Blasphemy Easter Stout - Bottling

Brewed - April 4
Secondary Fermentation begins - April 18
Bottled - May 31

So I had that one in Secondary for 6 weeks. Hope that wasn't too long.

OG - 1.046
FG - 1.017

I messed up and took my hydrometer sample after I'd added the priming sugar, so the FG should probably be a little bit lower. As it is now, the abv of this baby is looking to be about 3.25% (is that even worth drinking?)

I'm looking forward to tasting this one. The countdown to June 14 begins.

In the mean time, I'm planning to brew a Wheat beer this week. I love a good wheat beer in the summertime, so I have some motivation to not leave this one sitting in the fermenter for way too long.

Home Again

So, while I was away, it looks like some of my rough tasting notes got published. Oops. I deleted them, and will post the actual reviews this week.

It's been a slow beer week. My brother's wedding was awesome, but if it lacked in one area it was beer selection. I spent Saturday night drinking a lot of Jack and Diet. And I mean A LOT. After that, I was ready to take a break from drinking for a few days. Maybe I'll start up again tomorrow.

I did manage to crack open a few bottles of the homebrew. I brought a bottle each of the Pils and the Cream Ale with me to the wedding, mostly because I wanted to show off to my dad.

It got a glowing review from him. I quote, "This tastes like real beer. It lacks the cinnamon and sh1t taste of most homebrews I've had."

My dad doesn't know a lot of people who homebrew, but apparently the ones he does know specialize in flavored beers. I'm going to have to whip up a batch of mint chocolate stout just to mess with him.

But seriously. The Pils, which was expected to be a major disaster, is actually drinkable. It does have a chemically aftertaste that I'm not too pleased with, but on the whole it's alright. The Cream Ale I'd rate as pretty good based on the few sips I've had. Since the bottles got passed around a fair amount, I haven't really had a chance to do a fair assessment of either. So I guess that's coming up this week too.

And I just realized this is one big post of procrastination. Such is my life, I suppose.

...and continues

I succeeded in getting both batches bottled this weekend.

The Cream Ale had a final gravity of 1.012, making the ABV 4.9%
The Czech Pilsner had a final gravity 1.014, but since I never got an accurate OG, I have no idea what that makes the ABV. Live and learn.

I managed to get 2 full cases of each beer; specifically, 12 22oz bottles and 24 16 oz bottles of each.

Now begins the two-week countdown. I'm pretty sure I'm more excited than my soon-to-be sister-in-law is about her wedding, which happens to fall on tasting day. (Just kidding. I don't think it's physically possible to me more excited than my sister-in-law.)

The whole situation went surprisingly smoothly. I cleaned my bottles with oxyclean, then santized them in the dishwasher. The rest of the equipment was cleaned with OneStep and sanitized with Iodophor. The only equipment needed were the bottles and caps (of course), bottling bucket, auto siphon, and bottle filler.

I hit a small snag when I realized that the bottle filler I have didn't fit on the spigot of my bottling bucket. Luckily, I had a 4-foot length of extra siphon tubing that fit on both the spigot and the filler. I think for my next bottling day, I'll cut the tubing to a few inches so the filler sits right below the bucket, though it wasn't that much of a hardship to have the extra length.

With the bottling bucket positioned right above my dish washer, I was able to fill the bottles very quickly. The first batch (Cream Ale), was done with the help of my friend Julie while my husband and her fiance watched UFC. I bottled the Pilsner today with the help of my husband. Since I had (some minimal) experience, it went slightly faster this evening than it did yesterday, and I spilled considerably less beer on the floor.

Now I need to get some kind of labeling system together so I don't confuse the two brews.

The bottling adventure begins

I started the day with the lofty goal of getting at least one of my two first batches of beer into bottles. My puppy and my husband had other plans.

I got as far as washing every beer bottle in my house, and sticking almost half of them in the dishwasher to sanitize. Then Herbert decided to go insane. She dragged. her. crate. all over the kitchen. Every time I put it back she'd wrap her fangs around a corner and drag. Even peanut butter--normally puppy crack--was ineffective.

Once I thought I finally had her settled down, my husband called and asked if I wanted to meet him for dinner. I never say no to food I don't have to cook. We went to an awesome Korean restaurant; the kind of place where they fill your table with kimchi and other fermented appetizers to the point that you're stuffed by the time your entree arrives.

We had OB beer with dinner, mostly because it was our only choice. It's a pretty nondescript lager, decent for washing down spicy food. The only noteworthy thing about it was that they served me a 22 oz bottle with a tiny little 8 ouch glass. It was delightful, like drinking apple juice at grandma's house.

