My Second Batch of Homebrew: Phase Two (Bottling)

You can read Phase One (Brewing) here

Yesterday marked three weeks since my wife and I brewed our second batch, an India Pale Ale named FML IPA. 21 days was a long time to wait, but it was worth it to give the beer plenty of time to clear up. I'm happy to report that things went a lot better this time, compared to the last time we bottled.

Here's the equipment we used for bottling:

• Five-gallon spigoted bucket
• Large plastic brewer's spoon
• Bottle washer
• 24 new 22 oz. bottles
• 2 previously used 750ml bottles
  
• Bottle-caps to match
• Capper
• Hydrometer
• Sampler for hydrometer
• Probe thermometer
• Bottling wand with tubing
• Transfer tubing
  
• Small saucepan
  
• Corn sugar (measured amount for 5 gallons of beer)
• Star-San sanitizer
  

We were a little concerned about infection because of a mistake we made in preparation for brewing (you can read all the gory details back in Part One), but cracking the fermenter revealed a perfect looking (and smelling) beer. Beer is indeed less fragile than the novice brewer gives it credit for.

The first step, as always, was sanitation. To start things off, we mixed up a 5 gallon batch of Star-San sanitizing solution in the bucket to be used for bottling. Then, we started rinsing out the bottles in batches of about eight using the bottle washer. Once rinsed, we dunked the bottles in the sanitizing solution and left them under the surface for two minutes. After the bath, we put the bottles into the bottom rack of our dishwasher (which acted as a poor man's bottle tree) to wait.

It's worth taking a second to note that there was no rinsing after the sanitizing bath, as Star-San works best while the bottles are wet and does not affect the beer whatsoever. It produces a lot of bubbles, and many people are put off by the idea of adding their beer to sudsy bottles, but there is no need to rinse it off. In fact, rinsing it off would leave the bottles unprotected briefly.

Once all the bottles were in the dishwasher ready to be filled, we used the mixture to sanitize the brewer's spoon, the sampler, and then both sets of tubes (with the wand attached) via the handy spigot. It took a little warm water to loosen the tubing up enough to fit on the spigot, but once warm, they fit nicely. The remaining sanitizing solution was then poured down the drain and the bucket put in place on the floor ready to be filled (again, unrinsed).

At this point we started to heat the corn sugar mixture and let it boil for five minutes with 16 ounces of water. Once boiled, we set the mixture aside to cool for about ten minutes. While it was cooling, we boiled the bottlecaps to sanitize them and cracked open the fermenter to take quick gravity and temperature readings (1.016 at 70°F). I tasted the beer from the sampler once the readings were done and was excited to find that, even though it was warm and flat, it tasted like an IPA.

Then, we put the fermenter on the counter above the empty bucket, attached the transfer tubing to its spigot, and let it start filling the bottling bucket. The spigot was placed perfectly, allowing all but the dregs transfer nicely in just a couple of minutes. When the bottling bucket was full, we slowly stirred the priming mixture into the bucket with the brewer's spoon.

We then swapped the bottling bucket with the fermenter, attached the tubing and bottling wand, and got down to filling bottles. With the big 22 ounce bottles, it went a lot faster than last time, making the new bottles a worthwhile investment. Capping with the new plastic capper we bought was a lot easier than the old metal one—the plastic had a bit more give in it, meaning the capper would bend before the bottle wouldbreak. This time, no bottles were lost to breakage.

Unfortunatley, the two 750ml bottles I had picked turned out to be a bad choice, as their flared necks made it impossible to get a perfect grip with the capper. We fear they might not be sealed correctly, but at least it is just two bottles. Quite a shame we won't be using them again, as the bottles are quite nice.

Once full, we put the bottles back in their box and put them back away in the bathtub to prime and mature for another few weeks. Things were so much smoother this time, and I'm very happy with our new purchases. According to my calculations, the ABV is around 6.43%, which is in the range I was hoping for. The beer tasted pretty damn good, and I'm confident that when I crack the first bottle in a few weeks, the beer inside will be pretty damn decent.

My Second Batch of Homebrew: Phase One (Brewing)

Well, it's been about a year since my wife and I brewed up up first batch of homebrew (you can read all about that saga starting here), and just yesterday we found the time for our follow-up. The last batch was somewhat of a failure, and we still have a lot of it sitting in bottles waiting to be poured out, but we're still optimistic about this batch. We learned a lot of lessons last time, and this time we set out to address each problem we encountered.

