First Batch Bottled, good to go!

[rjm]

I bottled my first batch last night, and it went smoother than I thought. I don’t have a bottling wand or a dishwasher, so I had a bit more labour involved, but I sanitized, and rinsed and I’m sure that part went fine, but because I didn’t have a bottling wand, I had to clamp off the hose with the clip when each bottle was almost full. This also worked fine, as I had a minimum of spillage into a pot. I filled the bottles to just shy of full, pulled the hose out, placed a cap on the top and filled all of them before capping. But, when I went to secure the caps with the bench capper I noticed that they were actually only full to the bottom of the neck (once the hose was out of the bottle they went from full to just into the neck), and now I am wondering if I have left too much space for the bottles to build enough pressure to carbonate properly. I decided to use a little less than ¾ cup of corn sugar – probably more like 5/8 cup to give me a 2.8 volume of CO2; still a bit high for a British style ale, but I was afraid to go any lower. Will I get proper carbonation in the bottle even if there was a bit too much space left in the bottles?

The beer tastes great, and the FG was pretty much bang on were I expected. I should have a nice 5% alc by volume, and can’t wait to try it when it is carbonated a little.

Cheers,


Rob

 

[Kevin K]

No personal experience, but I've read that a little more headspace doesn't hurt anything. I used a bottling wand when I bottled my first batch on Sunday, and the displacement of the wand was just perfect. I filled the bottles right to the rim, and upon removing the wand, had a perfect (comparing to commercial brew) headspace.

I'm really happy with the bottling wand, it's probably something you want to consider buying.

 

[cweston]

I agree with Kevin--RDWHAHB.

The bottling wand is fairly cheap and really is a nice little gadget to have.

 

[rjm]

Yeah, I cooked another batch up on the weekend, and I will definately pick up a bottling wand before I bottle that batch. But, I'm glad to hear that a little extra head space will not make a difference for this batch.

Thanks for the tip.

Rob