bottling day
last night was the second to last step in my first batch of beer! the primary and secondary fermentations seemed to go well and the only thing standing between me and 48 bottles of what i’m christening the thomas muir ale is now a few short weeks while the priming sugars kick the yeast back into gear and the pressure builds in the bottles. i ran the syphon while tanya worked the capper and the assembly line worked pretty well. a few things i’ll try to do differently on the next batch include…
- time - brewday took a lot longer than i expected! a lot of this had to do with getting 5 gallons of water to boil, but planning on it taking 5 hours rather than about 3 will definitely help.
- syphoning tips - during tre transfer from the primary fermenting bucket to the glass carboy in week 1, i actually stuck my hand in the beer once. luckily i had managed to dump a ton of bleach on myself shortly beforhand so the effects on the batch should be minimal. right??
- bottling is messy business - i probably spilled a bottle worth of beed on our kitchen floor. oops!
brewing beer is a totally fun experience and surprisingly scientific process that i would encourage anyone to try. now i just hope this first round of scottish ale is half worthy of its namesake.