First bottling day

[drhusker18]

Well that was experience.....even after a dry run practicing in garage.

Bottled my NB Bavarian Hefe last evening. Did 2.5 gal bottle and left 2.5 gal in primary to make the lemon lime hefe. She is bubbling away this morning.

Will learn as I go to make things simpler. Smelled good but flavor really had those esters hope it calms down a bit with carb and chilling. Turned out darker and higher alch% than I expected. I am thinking the Hefes I had in the past were mislabeled maybe....

One question. When I was auto siphoning and bottling with the wand, it seemed very aggressive flow in the tubing and causing bubbles. Is that normal? Is that going to create the 'oxygenation' I am trying to avoid. The exit of the beer from the tube into bottling bucket was fine but it was the sucking/flow of the liquid in the tube. Any concerns there?

 

[Revvy]

Have you seen my bottling sticky? There's an easier method that autosiphon and bottling wand. |

As to your question, our beer is hardier than we think, even a few bubbles will be ok, you want to be careful but some bubbles are inherent in any racking. (If it were so terrible, that never would be a recommended way of doing things.) Most of what's "bubbling" in there is co2 anyway. But as long as you were/are slow and steady it will be fine.

But check out the sticky for ways to make bottling super simple, confortable, and fast.

 

[drhusker18]

Thanks revvy. Apparently I hadn't found that forum section yet. Thanks- as I had just been reading others posts/books/and YouTube.

For sure this will help. Have 3 brews sitting so will try some of your tips/techniques.



Hypothetical : As for oxygenation. Say a person has a high oxygen filtered/clean laboratory and was 99.9% sterile (like an operating room) and racked beer very aggressively so to oxygenate the beer. Would it turn out bad?

 

[Subdivisions]

Hypothetical : As for oxygenation. Say a person has a high oxygen filtered/clean laboratory and was 99.9% sterile (like an operating room) and racked beer very aggressively so to oxygenate the beer. Would it turn out bad?

Were you racking in an operating room??? Haha. Ya, a higher oxygen environment will introduce more oxygen but luckily we're limited to the 18% oxygen in normal air. Like Revvy said, a lot of those bubbles are CO2 coming out of suspension, which is good since it fills the head space of the bottle. When you bottle, a little oxygen isn't that bad since the yeast will use some of it when they wake up and start carbonating your beer.

 

[cannman]

I agree that most of that turbulence is escaped co2!

But as far as sterile goes, that has absolutely nothing to do with oxidation... so given your senario, your oxidation chances with the same process are the same in the operating room as they are in my bathroom on super bowl sunday...

 

[drhusker18]

Were you racking in an operating room??? Haha. Ya, a higher oxygen environment will introduce more oxygen but luckily we're limited to the 18% oxygen in normal air. Like Revvy said, a lot of those bubbles are CO2 coming out of suspension, which is good since it fills the head space of the bottle. When you bottle, a little oxygen isn't that bad since the yeast will use some of it when they wake up and start carbonating your beer.

When I'm not in surgery I haul my fermenter from my office into my OR and rack up a case or two depending on my batch size!!

Trust me I'm a doctor.....

Thanks for the words of wisdom. I adjusted my bottling tube this evening and it is 200x better than my setup the other night. Got three batches all coming Mature to bottle soon- will get it straightened out sooner or later

 

[Subdivisions]

When I'm not in surgery I haul my fermenter from my office into my OR and rack up a case or two depending on my batch size!!

Trust me I'm a doctor.....

Thanks for the words of wisdom. I adjusted my bottling tube this evening and it is 200x better than my setup the other night. Got three batches all coming Mature to bottle soon- will get it straightened out sooner or later

OK then. Brew on Doc.

 

[drhusker18]

Have you seen my bottling sticky? There's an easier method that autosiphon and bottling wand. |

As to your question, our beer is hardier than we think, even a few bubbles will be ok, you want to be careful but some bubbles are inherent in any racking. (If it were so terrible, that never would be a recommended way of doing things.) Most of what's "bubbling" in there is co2 anyway. But as long as you were/are slow and steady it will be fine.

But check out the sticky for ways to make bottling super simple, confortable, and fast.

Revvy. Thank you so much for pointing out the bottling sticky!!!! I have bottled 3 batches since this and your setup advice has made things go easier. One more batch to go before I start contemplating brewing another. Plus I moved into the garage to bottle- so I can make more noise without waking up our kids.

I have also found other stickies hiding in other forums/sub forums.