Just bottled my first brew! (hints and tips)

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7Enigma

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So last night I decided to bottle my first brew. I started this batch on April 5th and so it was fermenting for 25 days. 12 days in primary and 13 days in secondary. Here's a rundown of what I did and in what order (with notes on where I would do things differently the second time):

-sterlized my equipment with no-rinse

-cleaned 12 bottles at a time, first rinsing under tap water, draining, and then filling with no-rinse. After those 12 filled bottles had sat for 10-15 minutes I'd pour the contents of them into the next 12 bottles. Rinse and repeat.

-Once I had a full case of cleaned empty bottles I put them back into the case open mouth up. I carried these into the basement and set them aside.

-Next I boiled a cup of water and added the priming sugar (3/4cup dextrose). Stirred that with a spoon (also sterlized) until it was dissolved and carried it to the basement. I actually reheated the sugar for 20 seconds to make sure it was near boiling.

-I put my bottling bucket below the secondary, secondary is on a table (here's a tip, the bottling bucket's spigot is lower than the base of the bucket, this screwed me up because I was left holding tubing and the autosiphon while I tried to search for a large sturdy lid/board to keep the bucket off the ground. I ended up using the chair I was sitting on which was close to the same height as the secondary and so it took much longer to drain from the secondary to the bottling bucket than I had hoped.)

-I now primed the autosiphon and slowly began to drain the secondary, keeping sure to have the mouth of the autosiphon near the surface at all times (to prevent sucking sediment up from the bottom). As the level of beer went down, I slowly moved the autosiphon down as well to keep it 1" below the surface.

-After about 1/2 gallon of beer was transferred I gently poured the liquid priming sugar into the bottling bucket. If I was to do this again I would probably wait until 2-3 gallons were in the bucket just so I got slightly better mixing, but this is not a big deal.

-I wanted to take the siphon down pretty low but didn't want to risk sucking up crud so when I stopped there was exactly 1 pint left in the secondary (I know because I poured it into a pint glass and it was up to the brim). I drank 1/2 of this but that's for later in the post.

-I now replaced the secondary with the bottling bucket. The bottling bucket is about waist-high and so I was going to be bottling near the ground. I sterlized the end of my tubing that was free in the bottling bucket, and connected the bottle filler (this thing is absolutely needed for filling without a headache). This is probably why I'll go back to the LHBS and get a closed plug instead of the spigot as I found using the autosiphon with tubing instead of the spigot easier to control the flow.

-Go get a beer. No I mean it, go get a beer. I realized I had no idea where to fill the bottles too, and so my wife grabbed me one of her Bicardi Silver bottles so I could use that as a guide. This is probably only needed for the first 1 or 2, but it was nice to know about where I should be filling too. Other thing to remember is the bottle filler displaces about 1/2" of liquid once you start to fill the neck. So you need to fill to within 1/2" of the top so that when you take the filler out, the level drops back down to where that beer you got is (don't drink this beer until you can remember the level! :)).

-While you're getting the beer also get an old towel or bucket. The bottle filler tends to slowly drip when not filling and after 2 cases of beer will have made a sticky puddle under the bucket. I just put the sterlized container that held all the equipment underneath the bottling bucket to catch the drips between bottles.

-Before filling I used the autosiphon to gently stir the beer in the bottling bucket to distribute the sugar better. Because of how slow my transfer was I was concerned the sugar was probably not evenly spread out in the beer (ie bottle bombs and flat beers would be in my future). I had sterlized a large spoon for stirring but never used it because of the autosiphon.

-Now it was time for the scary part. I grabbed the first bottle and turned it upside down in a small bowl to catch any extra no-rinse that didn't drain the first time (this was my insurance policy against contamination while I was making the sugar/racking to bottling bucket.

