Bottling day

[longroad]

This Thursday i will be bottling my first batch of beer and am not sure how to go about doing this. I have 48 brand new bottles and will sanitize before i use them but my question is how to keep oxygen out of the bottles or/and brew? What is the best way to sanitize bottles as well? I have read alot of methods but just want to make sure.

 

[moscoeb]

This Thursday i will be bottling my first batch of beer and am not sure how to go about doing this. I have 48 brand new bottles and will sanitize before i use them but my question is how to keep oxygen out of the bottles or/and brew? What is the best way to sanitize bottles as well? I have read alot of methods but just want to make sure.

I assume you have a bottling bucket and wand?

I sunk my bottles in a 5gal bucket that had sanitizer in it. You can get about 20-24 in there. I let them sit while I was prepping everything else. (beer in bottling bucket, adding priming sugar). I place a small table or stand on counter so it raises my bottling bucket above the counter top and i can bottle standing up. I then pulled the bottles out and emptied them lining them up on the counter, and sunk the remainder of the bottles. I then proceeded to fill my bottles with beer from my bottling bucket and wand lining the full bottles on the other side of the counter. Pull bottles out of the water as needed. You have enough time to pull one out while one is filling, but you can't let go, it will fall over! I always keep a bottle ready as I'm filling one. (I start with two empties, fill one, put wand into second bottle, you have enough time to push full bottle to side, and grab another empty before you get full) When I was done, I capped them all with sanitized caps.
The short amount of time exposed to the air in the neck of the bottle will not do any harm to your beer.
Wait and enjoy!!

 

[sroberts]

If you use StarSan your bottles will likely still have some foam in them, that's not a problem. I fill until the foam appears at the mouth of the bottle. It goes faster if you have one person to fill and one to cap, otherwise it's no problem to fill a bottle or two, then cap them. Don't forget to sanitize the caps also.

 

[longroad]

Thanks for the help