Bottling & Siphoning

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

This weekend was yet another chapter in our homebrewing… and we start off with bottling our Quick Mead recipe. We started this batch back in early November and it has been sitting in the secondary carboy for about two of those months clearing up. Now, just to remind you, Mead is basically Honey Wine. You take a few pounds of honey, dilute it in a few gallons of water, and then add yeast… and wait for a pretty long time while the yeast turns the honey sugars into alcohol & such. This is a “quick” mead recipe because we’ve added a few nutrients for the yeast, diluted the amount of honey from a traditional mead a little bit, and it’s allegedly ready in about 3-4 months’ time… but like most mead, gets better with age.

 

Here's our mead in the carboy... how clear is it?

This clear... Deuces...

Swing top bottles

We put the mead into a case of Belgian swing top bottles that we’ve collected the past few months and another case of swing top bottles that we’ve bought on Saturday. The swing tops are supposed to be a little better for long term bottling as they form a better oxygen-tight seal than standard caps. What we plan to do… is try out a bottle around Valentine’s Day… but then probably store the rest for a few months to see how they taste in summer… and then maybe a few months more to see how it does on 9-12 months… or maybe even longer. That’s the plan anyway. We’ll see how it goes.

 

Next, we transferred our Winter Warmer from its primary fermenter to the secondary fermenter carboy. This was basically just a quick siphoning to a clean 5 gallon carboy, followed by cleaning up the 6.5 gallon primary. Real easy… but short cuts are when accidents & contamination happen, so be weary of that. Here are some pictures of the transfer…

 

Our slightly disappointing yield...

... and then cleaning the primary carboy

Next up, we had some plans later in the day on Saturday… so on Sunday, before the Super Bowl (sucked) we bottled our Bourbon Barrel Porter too. Thanks to our Beer& Bacon Day and some time since our last bottling (back with the Nut Brown Ale during the holidays) we had collected plenty of bottles to scrub, sanitize & utilize. Remember, this porter was our first all-grain recipe that we tried… and it also had the additives of the Maker’s Mark whiskey & the toasted oak cubes… so we’re excited to see how this one turns out in two weeks when it’s had time to properly mature & carbonate. Here are some pictures…

 

Mmm... black gold... Texas tea...

 Ready in the bottling bucket...

... and left over wood chips... See?

I told you that you wouldn't be drinking them

The Brewmistress at work...

That’s really about it for this entry… but coming up this weekend is the start of SF Beer Week… and we still have the Oktoberfest all-grain recipe to make… and we’re always busy… but especially since we have a few parties coming up with the SF Homebrewers Guild… oh just so much going on… but perhaps I’ve already teased you too much… have a great day everybody!!! SEE YOU AT BEER WEEK!!!