-I lowered the sterlized bottle filler into the bottle, raised the bottle to slightly higher than the bottom of the bucket, and pushed it down. As the beer started to go into the bottle I slowly lowered the bottle which increased the flow rate. This is done to allow for faster filling without risking aeration. Once you do 5-10 you'll get a good feel for how fast and how high you have to start holding the bottle to get a very gentle beer layer in the bottle. By the end I think I was filling a bottle every 20 seconds or so. Probably could have gone faster, but I was doing other things at the same time.

-After I did 3 bottles, I would place caps on the tops (caps were taken directly from the bag and not sterlized). About 1/2 way through the first case I realized there was a lot of waiting and watching and so I decided to multitask :drunk: . I was holding the bottle in my right hand and the autosiphon in my left. I found that I could start the bottle filling and then hold the bottle in my left hand (just let the siphon sit in the bottle, it will continue to fill). Now with my right hand free, I would first grab a cap and place it on the bottle just filled, and after that was done, grab a new bottle, up end it to drain the no-rinse, and about this time the bottle filling was done. This sped up the filling tremendously and as long as you are always watching the level of the beer in the bottle being filled you won't have any problems. I actually didn't mess this part up.

-After I had filled a case of beer and laid the caps on I proceeded to cap these. What I did was put a new bottle on the table next to the bottling bucket and put the bottle filler inside. I put a book underneath the bottle and filled it about 1/2 way full (to give it weight). As long as the level is even with the liquid in the bucket no more beer will go into the bottle. A safer way would be to clamp the tubing if using my setup or just closing the spigot if using that. Mine worked fine.

-I grabbed the first bottle with the cap laying on top. After doing this for 1/2 a case I realize with the particular capper I have (the 2 handed one you put around the bottle and bring your hands down, kind of like a piece of exercise equipment) its actually better to do it this way than put the cap on the magnet and then lower it onto the bottle. I might actually remove the magnet because every once in a while if I wasn't perfectly centered it would pick up the cap and I'd have to reposition.

-I put the capper on the cap and pushed down. It was difficult to judge the force at first, only after doing a bunch did I find out it works best if you push inwards instead of down. I know this is difficult to picture but think of it like squishing an orange between your hands instead of having the orange on the ground and squashing it. If you use the capper pushing inward instead of down you get a nice seal without the circle mark on top that may (probably not) affect the seal.

-Overall the capping went without a hitch. I did the case in probably 5 minutes or so, no breaks, no spills, etc.

-I checked my bottle filler (hadn't changed level), and went back upstairs to drain the other case of bottles.

-I then proceeded to do exactly the same thing with the filling and capping.

-As the level got lower I propped up one side of the bottling bucket to make sure the autosiphon never ran dry. I kid you not, by the time the autosiphon went dry there was not more than a shot of beer in the bottom. This is the main reason why I feel the autosiphon is superior to the spigot on the bottling bucket. The spigot is an inch or so above the bottom of the bucket and so unless you are using this as your secondary and need to keep the sediment out, you'd probably have a lot of beer left over in the bottom.

-So I finished capping the last bottle and then counted. I knew I was going to be short a LONG time ago, but it turns out I was probably almost a gallon short. Some of this was from losses during transfer from primary to secondary to bottling bucket, but still I was short. I was 7 beers shy of a full 2 cases, so we'll see how that effects the beer and carbonation.

-I then took everything out back and hosed it off well. I didn't clean with anything, just water for now.

Hope this helps someone like me who was sweating the first bottling experience.

:mug:
 
So I forgot to finish the post.

I took that pint glass of beer upstairs and stuck it in the fridge while I cleaned up.

With using a primary, being careful to not bring over much sediment to the secondary, and then again from the secondary to the bottling bucket, the beer was CRYSTAL clear. Literally looked like a pint of Yuengling lager (remember this "pale ale" had some other ingredients that made it darker). I really was shocked at how clear the brew was after transfer.

About 30min later I was ready to give it a taste. As a note, when I transferred from primary to secondary (2 weeks ago) the smell was fantastic (smelled like beer), and it tasted pretty good too. But this was only a shot and anything remotely like beer was a success to me then. Another note, this beer was the pint left over at the BOTTOM of the secondary. Anything that had mixed with the crud at the bottom, or come off the walls of the bottle would probably be in here (it was really cloudy).

