<BOTTLE_RANT>
</BOTTLE_RANT>
-walker
nothing worse for me. More equipment needs cleaned than for any other step (if you count each bottle as a separate entity.) Then there are the caps. I hate them. I always am paranoid that they are not on properly (even though I lay them down on their sides for 1/2 hour to check for lraks before calling them 'good'.)
But, the one thing that ticks me off the MOST (and saddens me to some extent) is that, no matter how carefully I think I have calculated things out, I always seem to end up with more clean bottles than I needed, and the number of filled bottles always seems too small. Argh!
I don't know how it happens, but I seem to lose a lot of beer in the bottling process. I don't mean that I spill a lot of it... In fact, I spill VERY little. I mean that some of it simply seems to vanish, totally unaccounted for.
Yes, I use a bucket and wand, and yes, I can see that after racking out of the secondary I have a little over 4.5 gallons to bottle, and yes, I pretty much get ALL of the beer in the bottling bucket into the bottles.....
But I still have more clean bottles with no beer in them. And, if I sit down and add everything up when done, it seems that a decent number of ounces have simply vanished into thin air.
Argh.... I need to start kegging this stuff and save my sanity.
anyone know off hand how many ounces are in the big sammy smith and big guiness bottles? That's one place I know I have error in my calculations, but I only used a small number of these, so they cannot possibly account for my total amount of missing beer.
I guess if I am getting an ounce more into each bottle than expected, that can add up quickly, but damnit.... there seems to be too few bottles.
The Kaduva IPA ended up as follows:
2 sammy smiths (yes, they are clear, but great for tracking conditioning)
2 big guiness bottles (gifts)
12 12oz bottles
6 22oz bottles
7 half-liter(?) EZ Caps
2 liter(?) EZ Caps
just doesn't seem right.....
But, the one thing that ticks me off the MOST (and saddens me to some extent) is that, no matter how carefully I think I have calculated things out, I always seem to end up with more clean bottles than I needed, and the number of filled bottles always seems too small. Argh!
I don't know how it happens, but I seem to lose a lot of beer in the bottling process. I don't mean that I spill a lot of it... In fact, I spill VERY little. I mean that some of it simply seems to vanish, totally unaccounted for.
Yes, I use a bucket and wand, and yes, I can see that after racking out of the secondary I have a little over 4.5 gallons to bottle, and yes, I pretty much get ALL of the beer in the bottling bucket into the bottles.....
But I still have more clean bottles with no beer in them. And, if I sit down and add everything up when done, it seems that a decent number of ounces have simply vanished into thin air.
Argh.... I need to start kegging this stuff and save my sanity.
anyone know off hand how many ounces are in the big sammy smith and big guiness bottles? That's one place I know I have error in my calculations, but I only used a small number of these, so they cannot possibly account for my total amount of missing beer.
I guess if I am getting an ounce more into each bottle than expected, that can add up quickly, but damnit.... there seems to be too few bottles.
The Kaduva IPA ended up as follows:
2 sammy smiths (yes, they are clear, but great for tracking conditioning)
2 big guiness bottles (gifts)
12 12oz bottles
6 22oz bottles
7 half-liter(?) EZ Caps
2 liter(?) EZ Caps
just doesn't seem right.....
</BOTTLE_RANT>
-walker