Bottling Day!

[Lucretius]

Well, after two weeks, it was time to bottle the beer. For my first beer ever, I just wanted to try it out asap. First thing I did was take off the airlock and smell the liquid to see if it had become anything. Smelled like beer, good...

When racking it into the bottling bucket I nearly forgot to put in the sugar. I ended up dumping 3/4 c of sugar into the mixture and stirring it up. Figured it would be fine.

The first sample in the hydrometer I decided to be the first one to test out (my parents came to visit, and my father was ready to help me bottle, and my two roommates helped too). I have to say... WOW! It tasted great! I filled up the hydrometer again after we drank the contents.

OG: 1.055, FG: 1.010 so, according to Palmer's book, my Pale Ale has 5.8% ABV.

We filled each bottle up to about 3/4 of an inch below the top, which should be enough to carbonate.

It was nice having everyone help. My friend also took some pictures. Here's one with me and my father after a successful bottling day!

http://hphotos-snc1.fbcdn.net/hs131.snc1/5613_603460463490_25917067_35976381_2339810_n.jpg

 

[Gooser]

Good job. Now the wait is on to drink it. I finished my first batch a couple months and it was definitely a pretty good feeling.

 

[Notnice]

good job congrats. now the response usually goes stash a sixer or more for a way later day, ull thank ur self. now get to brewing cause 1 batch is defiantly not enough

 

[Scut_Monkey]

The typical rule is to let it sit for ~3 weeks before drinking. I always cheat and try one at 1 week. It's not going to tell you exactly how the beer will be but lets guesstimate already.

That's a good picture.... You should crack open the first beers with everyone that helped if possible. Enjoy your hard work.

 

[marc06]

Help is always nice! I bottled a 10 gallon batch (96 bottles) today by my self

 

[Yooper]

Next time, you want to make sure you boil your sugar in a pint of water. That will help the sugar dissolve so it mixes better and easier. If you just add sugar to the beer, sometimes it just drops to the bottom of the bottling bucket and you might have some uneven carbonation.

I like to boil my sugar, then add the liquid to my sanitized bottling bucket.
Then, I siphon my beer from the fermenter into the priming solution with the tip of the tubing in a circular arc at the bottom of the bucket, so it swirls and mixes from the bottom without splashing.

Welcome to the hobby- it's addicting isn't it?

 

[Vuarra]

+1 for starting another batch immediately. You'll soon find that the drinking the beer is the least fun part of beermaking.

 

[Lucretius]

I'll have to wait until Tuesday until the brew store opens up again, but I plan on starting two. I never racked to my secondary (from what I had read, it wasn't necessary as well as having the potential to screw up my beer for the sake of clarity) so I had a 5 gallon carboy sitting there doing nothing for two weeks.

I would like to make a Stout (I found a recipe on beersmith.com) as well as the Vanilla Carmel Cream Ale I found here on the forums.

As for the priming tips; boiling the sugar would have been the best choice, I just plain forgot to. Fortunately, before I started filling the bottles I remembered I had to put in the priming sugar!

 

[mikefranciotti]

Aside from making sure to do the priming properly, one piece of advice I want to give you is take a 6-pack worth of your bottles, put them in a cool dark place to save for around 6 months. You will thank me later! Thursday night I had a 16oz bottle of an Irish Stout I brewed somewhere around Thanksgiving time and holy crap a few months in the bottle and that thing tasted amazing! So much better than when I originally drank the batch after a few weeks in the bottle.

Congrats and start brewing cause homebrewed beer doesn't last long if you've got beer drinkers around!

 

[Yooper]

Oh, yes- I've also forgotten! One time, I had about 6 bottles filled before I looked over and saw it sitting on the counter. I had boiled it, and was waiting for it to cool a bit.

 

[Lucretius]

So it's been a week. Two weeks for carbonation is the recommended minimum but apparently a lot of people like to sneak a bottle early. I woke up this morning and tossed one in my fridge; when my buddy got back I decided it was time to try it out.

I cracked it open to hear the hiss that let me know it carbonated. Good so far! Poured some into each of our glasses making sure not to dump in the yeast. After we toasted and took the first sip —*it's great! Cold, carbonated delicious homebrew. It's still got that green flavor (as expected) but ignoring that, it's great. A light hop flavor, the color is a nice amber; it's delicious. My friend said he had his doubts but he said he'd buy this sort of thing in a store.

 

[Rubberband]

It just keeps getting better too, you need to hide that 6er for later as advised. I started brewing in December of 08 and since then I have made 15 batches of beer. Everything from extract at the start, 5 or six Partial mash and now about 5 all grain. It is absolutely addictive but well worthwhile. You found the right place, there is an unlimited amount of knowledge in this forum.

By the way, I just bottled up an extra special bitter. Bottling can be a PITA if you don't work out a system. Don't feel bad about the sugar, I've done the same thing and had to add sugar to each bottle individually. Good luck keeping you friends away from your beer, they're like flies to S$%T around my house.