I took a swig and thought it tasted good. Nice hop aroma and flavor, could definitely taste the bitterness from the hops, and had a clean finish......for about 5 seconds....Then all of a sudden I developed a horrible aftertaste. I swear I thought I was imagining it because it took so long to develop but after trying 2-3 more times I had the same experience. I also am pretty good at describing smells and tastes (or so I thought), but this one is tough to pin down. I want to say it's antisceptic, but it could also be that green-apple flavor that is mentioned on here frequently. Maybe a cross between the bitter hop flavor/aroma and green apple? I don't know, what I do know is it was not enjoyable. I stomached down 1/2 the pint for good measure (and to see if I would get sick telling me the batch might be funked), but threw the rest out. I'm still alive this morning, so I didn't get sick (yay).

Ok I think that's it.
 
Well, it sounds like you're happy with your first bottling experience. You'll find that it gets easier and you'll do fewer steps each time.

I have just a couple of things to add for you. Remember, you're not sterilizing anything. You are sanitizing. It's just a little thing that "bugs" me- (get it? Bugs me? Never mind!) To sterilize, you'd have to autoclave, like surgical instruments. Sanitizating means you kill most of the bugs, not all.

Anyway, I like the spigot/bottling wand thing rather than the autosiphon. But it seems like you worked the autosiphon really well! I bottle on the dishwasher door, to catch all drips. But a towel on the floor works too!

The beer is very young- I'm not sure exactly what you're tasting in that aftertaste, unless it's a little trub and/or sediment. That stuff does taste bad. I think that you're tasting young beer that will smooth out and be great in a few weeks!

Congrats on bottling your first batch!
 
Great write up!
My first bottling experience went well...soon enough onto our second!
My girlfriend and I used an autosiphon w/wand. Carboy was set higher on the table (use books or milk crate) where we were to bottle. All bottles were washed and sanitized in advance as well as bottle caps dropped in a small container filled with Starsan.
Took out some beer from the carboy and mixed that with the priming sugar...nuked it for a bit then dumped in the carboy and stirred with the siphon wand.
One of us would fill a bottle and hand it off to the other who would cap right away.
This routine went pretty quick and smooth and we learned that bottling can be fun! I can see it may more time consuming when comparing to kegging but I'll always be bottling some beer even when I get into kegging in the near future.

:mug:
 
Shaggy said:
Took out some beer from the carboy and mixed that with the priming sugar...nuked it for a bit then dumped in the carboy and stirred with the siphon wand.
:mug:

Actually you don't need to nuke any beer to mix with your priming sugar. Take 2 cups of water and 3/4 cup priming sugar and boil it for 15 minutes, then let it cool for a bit (I usually set it aside while I finish sanitizing my bottles.)

Then add it to your bottling bucket and rack your beer on top of it...You really don't want to prime in your carboy...you will stir up all the stuff you just let settle out of your beer.
 
Revvy said:
Actually you don't need to nuke any beer to mix with your priming sugar. Take 2 cups of water and 3/4 cup priming sugar and boil it for 15 minutes, then let it cool for a bit (I usually set it aside while I finish sanitizing my bottles.)

Then add it to your bottling bucket and rack your beer on top of it...You really don't want to prime in your carboy...you will stir up all the stuff you just let settle out of your beer.


Great point! Thanks...
I guess the 2 cups of water is negligible to taste etc. in a 5gal batch huh? We were told to use beer with the priming sugar instead of water as "why would we want to water it down any"....

This was done at my LHBS where my girlfriend and I took their beginner class. That was what we were shown and the more I get into this on my own, the more I see the person who "taught" the 2part class is kind of...well, off a bit to say the least.
I did a write up in my introduction thread on the class on how we were both a bit disappointed.
We did our first brew at home the other week...a wheat...so we will let it roll in just the primary and then rack on out to a bucket and go with the water mix.

