Bottling day, Ewan's Winter Ale

It's been exactly two weeks since I boiled and fermented the then-untitled Ewan's Winter Ale (named in honor of my son, Ewan, born in August 2011), which means today it was time to bottle!

Yesterday I prepped the bottles by soaking them for several hours inside of a plastic bin filled with hot water and Oxiclean. After the soak, I removed the labels, checked each for gunk and other residue, and set them aside for sanitizing.

This morning I took the freshly cleaned bottles and put them in the dishwasher for sanitizing prior to bottling. As the dishwasher ran, I collected my supplies needed to bottle (auto-siphon, stir paddle, bottle caps, bottle capper, and bottling bucket) and started a batch of warm water for even more sanitizing.

On the stove, I set two cups of water to boil with the bottling sugars. Adding sugar to the wort prior to bottling is what gives it the necessary carbonation to produce a frothy head.

I racked the wort into sanitized the bottling bucket, poured in the sugar water (after it had cooled to room temperature), and gently stirred to mix.

Then, we bottled.

Kelley and I filled approximately 4.5 gallons of sugared wort into 48 bottles of varying sizes, leaving enough headspace in each bottle to minimize the chance of explosion.

The bottles will sit undisturbed for about 3 weeks before they're ready to go, but I couldn't help but try a few ounces on bottling day to see how it tasted. The verdict: it tasted like beer, sort of, but very weak, like it was from a can that had been sitting out overnight. I'll assume it will get better as I let it age for a few more weeks in the bottles. I hope.

Update:

After posting this on Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit, I got some good feedback. One, the bottles can safely be filled to the top -- didn't know that. Two, the best way to mix in priming sugars is to pour it into the bottom of the bottling bucket prior to racking, then rack into it. Makes sense. I'll be doing both next time.

Brew Day, Untitled Winter Ale (9/11/11)

The boil

The boil went well. No boil-overs, the dry malt and hops mixed well, and timing was right. I seeped a bag of Belgian specialty grains (shown at right) up to about 165 degrees, then pulled and added the dry malt and hops and brought to a boil. Boil lasted for exactly one hour, with Irish Moss going in at 45 minutes elapsed, finishing hops at 55, and a mixture of cinnamon, allspice, and crystalized ginger at 58.

Due to evaporation, I topped off the pot just prior to ending the boil with more boiling water (from a separate pot) to bring the volume back to the original five gallons.

The chill

The wort, still in-pot, was transferred to a sink-filled ice bath to drop the temperature. I had to leave immediately to congratulate Dan and Nicole on the birth of their second child, Maggie, and when I returned approximately 2 hours later, the wort had only chilled to about 105 degrees. Panicked, I added more ice and was able to bring the temp down to about 90 in another 20 minutes. I had a feeling, however, that the wort way at the bottom of the pot (where the ice was packed) was much colder, so I figured the average of the two, plus the aeration during transfer, would bring me down to an acceptable temp to pitch the yeast.

The racking

With the surface temp around 90, I racked the beer into the main fermentor (a 5 gallon glass carboy) using an auto-siphon. Transfer went well, and as I got lower down into the pot, the wort felt much, much cooler to the touch through the plastic hosing.

Wort racked to the main fermentor, I pitched the yeast, poured some vodka in my airlock, and put the carboy in a closet for safekeeping.

I'd guess that the average temp was around 70-80 degrees prior to pitching the yeast.

Fermenting

Approximately 10 hours after racking to the carboy, the airlock was very active, with a bubble per second on average. The fermenting wort appeared very active, and a nice head of froth had formed on top. The carboy is sitting in a closet with an air temperature reading just under 75 degrees. Hopefully the temp will remain stable, as this is on the high end of where it should be.

I plan on pulling another gravity test after 6 days of fermenting, on September 17th.

What went well

• The boil was great, no problems there.
• Racking was fairly painless. Auto-siphon worked well.

What didn't go so well

• Cooling could have been much better. Next time I may have a wort chiller on hand, or maybe just a few 2 liter bottles (sanitized, of course) filled with ice to dump in.
• Disorganized. Since it was my first brew, I felt overwhelmed with the number of tools and contraptions my kit came with, and next time I know I won't need every single gadget in the kitchen at the same time.
• Sanitation. Being how important having well-sanitized equipment is, I think I need to spend more time making sure everything is properly sanitized. I don't necessarily think I had a problem this time around, but I won't be that surprised if foreign bacteria show up. Time will tell.

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Glowczewsky Untitled Winter Ale

Initial ABV: 6.2%

Final ABV: TBA

Fermentation notes:

• Day 1: Very active bubbler, frothy head. Very active, swirling wort
• Day 2: Bubbling was slightly less active, though still strong. Wort still swirling. Head growth doubled.
• Day 3: Bubbling even less active -- a bubble every 2-4 seconds. Very little activity in the wort. I expect things to really slow down tomorrow.
• Day 4: Airlock bubbling about once a minute, maybe even less often. Virtually no activity in the wort.
• Day 5-14: no activity at all.

I plan on fermenting for two weeks, which means bottling will happen on September 25th.