Bottling Day

Again I apologize for the lack of updates.  My computer is now fixed, our beer has been bottled, and I'm now engaged.  Basically it's been a busy few weeks.  Last thursday we bottled our first brew, and it's now conditioning in the bottles to build up carbonation.  We tasted a little bit and the hop profile was a lot more dominant this time, so we'll see how it turns out after carbonating and chilling.  It was still tasty.

The bottling process is fairly simple.  After sanitizing all your equipment, you just boil some water and add the proper amount of sugar, mix it all in the bottling bucket, and siphon the beer onto it.  After that's complete and all the sugar is mixed throughout the beer evenly, you use a bottling wand to get the beer into the bottle.  It's basically just a tube with a stopper at the bottom that is held down by the pressure of the beer on top of it.  When you put it in the bottle, the stopper raises, and the beer can flow out.  Then it's just a matter of filling the bottle, capping it, and putting everything away.  Three weeks or so later, the beer is ready to enjoy!  We'll be sure to let everyone know how it turns out, but we're pretty excited about it.

- Adam