Newbie ready to bottle, wanna do it right!

[malenkylizards]

So I've got five gallons of blackberry mead I'm ready to put into bottles, which I've never done before.

A few questions:

- Before I bottle, I want to backsweeten the stuff, and sulfite the yeasts. Is there any reason I shouldn't do this stuff on the day of? Does order matter?
- I have bottles of different types, I can provide more info on this later; most are 750mL, I have a couple of 1.5L, some have [pardon lack of terminology] an exaggeratedly concave bottom, I'm going to guess that they have different neck heights and mouth diameters. Obviously the neck and mouth differences matter, but I don't know to what extent or how to compensate for differencs; anything else I need to keep in mind? Anything to keep in mind as far as glass color goes other than aesthetics?

My plan is as follows:
- Dishwash and sanitize the bottles, leave them in the open dishwasher to dry
- (they'll be soaking in hot water and maybe a drop of bleach overnight so I can scrape off the labels)
- sanitize my five-gal plastic bucket with spigot, rack the mead into it
- add 2 pounds of honey and sulfites per instructions
- stir up!
- sort bottles by diameter [I'm going to need to go to the homebrew store to get more corks if they have different widths, check when home]
- rack 'em in, cork 'em up!

What am I forgetting? What are some common rookie mistakes?

 

[Arkador]

better to soak the bottles in hot water and oxiclean to get those lables off. You don't want any bleach residue on your bottles.

Otherwise sounds good to me.

 

[malenkylizards]

Can you comment on neck lengths? I understand that I'll need to adjust my corker but I have no idea how to judge it, and I have a finite amount of corks with which to make mistakes.

Also, okay, no bleach noted...should I be worried about detergent in the dishwasher, or can I wash 'em like I'd wash plates and forks in there?

 

[Arkador]

Afraid I have never corked before. I would guess the amount of headspace left by the bottleing wand should work for you, hopefully someone with more corking experience will chime in on that.

As to washing, A dishwaster will only wash the outside of the bottles effectivly. I wash bottles in my sink using either dishwasher detergent or Oxiclean, and a bottle brush to scrub the insides. I rince and put them in the dishwasher standing upsidedown to dry, and then sanitize with a 1 minute soak in either starsan solution on Idophor solution, before drying a 2nd time.

 

[Slipgate]

Is the mead carbonated? If so, you will not want to use wine bottles unless they are champagne bottles.

 

[Arkador]

Is the mead carbonated? If so, you will not want to use wine bottles unless they are champagne bottles.

- Before I bottle, I want to backsweeten the stuff, and sulfite the yeasts. Is

Looks like his mead will be flat by design. Regular wine bottles will be fine for that.

 

[ifishsum]

I've never had an issue with bleach soaking bottles, works as good as oxyclean. Either way you need to rinse them well and then use a no-rinse sanitizer before bottling.

 

[malenkylizards]

Alright, is done. Several questions follow:

Pretty nicely done, I think, though only time will tell...only thing that went wrong was apparently I bottled a wee bit too soon. I had clarified with Sparkalloid, and it was clear enough for me to do a Sudoku through if I had the inclination, and we're talking about a blackberry mead here, so pretty dark. Anywho, I suppose that what I should've done is racked shortly after Sparkalloiding, which was a couple of weeks ago, because there was about an inch of sediment on the bottom of the carboy on bottling day, but I would've though that it wouldn't get racked into the bucket. Anywho, in the clear bottles, there's still a little bit of sediment that's collected in the bottom. I'm not too worried; it's just that little bit to show it's homebrewed. Still, I'll try to eliminate that for future batches. How do you guys rack to really eliminate that stuff?

The stuff is a beautiful, weird, orangish-purplish pink amalgam of color that looks great in the clear bottles, though most of 'em are green. Corking went okay, but a few of 'em weren't pushed in too well, maybe protruding between an eighth and a quarter of an inch; I left 'em alone, thinking the seal was good enough. Is this risky? If so, how would you push the cork in further? Also put some decorative PVC shrink-wrap caps on top, and my sweetie and I MS-painted some labels that we'll put on this weekend. Pics later. In the meantime, they're in empty cardboard wine cases, on their sides, cases wrapped in a couple of trash bags to contain mess should anything 'splode. I read that they should be on their sides at first to get the corks moist...should they be on their sides indefinitely? I would think, given the sediment, that I'll want to have them right-side up to let that stuff collect to the bottom for neater decanting.