:mug:
 
I've never heard of nuking beer to prime with...seems like heating fermented beer up would make for some funky flavors....

2 cups of water to 4.5 - 5 ounces priming sugar is the standard and doesn't effect the beer in any way.
 
I think the chance some trub was in my glass was very high. Again it was what I poured off AFTER transferring to the bottling bucket. I got this glass by pouring the way you'd pour a beer into a glass (but was hefting the 5gallon carboy on its side) so hopefully that is the cause. I did pour it through a coffee filter but I doubt the pores were small enough to trap much if anything (looked just as cloudy after as before). I have no plans to drink this for at least 2-3 months, but as recommended I'll sample a bottle every 2 weeks or so to see how it ages. I almost want to crack one I just bottled to compare it to what I had last night (since they hopefully are completely different without all the sediment). I'm having a party Saturday night and so will open one and give it a taste. Here's hoping it's better.

Sanitizing...sanitizing...sanitizing...got it. Sad really because I work in research and so constantly use autoclaved items.....

As for the autosiphon/spigot I had forgotten to put the little black base on the wand. That would have made transfer to the bottling bucket easier (less paranoia of how far down the wand was), but it made getting every last drop out of the bottling bucket a snap. I was doing this alone and so was on the ground filling the bottles, but made sure the siphon was at the right spot to get all the beer (lowest portion of the tilted bucket). It wasn't until I heard the gurgling of air being drawn into the line that I looking inside the bucket and was shocked that there wasn't more than an oz. I was planning on using what remained for my tasting, but instead had to deal with the beer left in the secondary.

By the time I was almost done bottling I was a one man machine. It really did get incredibly easy, but it would have been nice at the start to have another hand.

Thanks for the replies!
 
YooperBrew said:
I have just a couple of things to add for you. Remember, you're not sterilizing anything. You are sanitizing. It's just a little thing that "bugs" me- (get it? Bugs me? Never mind!) To sterilize, you'd have to autoclave, like surgical instruments. Sanitizating means you kill most of the bugs, not all.

I've had some education on the sterlizer/sanitizer topic at a previous job. I ran 3 different autoclaves and none of them were "sterilizers". This was for surgical instruments(the hospitals did use an actual sterilizers(most of the time) but yeah...many autoclaves are only really killing some of the "bugs". The stuff that was "sterilized" from the hospitals autoclaves still had to be considered as biohazard if there were any sterile bone fragments or other tissues. My thoughts on that were that they weren't 100% sure of the sterilization that autoclaves(even tested 2 times a month) did as far as killing the bugs.
 
I forgot to mention that at my work we have several different cycles for the autoclave. Plastics and other non-high heat tolerant pieces get a nice 200F or so moist heating, while the glassware/metal get a much harsher treatment.

We actually had a funny story a year or 2 ago where someone had bought a new type of aluminum foil (to go over the mouth of the flasks/beakers). When they delivered them to the labs everything looked good until you tried to remove the foil. Turns out this particular type of foil was lined on the inside with a plastic-like material that had melted all over the rim and inside the glassware. It was a real PITA for the glassware department to deal with (I'm willing to bet a lot of the glass just got trashed).
 
I saw MANY plastic tray liners(usually just a biohazard bag laid on the tray under the tools) that had been put through the autoclaves and sent back to us. Those got instantly trashed.

I got to work with the equipment in the our microbiology labs and WOW, big difference in quality. Ours blew hoses a few times over 2 years(both of them) and the doors would get stuck in the closed position and we'd have to wait 2 days to get to the instruments.
 
I've never tried this, but I plan on it. I've read on here where some people just put a small piece of hose onto the spigot and attaching the bottling wand onto that. Then you can use both hands to bottle. As I said, I've never tried this yet, but sounds like a great idea. Just my 2 cents.
 
