Just bottled my second batch!

[dmbryan]

Hey all, I just bottled my second batch, an IPA extract recipe from AHS. Everything went quite well. My first batch was a porter that I used Nottingham dry yeast. The yeast in the first batch packed in super tight and I was able to get a solid 54 bottles. The second batch I used safale 05 (no particular reason) and the the yeast was much looser at the bottom of the bucket. I decided not not suck up a bunch of yeast into the bottling bucket, so I ended up with only 45 bottles. Oh well. Generally does safale 05 not pack as tight as Nottingham, or do you think it was the luck of the draw? Anyway, I couldn't resist cracking a few of the week old bottled porters, and was pleasantly surprised how good they taste already. I'm storing the rest way till the proper time. Now patients needs to be buddy.

 

[Revvy]

If you leave your beers in primary for a month, like many of us do you will find that even safale will form a tight cake.

I use us-05 for about 90-95% of my beers and my cake is plenty tight after 4 weeks. I average 54 bottles/batch.

This is my yeastcake for my Sri Lankin Stout that sat in primary for 5 weeks. Notice how tight the yeast cake is? None of that got racked over to my bottling bucket. And the beer is extremely clear.

That little bit of beer to the right is all of the 5 gallons that DIDN'T get vaccumed off the surface of the tight trub. Note how clear it is, there's little if any floaties in there.

When I put 5 gallons in my fermenter, I tend to get 5 gallons into bottles. The cake itself is like cement, it's about an inch thick and very, very dense, you can't just tilt your bucket and have it fall out. I had to use water pressure to get it to come out.

This is the last little bit of the same beer in the bottling bucket, this is the only sediment that made it though and that was done on purpose, when I rack I always make sure to rub the autosiphon across the bottom of the primary to make sure there's plenty of yeast in suspension to carb the beer, but my bottles are all crystal clear and have little sediment in them.

Half the time I forget to use moss, and you can't tell the difference in clarity.

I get the barest hint of sediment in my bottles....just enough for the yeast to have done the job of carbonating the beer.

 

[dmbryan]

Thanks man. I let this one go three weeks. I'll sit on them a little longer in the future.