plans for bottling... (first timers)

[03rangerxlt]

Hopefully tomorrow, we will be bottling our beer! I just wanted to check to make sure we planned this out right.

First, we are going to sterilize our new beer bottles with a mix of bleach water. Is 50/50 OK? Then rinse them in star-San with the bottle caps.

Then we will pump some bleach water and then star-san through the auto-siphon and our hose. Then clean the bottling bucket.

Next, mix the appropriate amount of sugar into boiling water, and put that in the bottling bucket. We are going to use regular baking sugar from the spermarket. After that, transfer the beer from the carboy to the bottling bucket using the auto-siphon, being careful to not oxygenate the beer.

Then fill the bottles with beer and cap, and store for a week or two before trying one.

Does this all sound right? This is our first bottling!

 

[coolharry]

50/50 bleach/water solution sound insanely high!

from the wiki page about cleaning and sanitizing:
the recommended dilution rate is 10ml plain, cheap, unscented household bleach to 5L water

 

[cshamilton]

Skip the bleach, if you have starsan that's all you need to sanitize.

With the bottling take your time, read through the bottling tips sticky thread.

And do yourself a favor - after bottling, wait 3 weeks before drinking and chill the beer 24 hours before consuming. If you are really tired of waiting you can certainly test one earlier, but wait until it has time to fully carb before consuming too many.

 

[03rangerxlt]

OK, less bleach sounds good. The bottles have been in the garage for the past week in an open box, so I'm thinking it'd be good to clean 'em. We are hoping to have drinkable beer in time for our big Superbowl party on the 5th, if possible. A buddy of mine who as been bottling for the past bunch of years said we should be good if we bottle by the 26th. (?)

 

[cshamilton]

OK, less bleach sounds good. The bottles have been in the garage for the past week in an open box, so I'm thinking it'd be good to clean 'em. We are hoping to have drinkable beer in time for our big Superbowl party on the 5th, if possible. A buddy of mine who as been bottling for the past bunch of years said we should be good if we bottle by the 26th. (?)

If they are 'dirty' new bottles, then a quick soap water bath and good rinsing should be fine. If they were used for beer before and look dirty you may need a bottle brush.

You are pushing it to have beer for the superbowl - it could be fine and some may be carbed, but it won't be at it's best.

 

[djfriesen]

Drinkable? Yes. Finished? That depends. Most beers take 3 weeks at 70° to carb up and be fairly drinkable. That said, I've had wheat beers be ready sooner, so depending on what you brewed, you might be OK at ~11 days. Either way, it will be beer.

 

[BobC]

skip the bleach, skip the soapy water. Use the starsan and rinse place the bottles upside down, preferably on a bottle tree. Place your bottle caps in a cheap vodka. Then all you have to do is fill your bottles and cap. Don't forget to add your priming sugar and RDWHAHB.

 

[beergolf]

Ready this thread.. Lots of good info for the new brewer about bottling.

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

If you have a dishwasher, bottling over the open door is brilliant. Clean up......just close the door. You can use the dishwasher rack to hold the bottles after you use the Starsan.

If the bottles are dirty you can soak them in Oxyclean, rinse well, and then Starsan. Skip the bleach.

 

[cclloyd]

+1 no bleach just rinse / brush them out with soapy water (PBW or unscented Oxyclean works great for this) and then rinse in Star San. Ready to bottle at that point. You can also sanitize your caps by boiling some water and then remove from heat and add the caps. And like BobC said -add priming sugar and RDWHAHB.

 

[unionrdr]

If the bottles have already been de-labeled,I rinse'em out with tap water,then soak in a bucket of PBW for 2 hours. Then clean with a bottle brush & rinse again. Onto the bottle tree to dry. I store them in covered boxes till needed.
If they haven't been de-labeled yet,I also soak'em in PBW,but overnight. The labels slide off by themselves,& the glue is dissolved or soft. I use a dobie on the outside,then bottle brush the inside. Rinse & onto the bottle tree.
On bottling day,I use my vinator on top of my bottle tree about half full of starsan to sanitize. Quicker & easier.

 

[kh54s10]

You didn't mention sanitizing the bucket. And don't forget the spigot.

I attach my bottling want to the spigot with a 1 1/2 inch piece of tubing, put the bucket at a comfortable height and raise the bottles to fill them.

This seems much easier than having the wand on a long piece of tubing.

 

[unionrdr]

I use a long piece of tubing on mine so I can sit in a more comortable position,since I have a bad L2 disc. And the way I do it in my bottling video is easier insomuch as my FV and bottling bucket can stay on my fermenter stand. No hauling up & down stairs or all over the house to get the job done. Less work & no chance for sloshing the yeast trub back into solution. Works for me.

 

[rifraf]

Just bottled my first batch the other day, and I attached my bottling wand to the spigot on my bottling bucket and lifted the beer bottles up to the wand.

Sanitized my beer bottles in the dishwasher, and filled right over the open door.

My biggest tip would be to practice siphoning before you go to siphon from your fermenter to your bottling bucket, that's really something you want to get down, if for no other reason than you don't want to spend weeks worrying about "did I contaminate when I siphoned? Did I get sanitizer in my bottle? Etc. Etc."

 

[husker]

I sit my bottling bucket on the counter above my dishwasher and fill bottles above the open dishwasher door. Your fist time (and many other times to follow) there will be some spilled beer, and the dishwasher makes easy clean up!

 

[AngusPA]

When siphoning from carboy to the bottling bucket, what do you do about any remaining krausen/yeast floating on top? do you siphon as much as you can without getting any of that layer in the bottling bucket?

 

[unionrdr]

Siphon off as much clear beer as you can from under the krausen if still present,but over the yeast cake.

 

[03rangerxlt]

Well, we bottled or first brew. It went relatively easy, but took a relatively long time. About 3.5 hours, with all of the prep and cleaning all of the equipment at the end. The carboy yielded 45 bottles of beer, which are now sitting in a bathtub with a towel over them to block out light. The of was 1.060 and the fig was 1.016; for an abv of around 5.75.

If any of the bottles os going to blow, about how far into carving will that happen?

 

[Alucard1983]

When I got my bottles at first they were plastic all I did was fill them up with vey hot water and let them is for 30 min. Then i sanitized them. Then filled. After i emptyed them from consumption I rinse out with vey hot tap water and left them to dry. Hen when I go to bottle them I start the process over again and agin and again and again untill the bottle give out or my liver.

 

[petey_c]

If fermentation was complete, three consecutive FG readings, you shouldn't have any bottle bombs. There's no set formula for when the bottles might begin to explode during "carving" (? Carbonation?). Most likely, they'd need a couple of days to build up sufficient pressure. It's good that you have stored them someplace that allows for easy clean up. The vinator vinator - HomeBrewTalk Gallery makes sanitizing much faster and for me, winds up using way less sanitizer. What kind of beer was it? If this is one of your first brews, you should taste one every week. This will demonstrate how patience helps develop a beer.