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Brewing and bottling...

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    Brewing and bottling...

    In the interest of keeping the brewing talk alive here, I thought I'd share some of my favorite tools for bottling beer!

    I'm also a bit new to The Pit. Having been a homebrewer for at least a decade, I have a bit of helpful advice for anyone getting into homebrewing. I'm going to post links to items at Northern Brewer, but note you can source most of this stuff at many other places; always check with your local home brew source (LHBS) if you can. Northern Brewer (and Midwest Supplies) just got bought out by InBev/AB, so if you don't like the big-name breweries owning everything in your hobby, definitely shop elsewhere!

    I still bottle. Not because I want to, but because I still don't have the space to do kegging. I agree with others that kegging is definitely the way to go, but you really need to start out doing bottles, as brewing is a hobby with quite a bit of turnover. It takes a few hours to brew, then weeks and even months to be able to taste the results of your work. Many people will "empty the pipeline" during these early batches, and have to wait months more to try more beer. If you keep the pipeline filled (brewing a new batch every couple of weeks), you'll always have some of your own beers to drink, and you can get better at your craft. Just like BBQing! This is harder to do with a limited amount of kegs, though, and you're always limited to the number of taps you have. With bottling, if I want a Scottish 70 ale today, but a stout tomorrow, I just have to pop a couple in the fridge. I can keep twenty different beers in the fridge cold, if I want!

    Each 5-gallon batch of beer fills about 45-50 12oz bottles. On cleaning day, that's a lot of glass banging around your kitchen. You can either go small, doing 1-3 gallon batches instead, or learn to deal with that larger amount of cleaning, prep and storage. I do the latter, and have picked up some tools which make it easier...

    For cleaning, I use OxyClean Free powder, which can break down sugary deposits in bottles fairly well without using boiling hot water. I have a really large Rubbermaid plastic tote, I fill it with hot water in the bathtub, and pour in a bunch of scoops of OxyClean. I then submerge the bottles fully and let them soak. I can usually clean just under the full two cases of bottles in one fell swoop.

    Once clean, I rinse them a few times. If you don't rinse them, you'll have that OxyClean "film" on them, making them slippery and causing troubles with head retention in the beer. I rinse them once in another bucket of regular water (no soap), then before sanitizing I use a "Jet Cleaner" on my kitchen sink to fully spray out the insides.

    Kit with Jet Cleaner and sanitizing fluid Star San, as well as a small amount of PBW (which is a custom version of OxyClean Free): http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewer...ls-2-clean-kit

    I then drop the bottles onto my "bottle tree", my one true friend in the kitchen on bottling day! That, coupled with the sanitizer fluid sprayer on top, is the shiz:

    90-bottle Drying Tree: http://www.northernbrewer.com/90-bottle-drying-tree
    Vinator Sprayer (sits on top of Drying Tree): http://www.northernbrewer.com/vinator-bottle-rinser

    A good bottle filler does two things: it controls the filling of the bottle via plunger action (so you want one with a good spring vs. simple gravity-drop tips), and it allows for the perfect amount of head space in the bottle. As you pull the filler out, the displaced liquid drops to the level allowing for pressure to build in the bottle once capped. No worries about bottle bombs (if you have fully fermented your beer before bottling, at least).

    Spring-tip Bottle Filler: http://www.northernbrewer.com/spring-tip-bottle-filler

    At all times, Star San is a necessity. It's more stable than iodine-based sanitizers, and quicker-acting. I keep a bunch mixed in a spray bottle, and as long as it doesn't cloud over, it's useable; it's got a long shelf life. I've kept a bottle of it mixed for three months before it finally got cloudy, and the manufacturer says that's perfectly alright. I spray everything I touch, every surface bits are placed on, and I use it in my carboys before filling. Foamy? Yeah, but that's OK; yeast will actually chow down on it, so it's safe for use around the little beasties.

