First Batch Bottled

I bottled my first batch (2.5 gal) and I will say that it was not an easy thing to do alone. It was a learning experience and I am happy to have that first experience under my belt. Now the hard part... waiting.

Next up is a batch of hefe that will be ready to bottle this weekend.

It gets a bit easier each time you do it! The first is definitely a learning experience... as are all of them.

Congrats on your first beer. Bottling will get quicker/easier with practice.

A few pointers that may help:
- a helper or two speeds up the process greatly, assembly line style.
- try connecting a bottling wand with a very short length of tubing to your bottling bucket spigot (no need to set down the wand between fills)
- no-rinse sanitizer is wonderful - fill/drain/(don't rinse)/fill with beer

Now go make another batch or two while you're waiting.

Thanks for the encouragement guys. I will be leaving off the tubing next time and connect straight to the spigot for sure!

The sanitation went well and here is what I did: any other pointers are appreciated.

-Washed bottles in dishwasher in santitize cycle and heat dry.
-Sanitized wand, tubing, caps, and bottling bucket in Starsan solution.
-Sanitized large cookie sheet, counters, and pretty much the whole area with spray Starsan (and I kept doing this throughout the process).
-Microwaved sugar solution for 5 minutes (started this late so I had to ice water bath this to cool quickly). poured into bottling bucket.
-Racked the beer to bottling bucket from secondary. Gently swirled to make sure primer was mixed.
-Lined up bottles, 6 at a time and filled. I placed caps on right out of Starsan solution on top of bottles and placed bottles onto counter.
-After beer was all in bottles, used winged capper to finish.
-Rinsed bottles in bucket of Starsan solution and placed in milk crate and moved to cool closet.

It was about an hour for this process. Thanks for your suggestions! I will be bottling a hefeweizen this coming weekend.