For this batch, we decided to go with an India Pale Ale, and due to a lot of turmoil over the last few months, light-heartedly settled on the name FML IPA (if you're unfamiliar with the initials FML, let's just say its shorthand for a feeling of hopelessness). For our recipe, we picked one from Charlie Papazian's The Complete Joy of Homebrewing called "Palilalia India Pale Ale." We made some modifications based on what was in stock at the local homebrew store, and with the intent of kicking the intensity up just a little. Despite the poor results last year, we were a little more adventurous this time, opting to go with malted barley, dried malt extract, and hop pellets, instead of the pre-hopped liquid malt extract and sugar we used last time.

Here's the equipment we used:

• 22 quart kettle
• Large plastic brewer's spoon
• Strainer
• Six-gallon spigoted bucket with airtight lid
• Fermentation lock (aka bubbler) with a stopper to fit the hole on the bucket's lid
• Hydrometer with sampler
• Probe thermometer
• Measuring cup
• PBW cleaner

And here's the ingredient bill:

• 6 pounds of dried Pilzen-style malt extract
• 1 and a half pounds of toasted crystal malt (in a steeping bag)
• 2 ounces of Northern Brewer hop pellets
• 1 ounce of Cascade hop pellets
• 1 packet of dry ale yeast (Safale US-05)
• 2 teaspoons of gypsum
• 5 gallons of drinking water (3 of them chilled)

First up was sanitizing, a subject that caused a lot of headaches last time around. Instead of bleach, this time we used PBW, a non-caustic and bio-degradable cleaner. We added 4 tablespoons of PBW, along with about five gallons of tap water to the fermenter and threw in the lid, the hydrometer, the sampler, the scoop used to add the gypsum, the spoon, and the bubbler assembly. To heat the water a bit to aid in cleaning, we topped the bucket off with about 16 cups of boiling water. We let everything sit for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally with the spoon. (See note at the bottom of this post for a big mistake we made in this step...)

While we were waiting for the PBW to do it's thing, we started the brewing process. Up first was the mini-mash, where we steeped the malted barley. We added roughly one and a half gallons of drinking water to the kettle, and added the steeping bag full of malted barley. We brought the temperature up to about 160 degrees and held it there for around 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, the bucket, and everything inside were ready to be rinsed off and the steeping bag was ready to be removed. We used the (now clean) brewer's spoon to agitate the steeping bag to help get all of the sugary goodness out. We removed the steeping bag from the water and allowed it to drain, and then pressed it against the side of the kettle to get as much water out as possible. We then poured about 8 cups of boiling water over the bag to sparge, and again pushed the bag against the side of the kettle until it was dry.

Now it was time to add the dried malt extract (DME), hops, and gypsum. We tore the DME bags open and slowly stirred the contents into the wort. I'm not going to lie, at first it seemed like getting that much dried malt to dissolve in a little less than two gallons of water did not seem possible. But, I trusted in my recipe and went ahead and added the two ounces of Northern Brewer hops and the two teaspoons of gypsum and turned up the heat to get everything to a boil.

Once the heat came up and approached boiling, with the aid of some rather stern stirring, the DME started to dissolve nicely. Once it was boiling, there were a few times where the wort threatened to boil over the kettle, but judicious stirring and removing the kettle from the heat kept everything inside the pot. 60 minutes of boiling, and a beerish odor to saturated the entire house, then ensued.

Toward the end of the boil, we prepared a cup and a half of boiling water in my measuring cup and allowed it to cool to around 105 degrees. It took a little longer than we had expected to cool, so next time we'll have to start this earlier. Once it came down to temperature, we added the yeast, covered the cup with foil, and let it rehydrate for about 20 minutes.

About one minute before the boil was over, we added the Cascade hops (they smelled excellent), as per the recipe. Then, we took the kettle off the heat, and put it in the kitchen sink, along with as much water and ice would fit. We started to cycle the water out of the sink, replenishing it with fresh water and ice every five minutes, and the temperature dropped slowly, but surely, to 100 degrees after 30 minutes or so.

Once the wort had cooled, we added two gallons of chilled drinking water to the fermenter, and began to strain the wort into the fermenter. It took about ten minutes, stirring the contents of the strainer occasionally, to transfer all of the wort to the fermenter. At this point, we poured about 6 cups of hot (but not boiling) water into strainer to sparge off what we could. Then, we topped the fermenter off to five gallons with the rest of the chilled water.

