Sorry for being so quiet recently. Entertaining friends, catching up on sleep as well as the fact that not much has been going on during the secondary fermentation. Well, all of that is changing today. Today has been declared bottling day at the Bell brewery! As I sit here at the moment, things are going pretty well. I started with getting the bottles sterilized. I used to immerse them in a solution of chlorine bleach and then rinsed them to do this, but I found that another way to sterilize them is to place them in an electric dishwasher and run it without any soap. The drying cycle is hot enough to sterilize them. So, after washing all the breakfast dishes, I emptied the dishwasher and placed all of the bottles in it with the neck down onto the wire posts in the dishwasher basket and ran them through a cycle. Next, I disolved five ounces of priming sugar in about 2 cups of water and boiled it for a few minutes, covered it and am letting that cool. I took about 20 bottle caps and placed them into a pot of boiling water as well. They are now cooling too. The bucket that I will bottle from is filled with a solution of chlorine bleach right now and I am about to rinse it out.

The best news is that I measured the specific gravity of the beer and found it to be 1.00 (the initial reading was 1.038). This means that my beer will be about 5 % alcohol by volume. That's about what I was shooting for, so from that perspective it is looking good.

Got to get back to the project now. Siphons to sterilize and rinse, rinse the bucket I will bottle from, siphon the beer into the bucket from the carboy after the priming sugar has been dumped into the bucket, Finally bottle filling and capping. I will be back here with details later.


...later...

Well, I filled twenty four 22 ounce bottles and one pint glass (I had to taste it and see the color). The taste is slightly bitter, though not unpleasent. It has a nice hoppy aroma. Of course it isn't carbonated yet since the priming sugar ferments in the bottles to provide that. All in all, I think it will be a decent batch. Lots of cleaning left to do. I will probably update my blog tomorrow with pictures of the bottling process.

I like your beer mug

I have updated my blog with the pictures I took during the bottling process. You can click on it to view.

Robert --

LOL -- and I thought I was the only one to dissassemble my electric fans and clean them that way. It really does work great!

I sure wish I could share my batch with eveyone on the WCG, but I don't think 24 bottles will do it. My girlfriend is even planning a party for when it is ready. I think she thinks it's a whole keg the way she is talking. She and I could knock off half my batch in an evening and she wants to share it with the neighborhood. Lucky for me that she doesn't have a taste (yet) for heavier and stronger beers. It is very likely that she will have one bottle just to be polite and then switch to watered down American beer.

Anyway, it will be at least two more weeks before it is ready. I am guessing that I will probably wait until our Labor Day weekend (Labor Day here is the first Monday in September -- this year it is the 5th). I will probably be grilling Bratwurst and my own Sauerkraut recipe that day. If you ever want to cook up the best Sauerkraut in the world, you should try my recipe. I have had a number of friends from Germany tell me that it is the best Kraut they have ever tasted. The recipe is as follows:

Ingredients
8 Pounds Sauerkraut (about 4 Kg.)
1 Pound Bacon (about 1/2 Kg.)
1 Pound Brown Sugar (about 1/2 Kg.)
2 Brown Onions (about 2 -- LOL)
½ Cup Water (about 125 ml.)
1 Tablespoon Caraway Seed (about 15 grams)
(I hope all of the metric conversions are right -- please check them out to be sure)
Directions
1. Dice Bacon and brown in skillet. Drain and set aside.
2. Dice Onions and brown in skillet and set aside.
3. Thoroughly rinse Sauerkraut and place in pot.
4. Add Brown Sugar to pot with ½ cup water. Mix in Bacon, Onions and tablespoon of Caraway Seed. Cover and cook over low heat for about an hour or so, stirring occasionally.

You might even want to cook it one day and then let it sit overnight before warming it and serving the next day so that all of the flavors meld. It is best served with bratwurst first boiled in beer for a half hour or so and then browned on a grill. Of course, the best beverage to serve with it is beer.

Prosit,

Robert --

I think the color is pretty much right on. The camera I use is an old Canon PowerShot S-100 Digital Elph. I think I have had it for about five years now. It shoots 2.1 megapixel frames and I have held objects up to pictures I took of them and been amazed at the accuracy of the color. Another nice feature about the camera is that it is so easy to carry around as it is just about the same size as a pack of cigarettes. Very easy to throw into a pocket and carry with you.

By the way, writting up the recipe for the sauerkraut last night made me hungry, so I got some out of the freezer from the last batch I made (it stores frozen very well) and a couple of bratwursts for dinner last night.