How to Bottle Beer
Posted: Sat Jan 09, 2016 7:36 am
I found this "helpful" how-to guy online and thought I would repost it here.
Just a quick rundown on the step by step process I use to bottle beer. I hope this can be educational for you all.
1. Confirm fermentation has complete by taking 2 or more hydrometer samples several days apart. Alternately: realize you have yet to bother checking gravity, but today is like the only day you'll have free for a week or more, so do it anyway. YOLO.
2. Confirm you have enough bottles on hand to package your yield. You never do. Enlist friends and family to help you chug a 6-Pack or two, and consider dumpster diving.
3. Make sure those bottles have been de-labeled. It's best to de-label as you drink bottles to reduce having to do it all at once. You'll never take that advice, however, and will instead spend the next 2 hours cursing your favorite brewery for using what must be super glue on these god damn things.
4. Make sure your bottles are fully cleaned. As with de-labeling, it's best to clean or at least rinse these as you go. But not you. You're a lazy and pitiful human being and will spend another few hours scrubbing god knows what out of these bottles. Was that a maggot? I don't want to think about it.
5. Sanitize your bottling equipment: bottling bucket, auto-siphon, bottling wand, tubing, etc.
6. Realize you ran out of Star-San. Fuck. Remember you were supposed to pick some up last time? Get it together, Sean....promise yourself today that you will stop putting things off for another day. Ok, trip to the home brew store.
7. Get back home, realize you've misplaced something. I don't know what, but trust me, it's something. Probably the little plastic tip of your bottle wand. Ask yourself if you want to spend an hour ripping apart your garage, or just buy another at the homebrew store. Also ask yourself why you don't get your god damn life together. Get organized, stop losing shit. Maybe eat better too. Ok, stop thinking of that now, just go back to the home brew shop.
8. "Back again so soon? Did ya forget something?" HA HA HA HA HA. Fuck you, homebrew shop guy.
9. Ok, you have everything. Let's calculate how much sugar you need for carbonation using an online calculator. Spend the next 20 minutes trying to figure out what the Beer Temperature field is supposed to mean on these sites. Like, the temp it is right now? The temp it fermented at? What if I fermented it cold at first, then raised the temp? Whatever, I need to get back to this. Guestimate how much sugar is needed and throw it in a pot with some water, and bring it to a boil.
10. While waiting for the boil, sanitize your bottles. Break at least 2, as you're probably drunk by this point.
11. Something is burning. You forgot about the sugar. Now you have caramel burnt to the bottom of your nice pot. Curse. Do it again.
12. All right! Time to rack from your fermentor to your bottling bucket. Before you begin, make sure that the spigot on your bottling bucket is turned OFF.
13. Struggle for 10 minutes trying to fit your tubing on to the racking cane. Double check the spigot again. This day has been long enough and you don't want a mess.
14. Begin racking from the fermentor to the bucket.
15. You left the spigot open. God damnit, Sean. You always leave the fucking spigot open. When will you learn?
16. Clean up the big mess you just made. Cry.
17. Struggle for 10 minutes to remove the tubing from the racking cane, and struggle another 10 to get it on to your brand new bottling wand. Don't use your teeth trying to remove the tube from the cane. You should already know by now that it just doesn't work.
18. Begin bottling your beer. I like to fill 10 bottles, cap, then gently stir the beer to make sure the sugar is still evenly mixed....OH FUCK YOU FORGOT TO PUT THE SUGAR IN. God fucking damnit! Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Can this day get any worse?
19. By now you've dumped whatever you bottled back in to the bucket, added your sugar solution, and gently mixed. Begin bottling again.
20. Finally. Done. Don't worry about cleanup, you've had a long day. Just throw it all in to a box or something and deal with it tomorrow, probably.
21. Store bottles at room temperature, but out of direct sunlight. Let them carb naturally for 2-3 weeks before enjoying. But we all know you're going to try after 5 days.