At this point, the temperature was at 72 degrees, and we took a sampling and got a gravity reading of 1.065. The yeast was ready to pitch, so we went ahead and added it, and proceeded to put the lid onto the fermenter. We then put the fermenter in it's new home for the next week or so, in the spare bathroom's bathtub, and attached the bubbler.

Everything seemed to go rather smoothly this time, and the contents of the hydrometer sampler that I sipped actually did taste a little like an IPA, so there's a lot of hope for this batch. I checked on the bubbler this morning, and I'm happy to report that it's already showing plenty of activity.

Now, once again, we wait.

Note: It turns out I got some bad advice, and PBW simply cleans brewing equipment, and does not sanitize (I was told it did both, which is just further proof I should double-check everything I hear on the Internet). So, what that means is that the equipment that has touched the beer so far was not properly sanitized, and it is rather possible that the the beer could pick up an infection from those surfaces. Luckily, I caught this before bottling, and we can properly sanitize everything the beer has yet to touch, reducing the chances that the final product will be infected. At this point, there is nothing to do but hope that the surfaces the beer has touched were clean enough, and that the beer will be okay. Suddenly, FML seems like a very appropriate name...

You can read Phase Two (Bottling) here

If you'd like to catch up on the first batch, Young At Heart Stout, you can read about Phase One (Brewing) here, Phase Two (Bottling) here, and the review of the finished product here.

Homebrewed Young At Heart Stout Review

Brewery: My Kitchen | Beer: Young At Heart Stout
Style: American Stout | ABV: ~3% | IBUs: ~15
Serving Method: 12 oz. bottle poured into pint glass

You can read Young At Heart's Phase One (Brewing) here and Phase Two (Bottling) here

It's been about five months since my wife and I bottled our first batch of homebrewed beer, a Stout named Young At Heart. We chose that name in honor of my father-in-law's heart transplant a few days before we brewed. I'm happy to report that he's out of the hospital, back to work, playing golf once a week, and doing great overall. Hopefully the beer has followed his lead.

While homebrewed beer is generally drinkable after a week or so, the longer you wait, the better it gets (within reason). With all of the concerns I had at bottling time, I decided to give the yeasties plenty of time to do their thing. I've opened a couple bottles along the way just to make sure everything was coming along, but this review is based solely on the beer at five months after bottling.

I'm listing it as an American Stout, just for simplicity's sake. By my calculations, the ABV ended up at just about 3%, obviously not what I was shooting for (you can read more about this issue in Phase Two). Really, as long as it doesn't make me wretch, I'm calling this one a success.

Appearance: Deep black body with no light able to penetrate. There's lots of hiss from the bottlecap upon opening and the massive tan-colored head grows rapidly. It looks like this was just shy of becoming a gusher. Whew.

Aroma: Bitter roasted malt with notes of chocolate and a weird yeasty/fruity smell. Generally thin.

Taste: Pretty thin and bizarre. Malty, with dark fruit and burnt sugar notes and the same yeasty/fruity flavor lurking around the edges. Not a very Stout-like flavor profile. In fact, if given this in a blind taste test, I'd probably end up marking this as a Belgian-style Dubbel (though I'd be far from confident in that guess). No hops or alcohol to speak of.

Mouthfeel: Medium-light body with tons of soda-like fizz. Again, very much wrong for the style.

Drinkability: With a sub-Bud Light ABV and a pretty watery body, this is one of the most drinkable "Stouts" I've tried yet. Of course, there's probably no one that's going to want to keep going after the first one...

Verdict: Well, my real goal for my first batch of beer was to end up with something that resembled beer and didn't make me throw up or turn blind. I've met all three of those strict requirements, so I'm a happy camper. I don't see this recipe ending up in a bidding war from the nation's top brewers, but I think it's a solid enough start for my homebrew career. Next up, an IPA!

Grade: F (But still a success in my eyes!)

My First Batch of Homebrew: Phase Two (Bottling)

You can read Phase One (Brewing) here

Over a week has passed since my wife and I put our first batch of homebrew, Young At Heart Stout, into the hall closet for its fermentation. Within 24 hours, the airlock was merrily bubbling away every five seconds or so. After six days, the bubbles had slowed to a frequency of around 45 seconds. Now, instead of doing what I was supposed to and taking gravity reading each day to see when fermentation bottoms out, I just waited three more days and prepared for bottling. Mistake.

