Bottling Day!

I bottled up my Stitch's Island Ale last weekend.  I got more out if that LBK than I thought possible.  I wound up with 12 12oz bottles and 4 1 liter PET bottles.  I suggest mixing up your sizes if you are like me and can not wait until the beer has conditioned right.  I know it'll be green after 3 weeks in the bottle but i like to see how it develops.

Like anything in brewing sanitation is key!  So its a good round of EasyClean for everything, new bottles (1 liter PET) and old bottles 12oz Sam Adams.

Make sure you out your caps in a bowl of sanitizer!
Next up take each bottle and put in the correct amount of priming sugar.  For this batch I used coopers carbonation tabs.  1 tab for each 12 oz bottle and 3 for each 1 liter PET.
Tilt each bottle 40 degrees so the beer runs down the side and fill 1 3rd full.
When each bottle is 1/3 full repeat so each bottle is 2/3 full and repeat until each bottle is full.  I always save 1 or 2 clean bottles to fill with the last bit (trub).  now grab your capper its time to close the 12 oz bottles.

I use a good hand capper.  Many people like a bench capper and I am sure I will get one before to long.  This one serves me for the moment.  It has a nice magnet that holds the cap in place as you position it on the bottle. Once the cap is in position push the wings of the capper down.  Push it down all the way to make sure you have a good seal on the bottle. For the one liter PET bottles simply twist the cap all the way down making sure its tight.  This can take awhile but the Mr. Beer (2.13 gallons (standard) or up to 2.5 gallons (all grain, partial mash or even simply steeping grains) larger size give you 20 - 28 12 oz bottles) is not that bad an hour or so is all it will take.

push down hard don't be gentle!

Not a bad days work but kind of plain

Now once you have all your beer bottled or capped invert them 2 or 3 times but DON'T shake the bottles; aerating the beer is just about the worst thing you can do right now.  You have 1 last optional (but I really recommend it) task before the torture of carbing and conditioning your beer.  Lets talk labels.  You really should label your beer its the final touch of creativity to your creation.  Labels can be as simple as a short written label or something more creative.  They can be simple masking tape, or a nice vinyl removable label or anything in between.  I use simple 8.5 by 11 paper printed with a inkjet printer.

Much better!

Now my Stitch's Island Ale is in my brew cabinet.  2 Weeks Carbing and 2 weeks conditioning before I sample the first bottle.  So there we have it.  2 gallons of yummy beer I made myself.  Thanks for stopping by.

~Brew on!