22. Spend the evening researching kegging.
I hope this was helpful to everyone. If anyone has any questions on these steps, please let me know!
Just a quick rundown on the step by step process I use to bottle beer. I hope this can be educational for you all.
1. Confirm fermentation has complete by taking 2 or more hydrometer samples several days apart. Alternately: realize you have yet to bother checking gravity, but today is like the only day you'll have free for a week or more, so do it anyway. YOLO.
2. Confirm you have enough bottles on hand to package your yield. You never do. Enlist friends and family to help you chug a 6-Pack or two, and consider dumpster diving.
3. Make sure those bottles have been de-labeled. It's best to de-label as you drink bottles to reduce having to do it all at once. You'll never take that advice, however, and will instead spend the next 2 hours cursing your favorite brewery for using what must be super glue on these god damn things.
4. Make sure your bottles are fully cleaned. As with de-labeling, it's best to clean or at least rinse these as you go. But not you. You're a lazy and pitiful human being and will spend another few hours scrubbing god knows what out of these bottles. Was that a maggot? I don't want to think about it.
5. Sanitize your bottling equipment: bottling bucket, auto-siphon, bottling wand, tubing, etc.
6. Realize you ran out of Star-San. Fuck. Remember you were supposed to pick some up last time? Get it together, Sean....promise yourself today that you will stop putting things off for another day. Ok, trip to the home brew store.
7. Get back home, realize you've misplaced something. I don't know what, but trust me, it's something. Probably the little plastic tip of your bottle wand. Ask yourself if you want to spend an hour ripping apart your garage, or just buy another at the homebrew store. Also ask yourself why you don't get your god damn life together. Get organized, stop losing shit. Maybe eat better too. Ok, stop thinking of that now, just go back to the home brew shop.
8. "Back again so soon? Did ya forget something?" HA HA HA HA HA. Fuck you, homebrew shop guy.
9. Ok, you have everything. Let's calculate how much sugar you need for carbonation using an online calculator. Spend the next 20 minutes trying to figure out what the Beer Temperature field is supposed to mean on these sites. Like, the temp it is right now? The temp it fermented at? What if I fermented it cold at first, then raised the temp? Whatever, I need to get back to this. Guestimate how much sugar is needed and throw it in a pot with some water, and bring it to a boil.
10. While waiting for the boil, sanitize your bottles. Break at least 2, as you're probably drunk by this point.
11. Something is burning. You forgot about the sugar. Now you have caramel burnt to the bottom of your nice pot. Curse. Do it again.
12. All right! Time to rack from your fermentor to your bottling bucket. Before you begin, make sure that the spigot on your bottling bucket is turned OFF.
13. Struggle for 10 minutes trying to fit your tubing on to the racking cane. Double check the spigot again. This day has been long enough and you don't want a mess.
14. Begin racking from the fermentor to the bucket.
15. You left the spigot open. God damnit, Sean. You always leave the fucking spigot open. When will you learn?
16. Clean up the big mess you just made. Cry.
17. Struggle for 10 minutes to remove the tubing from the racking cane, and struggle another 10 to get it on to your brand new bottling wand. Don't use your teeth trying to remove the tube from the cane. You should already know by now that it just doesn't work.
18. Begin bottling your beer. I like to fill 10 bottles, cap, then gently stir the beer to make sure the sugar is still evenly mixed....OH FUCK YOU FORGOT TO PUT THE SUGAR IN. God fucking damnit! Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Can this day get any worse?
19. By now you've dumped whatever you bottled back in to the bucket, added your sugar solution, and gently mixed. Begin bottling again.
20. Finally. Done. Don't worry about cleanup, you've had a long day. Just throw it all in to a box or something and deal with it tomorrow, probably.
21. Store bottles at room temperature, but out of direct sunlight. Let them carb naturally for 2-3 weeks before enjoying. But we all know you're going to try after 5 days.
22. Spend the evening researching kegging.
I hope this was helpful to everyone. If anyone has any questions on these steps, please let me know!
