Bottling the Brew

Part two of the beer-making: Bottling! After leaving our beer to ferment for a little over a week, we tested its gravity with a hydrometer to see if it was finished. The yeasts had all gone inactive and fallen to the bottom of the brew bucket, leaving a lot of sludge behind.

So we had to learn how to make a siphon to get the beer from the sludgy fermenting bucket into the sanitized bottling bucket. The siphoning was very nerve-wracking. (And now, for our next batch, I have to siphon and bottle all by myself, since Izzy's tied on his flyin' shoes and left town for a while.)

Here's our yummy new beer siphoning into the bottling bucket. The little red thing on the side is the spigot to put the beer into bottles with.

He had to be very careful not to suck the sludge from the bottom of the fermenting bucket into the bottling bucket.

See the sludgy sides of the fermenting bucket?

Then we attached the hose to the spigot of the bottling bucket. A special tool on the end of the hose would stop the beer from flowing out once it was pulled off the bottom of the bottle. Put the bottler inside the bottle, pressed against the bottom, and the beer flows in. Pull it out, and it stops. I filled the bottles, and Israel capped them with that orange capper thing you see in the picture.

My friend Kanny and I trying out our new beer! It tastes much better than our faces suggest.

The beer was really good. In fact, out of 50-some bottles, we only have a six-pack left! We took it to parties and cook-outs, and hosted people at home. Now in the next couple of days I have to bottle our Dortmunder. I'll let you know how it turns out!