Bottling Night at Mildren Brew. Co.

After anxiously waiting and waiting the last two-and-a-half weeks, my beer was finally ready to be bottled. Last night after Spanish class, the ever-helpful Beth assisted me in the process. I really would have been lost at a couple points in the brewing process if it weren't for her mathematical skills. Since I ended up with less beer than I had anticipated, I had to adjust the quantity of the priming sugar we mixed in last night. I would have just eyeballed it if I were on my own, but Beth actually guided me in measuring it all out and doing the proper conversions.

So, I boiled the sugar in a little bit of water and then poured it into an empty and sanitized water jug. The reason for adding the sugar is to give the yeast in the beer a little more to eat on while in the bottle which will create a natural carbonation and up the alcohol percentage a bit. While the sugar was boiling, I dipped all my clean, empty bottles into the sanitized water solution to prepare them for the beer. Next I siphoned out the beer from the fermenter into the jug with the sugar. I gently swirled the sugar into the beer (careful not to swirl too hard as oxygenating the beer can hurt the flavor) and then prepared to begin bottling and capping.

Siphoning the beer

My brew kit came with this neat bottling wand and it's just a narrow tube of plastic with a little tip on the end that when pressed down will release the beer (it's connected to the siphon). So I just put it into the bottle, press down, and the beer starts flowing. When the bottle's full, I pull up and the flow is cut off. Beth set out the empty bottles for me to fill and kindly capped the full ones. She did a great job and I really appreciate her getting into this hobby with me.

Filling the bottles

Once all the bottles were filled and capped, I counted up 31 12-oz. bottles and 1 22-oz. bottle. Not bad! Especially since I ended up with about 40% less than I should have. Now I'm supposed to wait another two weeks before drinking them. But, I'll probably try one in about 10 days as I'd like to have our soon-to-arrive guests, Matt and Erika, try it. I'll be sure to follow up on the flavor.

Capping the bottles