Blackhawkbrew said:
I've never tried this, but I plan on it. I've read on here where some people just put a small piece of hose onto the spigot and attaching the bottling wand onto that. Then you can use both hands to bottle. As I said, I've never tried this yet, but sounds like a great idea. Just my 2 cents.

I was using both hands to bottle, the autosiphon was just resting in the bucket.
 
Blackhawkbrew said:
I've never tried this, but I plan on it. I've read on here where some people just put a small piece of hose onto the spigot and attaching the bottling wand onto that. Then you can use both hands to bottle. As I said, I've never tried this yet, but sounds like a great idea. Just my 2 cents.
This is what I do and it works great.
 
Just a warning, if you soak your bottle caps in starsan, make sure you only soak the right amount you are going to use, and if you have any left over, dry them before you put them away for next time. I soaked all my caps, only used 1/2 of them, then took them out and put them into a plastic bag. The next time i went to bottle, all the remaining caps had RUST spots all over them. I was able to clean most of them up, at least on the bottom part where it will contact the beer, but it gave me a scare since i had already transfered to the bottling bucket, cleaned all the bottles and was ready to bottle, i really didn't want to let it all sit while i drive 30 minutes to my LHBS and buy more caps. A little prep work goes a long way!
 
I just bottled up my first batch...only issue was the racking cane and getting the siphon started and I'm not really too into my springless bottling wand. I set out to make a 5 gallon(40 pint) batch of a wheat beer. I used John Bull hopped wheat extract and some unhopped malt extract and Danstar Windsor yeast. I only made a slight mess but its nothing a little mopping can't take care of. I ended up with 39 1/2 pints. I've got 39 Grolsch bottles set in coolers(getting ready to rinse the outsides of the bottles before setting them aside for a few weeks. Definite wheat beer taste and definite alcohol/beer taste...a success so far.
 
comj49 said:
Just a warning, if you soak your bottle caps in starsan, make sure you only soak the right amount you are going to use, and if you have any left over, dry them before you put them away for next time. I soaked all my caps, only used 1/2 of them, then took them out and put them into a plastic bag. The next time i went to bottle, all the remaining caps had RUST spots all over them. I was able to clean most of them up, at least on the bottom part where it will contact the beer, but it gave me a scare since i had already transfered to the bottling bucket, cleaned all the bottles and was ready to bottle, i really didn't want to let it all sit while i drive 30 minutes to my LHBS and buy more caps. A little prep work goes a long way!

I know this from experience!!! I ended up tossing nearly an entire bag of them....Thankfully they're cheap at my LHBS.

Another bottling tip...I always ended up wasting a lot of beer using the hose/bottling wand combo, becasue I couldn't see when I was nearing the top and got overspill...

So instead, I snipped a one inch piece of bottling hose, got 2 plastic clamps, attached the little piece of hose to the spigot and clamped it. Then I slipped my wand into the little piece of hose and clamped that together...Now I can sit comfortably, and hold each bottle up to eye level while filling it....It works great.
 
Just have a backlight when filling. It makes seeing the liquid level much easier and you can be sure you won't over/under fill.
 
One item I thought I would share, is that the spigot on those bottling buckets spin from the inside so it won't adjust your seal or anything. It's a small thing to add but really helps with racking and cleaning :cross:
 
Just a warning, if you soak your bottle caps in starsan, make sure you only soak the right amount you are going to use, and if you have any left over, dry them before you put them away for next time. I soaked all my caps, only used 1/2 of them, then took them out and put them into a plastic bag. The next time i went to bottle, all the remaining caps had RUST spots all over them. I was able to clean most of them up, at least on the bottom part where it will contact the beer, but it gave me a scare since i had already transfered to the bottling bucket, cleaned all the bottles and was ready to bottle, i really didn't want to let it all sit while i drive 30 minutes to my LHBS and buy more caps. A little prep work goes a long way!

I did the exact same thing. Now I count them out, and if I still have too many, I dry them with a hair dryer.
 

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