Greetings from Maine! It’s looking like another beautiful day here as it continues to be much warmer than I anticipated. There should be plenty to share from this trip in the coming weeks.
On to the next step for my Honey Porter.
It happened to work out perfectly that I was able to bottle the day before leaving to go to Ithaca. That was important to me because I was scheduled to see family and friends along the way and wanted to drop off a few bottles if I could. I also did not really want to leave it all alone in the carboy while I was gone. Not sure why, but I felt more comfortable to have it bottled while I was away. Hopefully I will return to no exploded bottles!
The night before sanitized everything that I was going to need, including all of the bottles, and made sure that nothing was missing. When the day came I rinsed the bottles in hot water and allowed them to air dry utilizing the top rack of my dishwasher (which was run before to ensure cleanliness). It worked well because I was able to allow them to dry without the mouth of the bottles coming into contact with anything. I will be looking into a bottle washer because it was somewhat of a pain to rinse that many of them using the kitchen sink.
Taking a bath
I brought a few cups of water to boil and then added the corn sugar, allowing that to boil for a minute or so. After that it was cooled to below 80 degrees. The mixture was then poured into the sanitized bucket. These additional sugars give the remaining yeast something to eat while in the bottle and provide the carbonation for the finished beer. It is a good idea not to exceed the recommended amounts because too much carbonation will likely lead to exploding bottles.
The contents of the secondary fermenter was siphoned into the sanitized bucket, leaving behind the last bit containing the spent yeast at the bottom. The process of transferring incorporates the simple syrup evenly. The sanitizing tube and bottle filler were attached to the spigot on the bucket (now on the counter) and bottle filling went on rather smoothly. Filling the bottle to the top was the way to go since removing the bottle filler leaves the proper amount of space at the head.
It almost transfers itself.
Looks good so far
Leaving some behind
Into the bottle
During this process I also pulled a bit off to the side to give the hydrometer a go again. Shortly there after it fell into the sink and broke! As a result I really do not know the final alcohol content and I need a new hydrometer before starting the next batch. I guess I will use the previous reading as a ballpark estimate.
The bottle caps were boiled for five minutes to sanitize and capping went very smoothly. It was actually the most fun part knowing that the end was near. Now I wait. The recipe suggests a shelf time of three weeks, though I will likely sample a few along the way to see what the development is like. Everything tasted OK when I bottled so hopes are fairly high for a good first (bottled) homebrew.
Getting closer
Bottled at last
Stay tuned!
awesome! looks great! kinda cool to be to sample the product as it “matures.”