Bottling No. 1 (another thanks for Revvy!)

Halfway there for the first batch (the dip tube worked great and wand on the spigot worked beautifully!):

Meant to say it tastes great even flat with a bit of sweet from the priming sugar. It's Palmer's Lady Liberty Pale Ale from "How to Brew" using Chinook as a replacement for the bittering hop, Cascade for flavor as the recipe called for and US-O5 for the yeast. Finally gravity adjusted for temperature came out around 1.012 (the Thief and Auto Siphon both worked like champs too). Now to sit on it for at least three more weeks (though I will be trying one at two).

Congratulations & nice pics!

Revvy is the MAN!!!!! Awesome pics looks great

Thanks! It's fairly clear as it is but I'm hoping it clears up a bit more after bottle conditioning and refrigeration (as it should). I'm also sold on the "leaving it in primary" method for at least a month too (not that I know any different, lol, but I'm all for one less step!).

Nice color !

those hops in fermenter look fantastic... I can ALMOST smell them!

LOL, my family does not like the look of the hops, especially in the strainer in the kitchen sink. They say they look like bug wings or something!

I couldn't resist using hop plugs instead of pellets and I was so ready to have the beer in the fermenter that I just poured it all in, hops and all though a good half of the hops stayed in the pot. It's amazing the volume of hops in a compressed plug!

After all that it also totally slipped my mind to dry hop the thing before bottling.

I like your dip tube design, it may even work better than mine which I have complained as being too touchy since the copper one in the picture went into my garbage disposal and I replace it with plastic one. I always thought they had to bend downward from the wall of the spigot in a 45 or whatever angle, But yours looks like it is working nicely. I'll have to try it.

You mind adding your pic to the bottling bucket thread so other's can benefit from your wisdome?

What did you use for the dip tube? It looks like the top end of a racking cane.

That is the recommended stuff to use, since most of us have broken ones lying around (but they usually are only a buck or so anyway) they can be easily heated and bet.

What size stopper fits inside of the buckets spigot?

snevey said:

What size stopper fits inside of the buckets spigot?

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whatever one you find, when you pick a spigot up at the homebrewshop, and walk over to the shelf with stoppers and start fitting them.

Sorry that's all I ever did....;D

snevey said:

What size stopper fits inside of the buckets spigot?

Click to expand...

I think a #2 fits.

I found a PCV fitting that matched the threads on the valve inside the bucket, then cut the bottom at an angle so I can get it close to flush with the bottom of the bucket. The nice part is it threads on snug to the inside nut at the same time it hits the bottom of the bucket. Someday I'll figure out how to do pics...

Better late than never, but I've got to +1 with the thanks to Revvy for that setup.

7mmSTW said:

I found a PCV fitting that matched the threads on the valve inside the bucket, then cut the bottom at an angle so I can get it close to flush with the bottom of the bucket. The nice part is it threads on snug to the inside nut at the same time it hits the bottom of the bucket. Someday I'll figure out how to do pics...

Click to expand...

I do the same after I noticed a bubble in the spigot that would not go away with the copper dip tube and stopper. It's a 3/4" PVC elbow, had to saw the bottom off of it to fit.

Revvy said:

I like your dip tube design, it may even work better than mine which I have complained as being too touchy since the copper one in the picture went into my garbage disposal and I replace it with plastic one. I always thought they had to bend downward from the wall of the spigot in a 45 or whatever angle, But yours looks like it is working nicely. I'll have to try it.

You mind adding your pic to the bottling bucket thread so other's can benefit from your wisdome?

Click to expand...

I'll be happy to add the picture to the bottling thread (not sure how much wisdom however!)

Actually I had bought a racking cane for just this use and I was about to transfer the beer from the fermenter to the bucket when I remembered I had forgotten to cut the thing and fit it up so it would fit with the bend straight down. That seemed to me like it might take a little while of fiddling to get the length cut just right and then I thought well it shouldn't matter where there end of the dip tube is in relation to the spigot, just that it's at the bottom of the bucket so I just quickly filed a 45 degree or so angle on to the end of the tube and jammed it in. (Big note here, the stopper and back side of the spigot have to be relatively dry in order for the #@%^$ stopper to stay in! If it is wet it will pop itself out no matter how hard you have it crammed in there!)