    Star San Sanitizer (concentrated): 8oz. bottle: http://www.northernbrewer.com/star-san
    (or, the kit with PBW, a spray bottle and faucet-mounted jet cleaner is listed above)

    Some brewers like to switch it up, keep bacteria guessing. Iodine sprays are one way to do that, and using a light bleach solution is another.

    Iodophor: 16oz.: http://www.northernbrewer.com/btf-iodophor

    Finally, one of the best brewing books I've laid eyes on is John Palmer's "How To Brew". John Palmer does a lot of homebrewing podcasts, magazine articles and books, and does quite a lot with Jamil Zainasheff (including co-writing the seminal "Brewing Classic Styles"). If you're starting out in homebrewing, I'd recommend this over any other book, as it's more updated than many, including Charlie Papazian's "The Complete Joy of Homebrewing"):

    "How To Brew" by John Palmer: http://www.northernbrewer.com/how-to...-john-j-palmer

    It's quite "science-y", similar to Meathead's book, but also conversational in tone. A little more serious than Alton Brown's stuff.

    Anyway, that's my take. As with anything you want to learn to do (and do well), read, watch, listen to anything you can get your hands on! There are now so many free ways to learn brewing, you may not even need to buy a single book, but I find I'm still in that old-school group of people who like to flip around in a book to find things, especially when you're in the middle of cooking/brewing.

    #2
    WOW! Thanks for sharing all of this!

    Comment


    • abandonedbrain
      abandonedbrain commented
      Editing a comment
      Thanks. I figured, I'm not a great BBQer (yet), but I can put down in writing what I DO know a bit about, and it may help people here find a complimentary hobby to cooking great food!

    • EdF
      EdF commented
      Editing a comment
      Greatly appreciated, abandonedbrain !

    #3
    abandonedbrain , you have given me much to think about, and learn from,many thanks.

    I have long had the itch to try some homebrew. One of my younger brothers has been brewing ~10 years.
    One of my nephews co-founded, and operates a small brewery in the VA. Beach area.
    So, actually, I have some better than starter level equipment available to me, freebies, just haven't taken them up on it (yet)
    Your post might have been the final, critical nudge onto the path.

    Comment


    • abandonedbrain
      abandonedbrain commented
      Editing a comment
      Do what I did years ago, and find a local homebrew club to go watch. You'll pick up some great tips of what to do (and sometimes what not to do), and friendly ears for when you start up!

    • Willard
      Willard commented
      Editing a comment
      Mr. Bones Did you get around to taking up this hobby? I have been batting around the idea for years. I went looking for a thread and of course here is a fantastic one from abandonedbrain
      If so, what do you think of it, from a newbie perspective?

    #4
    Just remember, bottles are free (or the cost of your state's deposit), but only use them if they are NOT screw-top types! I especially like using Sierra Nevada and Samuel Adams bottles, as they tend to feel thicker and sturdier than other breweries' bottles.

    You can buy fancy labels you print yourself, or just write the beer's initials on the bottle cap, but you should definitely label them ASAP after capping. I've made that mistake before, thinking "Man, I'm pooped after all that, and now I have to clean up the kitchen! I'll just label them tomorrow..." Then a month later, after my wife has pushed the cases over to make room for water softener salt, I'm left scratching my head: "Was this the smoked porter or the Irish stout?!"

    I did some labels once awhile back which were simply bottle tags... I made business-card sized pieces with pertinent info (starting gravity, finish gravity, approx. ABV, the name, the style, the date brewed, date bottled), then cut little X's in the card to push over the bottle, and they hung around the neck. I've not taken the time to do that in awhile, but people I handed the bottles to really liked it. Plus, no soaking to remove labels!

    Comment


    • MBMorgan
      MBMorgan commented
      Editing a comment
      Fat Tire bottles are really good too. The labels seemed designed to soak off easily.

    #5
    Ever sanitize in an oven? I’ve come to prefer doing it that way so it’s done before bottling day, particularly if I’m bottling from a keg and need cold sanitized bottles

    Comment


    • RobertC
      RobertC commented
      Editing a comment
      Palmer discusses that in Chapter 2 of his book, and gives a table of temperature and time.

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