My Homebrewing Attempt: Bottling

Last week I put up an article about the cooking stage of my attempt at homebrewing a Bavarian Hefeweizen. Today, the bottling!

I checked on my brew a day after I put it in my fermentation bucket. True to form it was bubbling away as the yeast ate my priming sugar and pooped out alcohol. Is that not the most magical thing you’ve ever heard of? Well, the yeast kept kicking out alcohol and bubbles through the airlock for the next three or four days. Then I let it sit a few more days and it was time to bottle it up.

I brought up my beer in the fermentation bucket, sanitized the heck out of my bottling bucket, and I was ready to go. By the way, yes, it is extremely important make sure that everything is sanitized again. Even if you’ve already taken care of it, it won’t hurt to do it again.

I always have trouble getting the flow going between the fermentation bucket and the bottling bucket but once it gets started, it doesn’t stop. I use the extremely simple method of putting the first bucket higher than the second and using a hose as a siphon. I filter the beer with a wire mesh thing I found in my kitchen. Filtering the beer isn’t actually all that important for the first ¾ of the process, but gets pretty crucial in the last bit. The bottom of the fermentation bucket is always covered with a weird sluldge. Filtering is a huge help, but don’t even try to get that last part filtered, it won’t work (I tried once). So when it starts getting low, just give up.

The bottling process is simple, but a little tedious. I attach my siphon hose to the bottling bucket nozzle and the bottle filler goes on the other end of the hose. This was my first time using a bottle filler because before this, I couldn’t figure out what the heck it was. It works extremely well and solved the biggest problem I had in past bottling experiences. That problem was that I would always over or under fill the bottles. The filler puts just the right amount of beer in and when you pull it out, leaves just the right amount of air in the top of the bottle.

Once bottled and capped the beer needs to sit in a cool, dark place for a week to condition. After the week you can either leave the beer where it is or move it to a refrigerator. Either way, the official suggestion is that it needs to age for another three weeks. Personally, I always make sure to add another week or two to that for good measure. To me, it usually tastes a bit better.

By the time my homebrew is ready for drinking I’ll be on my beer trip. I think I’ll be in Fort Worth when it’s ready to drink, maybe I’ll bring a six-pack with me. I’ll let you know how it is when I try it out!