I transferred the wort to the fermenting bucket and added clean water to raise the volume back to 5 gallons.

Pitch the yeast on top and seal with cover and airlock (the airlock allows gasses to escape but prevents any bacteria from entering).

Find a place to stash it and wait.  Fermentation should be evident by bubbling through the airlock in about 48 hours.  This should ferment for about 2 weeks with a third week to allow for settling.  So in about 3 weeks we will look to be bottling.

I did check the OG- Original Gravity and it was 1.044 while the range given was 1.045-1.049, I don't know what that will effect at this point.

Starting with beer

“One of the marks of a certain type of bad man is that he cannot give up a thing himself without wanting every one else to give it up. That is not the Christian way. An individual Christian may see fit to give up all sorts of things for special reasons--marriage, or meat, or beer, or the cinema; but the moment he starts saying the things are bad in themselves, or looking down his nose at other people who do use them, he has taken the wrong turning.”

― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

I am not so sure starting my online voice documenting my travels through brewing my first batch of homebrew beer is the best step, nevertheless, here it is.  My mother has blessed me with a Brewer's Best (http://www.brewersbestkits.com/) beer kit for my birthday / Christmas gift this year.


The kit has everything you need (for the most part) to brew your own homebrew.  The second part of the gift is the actual ingredients and directions to make a specific batch.  This was a Vienna Lager.

Vienna Lager (L)

Munich, Vienna and caramel malts combine to provide a rich malt aroma. When lagered this beer will finish clean and dry with no fruity esters. Vienna Lager is moderately hopped. This kit includes a lager yeast that will also perform well if fermented at ale temperatures.

IBUs: 24 - 28 ABV: 4.5% - 5.0% Difficulty: Intermediate

I started the brew Friday January 10th, 2014 at about 5pm.