Here's the equipment we used for bottling:

• Five-gallon glass carboy
• Large plastic brewer's spoon
• Bottle washer
• 640 oz. of bottles
• Bottle-caps to match
• Capper
• Hydrometer
• Sampler for hydrometer
• Probe thermometer
• Bottling wand with tubing
• Racking cane with tubing
• Small saucepan
  
• Corn sugar (measured amount for 5 gallons of beer)
• Unscented bleach
  
• Whiskey
  

To get ready to bottle, the first step was the same as phase one: sanitation. Using our handy bottle washer, we rinsed out all of our bottles. I didn't end up drinking as much New Belgium beer as I had planned to, so we supplemented the 48 NB bottles we had with eight big 16 oz. Grolsch pop-top bottles my dad gave me for homebrewing a while back. After rinsing out all of the bottles, we submerged them in the sink (12 or so at a time) with hot water and a splash of bleach. Once the bottles had soaked for around five minutes, we thoroughly rinsed them with the bottle washer again. With all that rinsing, our showers that night, regrettably, were somewhat cold.

Our next step was to sanitize (once again, with a bleach and water mix) everything else that was going to touch the beer: the carboy, the spoon, the tubing, the wand, the racking cane, the sampler, the hydrometer and the thermometer probe. To sanitize the bottle caps, we simply boiled them for around five minutes.

Looking back, we shouldn't have used bleach to sanitize at all, and if we were going to use bleach we should have precisely measured it. Unbeknownst to us, the chlorine in bleach, if not rinsed completely off of equipment, can make the beer taste like band-aids. When siphoning later, I could taste that the beer coming from the tubing was substantially off. I could taste a solid malt background behind the off taste, but it certainly didn't taste like beer.

Once everything had been sanitized and rinsed off thoroughly (or so we thought at least), we boiled the corn sugar in one pint of water for five minutes. After the five minutes was up, we opened the fermentation bucket, took quick hydrometer and temperature readings (1.021 at 61°F) and, without thinking, dumped the corn sugar in. After a minute or so, it dawned on us that we had been expecting the final gravity to drop much more. The starting gravity was 1.043 and, based on what we had read, we were hoping for it to drop about 30 points to around 1.013 or so.

At this point, we started to worry that the fermentation was incomplete or that something else was very wrong. We don't know what happened. Maybe it wasn't done fermenting. As we didn't take consecutive gravity readings, we'll never know now. Maybe the temperature was too cold for the yeast. The packet said 59°F to 75°F and we were probably in that zone, but definitely on the low side. Maybe we stirred the yeast too vigorously. Maybe we didn't add enough malt or sugar. Maybe we added too much water. Maybe the wort got infected somehow. Maybe we didn't boil the mash long enough. Or maybe our hydrometer readings were inaccurate. It is a mystery.

Anyway, the priming sugar was already in the wort, so we decided it was do-or-die. We put the fermenter on the kitchen counter, put the clean carboy on the floor beneath the fermenter, and inserted the racking cane with tubing attached. After washing my mouth with some fine whiskey (my local homebrew shop recommended this step), I started the siphon and let the beer flow into the carboy. We left the last inch or so in the bucket, to keep as much of the sludge out of the carboy as possible. Once the siphoning was complete, we stirred the mix gently to distribute all of the priming sugar evenly and moved the carboy to the counter for bottling.

After getting all of our bottles in position we inserted the tubing attached to the bottling wand and started another siphon, noticing that (unexpectedly) there seemed to be some level of carbonation already in the beer. Using the wand, we filled twelve bottles at a time to about one inch from the top giving plenty of room, fearing to much pressure due to the weird gravity reading. Once filled, we capped and boxed the bottles. We're not really all that happy with our capper, as I managed to break the top off of two bottles. While that's not a big percentage, it still seems like enough of a waste to invest in a better capper.

With many hours of work behind us, we put the now boxed bottles back in the closet and crossed our fingers. We still have (at least some) hope, so we're going to just walk away for the next two or three weeks and let the bottles condition. Maybe we'll experience a Christmas miracle and Young At Heart will be brilliant. The operating rule in the world of homebrewing is that you always see the process through and only ever throw a batch away if you're sure it's infected. While it's quite possible that it's infected, we have no reason to believe so, so we're seeing this thing all the way through. After all, we certainly didn't expect great beer our first time. This was supposed to be a learning experience, and it certainly turned out to be one (although a somewhat expensive one).

