First Brew Attempt - Ready to Bottle!

[NWMashMakers]

Thanks for the encouragement about fermentation. We did a sample today and we are happy to report ~ it's BEER!

We are getting ready to bottle tomorrow. Any last minute suggestions?

We plan to put beer into secondary bucket with sugar and then siphon into bottles.

Happy Happy~!

 

[kh54s10]

Read this: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/bottling-tips-homebrewer-94812/

 

[CJ-3]

Bench cappers make it so much easier, if it's not too late you may want to think about grabbing one.

Obviously you know about sanitation. Now more than ever be diligent, you have come too far to risk an infection now.

When you mix your beer and priming solution on your bottling bucker, give it a gentle stir but be careful to not introduce oxygen into the mix.

Relax and have a good time with it. Some people look at it as a chore, I might be weird because I enjoy it.

If it is possible, store your bottled beers at 68-70 degrees to help them carbonate.

 

[smizak]

I'll quote myself from a post I replied to about 10 min ago...

You can vent and re-cap, just be fast and it will be fine.

Here's what I do, first ignore the graduations on your bottling bucket, they're wrong. Find an accurate way to measure half gallon increments, fill your bucket half gallon at a time and mark your bucket yourself with a sharpie.

When it comes to bottling day, start some water heating on the stove for the sugar. Rack the beer into your bucket and use a flashlight to shine through if needed to find the exact volume of beer you have. Use your favorite calculator and add the exact amount of priming sugar for your desired level. A nice 20" stamped stainless spoon is a great investment for gently stirring the beer after sugar addition.

Do this. Proper carbonation is sorely under appreciated by new brewers.

 

[unionrdr]

As alluded to, I boil 2C of water for a few minutes, then stir in the weighed amount of priming sugar off the heat. Stir until the water goes clear again. Then let it cool while you sanitize bottling bucket, etc.As the beer racks into the bottling bucket, gently pour the priming solution into the swirling surface of the beer. When done racking, you can gently stir without aerating to be sure solution is evenly mixed. Then sanitize bottles, bottling wand, etc before proceeding.

 

[flars]

Just to add to uniondrs' post. Boiling the water also sanitizes the kettle and lid. I add the priming solution, like uniondr, after about one-third of the beer is in the bucket. Dilutes the priming solution more quickly. I spray the kettle with Starsan, lid on, before I pour to resanitize just in case it had something settle on it while cooling.

 

[unionrdr]

I've spritzed it with spray bottle of Starsan myself. Nothing wrong with a little forbearance...

 

[NWMashMakers]

As we started bottling we noticed a funny odor in the kitchen. Turns out it came from the unfoiled bottles. The beer was pushing the air from out of the bottles and there was this weird star san like plastic odor coming from out of the bottles when filling.

We know we have good beer going into the bottles. My question is if we ruined it somehow with our bottle sterilization process.

We decided to sterilize our recycled bottles in the oven. We washed in star san, tilted upside down to drain and then put foil capped bottles in oven for steri process.

 

[doug293cz]

As we started bottling we noticed a funny odor in the kitchen. Turns out it came from the unfoiled bottles. The beer was pushing the air from out of the bottles and there was this weird star san like plastic odor coming from out of the bottles when filling.

We know we have good beer going into the bottles. My question is if we ruined it somehow with our bottle sterilization process.

We decided to sterilize our recycled bottles in the oven. We washed in star san, tilted upside down to drain and then put foil capped bottles in oven for steri process.

Star San residues normally won't add any odors or tastes to beer. However if you bake it at high temperatures, not sure if it will form odor or flavor compounds. To be safe, I wouldn't bake after sanitizing with Star San. It's just redundant effort anyway.

You've got it bottled, so you just need to wait for it to carbonate to evaluate. Three weeks at room temp is best, but if you are impatient you can check sooner (just expect the beer to be a little flat.)

Brew on

 

[MindenMan]

Congrats on your first batch, you have made beer. It may not be all that you expected it to be, or, you may have hit a home run on your first try. Either way, don't over analyze it, just enjoy it. Good luck with every batch from here on out.