When we got home, Herbert had somehow managed to move her crate while she was locked inside. Needless to say, I spent the rest of the evening watching her expend energy. She's finally asleep, but it's way too late for me to start bottling. The dishwasher has not been opened, so my bottles will still be sterile in the morning.

Stuff

Anyone who knows me will tell you, I've never met a project I couldn't start. Finishing? Well that's another story.*

In general, my favorite part of starting new projects is getting all the required "stuff" that goes with them. I'm the girl who joined a gym so I could get new sneakers and cute sweatpants. My collection of scrapbooking supplies is almost infinitely disproportionate to the number of scrapbooks I've made. 

So let me tell you, beer making is an excellent hobby to take up if you enjoy collecting stuff. Even just the basics are enough to make you want to devote an entire room of your house to the craft. (They take up a lot of space, too...so an extra room isn't actually a bad idea).

"What kind of stuff do I need?" You ask? Read on.

A large pot - Most people have this already. Any spaghetti pot or stock pot will do. Mine is 3 gallons, which is probably the minimum volume you want to work with. You can get them much larger, of course, but remember that the more you're boiling at once, the more time it's going to take to get the boil going and to cool the wort. For my beginner brews, 3 gallons is really all the capacity I need. My husband is not wild about me putting his All Clad through the ice bath step of the process, as rapidly cooling a hot pot can cause it to warp. So for long term use it probably makes sense to get a pot you can use exclusively for beer. I covet these awesome pots with thermometers and spouts, but can't really justify that purchase until I'm at least few more brews in.

Measuring cup and measuring spoons - you just always need to have this kind of thing around.

A large spoon - for stirring the wort during the boil.

Glass or plastic carboys - These are the big bottles that go in watercoolers. Mine are plastic (I have a 6 gallon for primary fermentation and a 5 gallon for secondary). Glass are generally considered better because they're impermeable to oxygen, but they're heavier and (obviously) more breakable. I went with the Better Bottle carboys from Northern Brewer, which are made with PET plastic, which is also very impermeable to oxygen--so basically these are the best of both worlds. 

Carboy Bungs - Just a plastic stopper that forms an air-tight seal on the top of the carboy. They have holes in them to hold the

Airlock - A funny little do-dad that allows air to exit the fermentation bucket without letting any air in. I have the one-piece bubbler version that you fill with sanitized water or vodka.

Thermometer - When you're doing the cold break and pitching the yeast, you want to have an accurate read on the temperature of your wort.

Funnel - How else are you going to get the wort from the pot to the carboy?

Hydrometer - This is a device that measures the potential alcohol content of your wort. I'll write more about it once I understand it better. I've read that beginning brewers can skip this, which given my challenges with getting readings is probably a good idea.

Equipment cleaner - I use OneStep no rinse cleaner. Regular dish detergents are apparently no good because the added scents can cause off-flavors, and some of them contain chemicals that are bad for head retention (snicker).

Bottle brushes - I have a straight one for bottles and an angled one for the carboys.

Sanitizing solution - I use Iodophor. A tablespoon in 5 gallons of water is all you need to soak all of your equipment.

An Auto-Siphon - I've said it before. This thing is fun. Siphoning is apparently not an enjoyable process without it. I wouldn't know, because I've never tried it. All I can say, is that this is a pump that quickly and quietly moves the beer from one carboy to the next. There's very little agitation or aeration (which is good), and it's incredibly easy to use. 

A chest freezer - Yeah, this sounds ridiculous and expensive. And it kindof is. It didn't stop me from buying one, though. If you're lagering (or cold-conditioning) your beer, you want to keep it between 35 and 40 degrees. If you're like me and you live in an area where it's 65 degrees in the dead of winter and earthquakes prevent anyone from having basements, then the two most common storage options are not options for you.

A freezer thermostat - Of course, the purpose of a chest freezer is to keep things frozen, and 35-40 degrees is not frozen. So, this little device expands the range of temperature settings your freezer is capable of. I could set it at 80 degrees if I wanted (not sure why I would, though).

A food-grade plastic bottling bucket - Once secondary fermentation is done, you move the beer once more to the bottling bucket. These things look like 5-gallon paint buckets with a spigot on the side. 

Bottles - Duh. Most people recycle empties. Just make sure they're pry-off bottles and not twist-offs. Also remember that 5 gallons is roughly 2 cases, so you need to drink a lot of beer to collect enough bottles.

Bottle caps - Duh x2.

A Bottle capper - looks like fun, I can't wait to try it.

A whole bunch of other tubes and such - since I've never bottled before I'm not 100% sure how I'll be using everything. I'll update once I get to that part of the process.








* At this point, you're thinking "Well then, I probably shouldn't get too attached to this blog, should I?" But beer is different. I always finish my beer.