Here's everything I can think of that we did wrong this time:

• Not checking gravity before bottling
• Using bleach for sanitation
• The bottling wand we used was old and somewhat discolored
  
• Not cleaning, sanitizing, and rinsing lines correctly
• Siphoning by mouth
• Breaking two bottles with the capper
  
• Too much time cleaning bottles
• Not measuring ingredients as precisely as we should have
• Not as careful with sanitation as we could have been
  

And here's what we plan to do differently next time:

• Make sure to take gravity readings until they stabilize
• Use Idophor to sanitize everything
• Buy a new bottling wand with tubing
  
• Rinse the lines thoroughly (maybe buy a new bottle washer with tube attachment)
• Buy spouted buckets to use gravity for siphoning
• Find a better capper
  
• Buy a tub for bottle sanitation and clean bottles in the dishwasher afterwards
  
• Finding a recipe and following it to the letter
  
• Make more of an effort to make sure everything that comes in contact with the beer is sanitized

And now, once again, we wait... but this time also hope not to be awoken to shattering bottles, Homer "Beer-Baron" Simpson style.

You can read the review of the finished product here

My First Batch of Homebrew: Phase One (Brewing)

Like most beer geeks, I've always wanted to take the plunge and brew my own beer. After reading up on the process for years, my wife and I decided to pull the trigger and go for it. After re-reading the instructions for your first batch in Charlie Papazian's The Joy Complete of Homebrewing (the best book I've found on the subject), we were ready to track down the equipment and ingredients we were going to need.

Luckily for us, it turns out there is a terrific brewing supply store just a few miles from our apartment. Brew It Yourself, run by Ray Philbrook, sold us just about everything we needed. Since its generally my favorite style, we decided to make a Stout. And as my father-in-law had a heart transplant Sunday, we decided to name it Young At Heart Stout.

Here's the equipment we used:

• 22 quart kettle (sourced from Wal-Mart)
• Large plastic brewer's spoon
• Six-gallon bucket with airtight lid
• Fermentation lock (aka bubbler) with a stopper to fit the hole on the bucket's lid
• Hydrometer
• Sampler for hydrometer
• Probe thermometer
• Measuring cup
• Unscented bleach

After consulting with the Ray, here is our ingredient list:

• 1 four pound can of Edme Extra Stout malt extract (with hops and yeast added)
• 20 ounces of dark malt extract
• 1 pound of light brown sugar
• 1 packet of dry ale yeast (Safale S-04)
• 5 gallons of spring water (3 of them chilled)

The first step is taking care of sanitation, one of the most important components of quality beer. After a quick rinse in hot water, we filled the fermentation bucket with water and added 2 ounces of unscented bleach. Everything else that would come in contact with the beer: the spoon, the bubbler, the hydrometer, the sampler and even the lid of the bucket were rinsed in hot water and added to the bucket. Meanwhile, we filled the sink with hot water and added the containers of malt extract to make them easier to pour.

After everything had sat for around five minutes, the kettle was put on the heat and the two room-temperature gallons of spring water were added. While the water was heating, we rinsed off the brewer's spoon for use during boiling. Once the water reached a boil, we removed the kettle from the heat and poured in the containers of malt extract and the sugar. The kettle was put back on the heat and monitored until it was once again boiling. At that point, we started a fifteen minute timer and made sure it didn't boil over, stirring occasionally.

At the end of the fifteen minutes, we put the kettle in the sink and filled it with cool water from the tap. The initial temperature was around 145°F. While waiting for it to cool, we rinsed off everything else that had been sanitized and added the yeast packet to one cup of 95°F water. After around thirty minutes, and several water changes, the temperature of the mixture in the kettle had dropped to around 97°F. We poured the three gallons of chilled water into the fermentation bucket and carefully added the cooled mixture.

After a quick stir, we took the temperature and, using the sampler to take a sample, took a quick gravity reading. The final temperature before initial fermentation was 66°F and the original gravity clocked in at 1.043 (adjusted for temperature). Next, we gently poured the yeast slurry into the bucket. After sealing the lid tight, we attached the bubbler (filled with water) and moved the fermenter to the hall closet.

Now we wait...

In about a week, when it's time to bottle, we're going to need to have about 55 twelve ounce bottles ready to accept the beer. A long time ago, I decided that I wanted to use New Belgium bottles, so I've been saving them off and on for a while now. I'm about twenty bottles short, so I guess I'm going to have to get drinking.

You can read Phase Two (Bottling) here

You can read the review of the finished product here