Bottling It

Yesterday I found a couple of hours to get my Christmas brew out of the fermenter and into bottles, ready to condition over the next few months.

Bottling at home is a bit of an ordeal, you need a lot of room, and as Harry Hill used to say “you’ve got to have a system!” This was only the second time I’ve bottled a full batch, and the last time I ended up with wet floors, wet worktops and bottles and caps everywhere. With a little bit of experience under my belt this time around I was able to prepare enough room and get all my equipment where it needed to be to get it all done with a minimum of fuss and moving about. The longer the beer is left uncapped or uncovered, the greater the chance of it getting oxdized – or worse – infected.

So for now, this is my bottling procedure on the day.

  1. Bottle cleaning. I occupy the bathroom for half an hour to get everything cleaned and sanitised. I fill the fermenter I’m going to use as a bottling bucket with sanitising solution (this time it was VWP) and stuff the siphon and bottling wand in the bottom of it. I then batch sanitise and rinse the bottles (four or five in the bucket at a time) and but them on the bottle tree to drain and dry. I can get through 45 bottles inside an hour easily now.Once the bottles are clean I rinse the siphon, bottling wand and bottling bucket thoroughly and put them somewhere clean and dry.
  2. Priming solution. At the moment I’m still bottling with normal table sugar, because I know the quantities I need and I’m happy with how it’s worked so far. Somewhere between 80 and 120 grams of sugar is dissolved in a pint of boiling water, covered, and left to cool while I get the rest of my kit ready. This is enough to prime 23 litres.Note: This time I’m doing a Christmas beer, which normally I wouldn’t want to be too fizzy, so I’d cut down on the amount of priming sugar. However, the attenuation on this one has gone crazy, so instead of going for around 80g, I went for 110g, just to make sure there’s enough to feed whatever yeast is still active.
  3. Cap santising. For some reason people tend to forget this stage if they’re going to miss any. When you consider that it’s going to be sat on top of your beer for however long it takes to condition though, it’s important to make sure they’re clean and sterile. I count out the amount I need, throw in an extra five for caps that don’t go on straight and need to be replaced, and then put them in a jug with boiling water. By the time I use them, the water is (hopefully) cool enough to put my hand in without scalding myself.
  4. Racking to bottling bin. The next step is to add the cooled priming solution to the bottom of the clean, sterile bottling bin, and to then siphon the beer out of the FV on top of it. Take care at this stage to make sure the two liquids mix well, but don’t splash the beer, we want to keep oxygenation to a minimum. Once the beer’s transferred and the trub left behind, the FV gets put to one side for cleaning later and the bottling bin gets moved up onto the worktop in position, and the bottling wand attached to the tap.
  5. Bottling. I have room on my worktop next to the bin to get about twenty bottles, so I batch half of them at a time. The bottling wand (also called a little bottler) is essential here, it ensures the bottle fills from the bottom upwards, doesn’t introduce any extra air, and expels air out the top of the bottle. I’ve worked it out now that if I fill the bottle to the bottom of the ‘knuckle’ at the neck of the bottle, once I take the wand out the level drops to just about the perfect level. As they get filled they get a sterile cap placed on top and put to one side until the batch is finished.
  6. Capping. For the time being I have a hand capper, one of the ones with two handles. It’s not great, but it’s quick and easy once you get the hang of it. I’ve done close to one hundred bottles with it it now and only had three caps go on badly and need to be replaced.
  7. Crating. I’ve got a load of plastic crates and storage boxes which I put the finished bottles in and stack somewhere out of the way to condition. This is great, as they’re out of sight and out of mind, and I’m not too tempted to keep sampling.
  8. Cleaning. The last, and worst, part of the day is cleaning. It’s very important though, as it saves a lot of time on the next brewday. All the trub has to come out of the FV, the ‘ring’ at the top where the fermentation bubbles have been, the siphon, the wand, sample jar, hydrometer – everything needs a damn good clean and rinse. Then it all gets put away until next time.

So there you have it, my bottling day in a nutshell. Yesterday the whole lot took me just under two hours, which is pretty good going. Once I get a bench capper I should be able to speed it up, and I’m looking at getting some StarSan no-rinse steriliser too. Then I can clean, sterilise and put a plastic cap on all the bottles days or weeks ahead of when I need them. This would halve the time it takes me.

Oh, and before I forget, here are the all important numbers from the brew:

Projected
OG 1.056
FG 1.017
ABV 5.1%

Actual
OG 1.058
FG 1.010
ABV 6.3%!

I’m not sure what happened there. I’m putting it down to the har of honey in the boil adding more fermentable sugars, and the hot weather meaning the yeast went crazy. Either way, it’s not a session beer!

I ‘tested’ the sample and so far it’s nice. Dark, rich and a bit liquoricey. I think there’s some spice in the aftertaste which will develop with conditioning, and a warming sensation afterwards too. Although that could just be the amount of alcohol in it! I guess we’ll find out in nineteen weeks, which is when the first one gets sampled. Hopefully it’ll be worth the wait.

Leave a Reply