Bottled it. 40 times.

I decided to bottle the second batch yesterday. There didn’t appear to be much happening in terms of gas being released, although it did go quiet after the first day of fermentation. So, I rinsed out my 40 Wychwood bottles a second time, left them draining on the bottle tree, and got the batch ready to bottle.

The second bucket I was going to use was again stuck in a shed and needed a good clean out, but unlike the barrel cleaning the bucket was much, much easier. Being able to actually get in with your arm and do a bit of scrubbing is much better than trying to use a pipe. I also replaced the tap with a “little bottler” tap I got with my last order from H&G – this came with a bottling wand, so bottling should be easier, plus I didn’t need to worry so much about cleaning the old gunky one.

Having a bottling bucket is definitely the way to go. There are several advantages, but mainly that the priming sugar solution can be siphoned into, leaving most of the sediment in the fermenting bin. No worrying about stirring up the sediment if adding the sugar to the fermenter.

After filling a couple of bottles I tried capping them. The capper I bought is a hand-held version which grips around the neck of the bottle. This is when I found the 40 bottles I had collected had the wrong neck for the capper. It was still possible to cap, but it was both an effort and a faff. I called in reinforcements.

With my reinforcements the process took somewhere between 30 and 50 minutes, though a lot of that was discussion on how best to make the capper work on the bottles. Anyhow, we got there and 40 capped bottles sat looking very inviting. There was enough left over in the bottling bucket for a quick taste – and I was surprised it tastes a bit like a cola. A flat, warm cola, but nevertheless. I’m hoping this will change a bit with carbonation and ageing in the bottles, but as things stand this young and flat beer tastes better than the kit I brewed first, which is still sat in its pressure barrel, left to clear as it’s still cloudy even after three weeks. It does taste better than it did to begin with, though.

I put the bottles into the Wychwood boxes and put them in a warmish room for a little while. I need to find out again whether they clear, then I move them somewhere cooler or whether they clear when I move them somewhere cooler. Either way, I’m hoping these will be ready by next weekend.

Lessons learned this time round?

1. Buy a bench capper, or invest in a decent kegging system.
2. My 30ppp beer tastes better (at the moment) than the kit’s 60ppp beer (at the moment).

What’s next? Wait to see how this turns out, then make another batch. I’m going to try adding the extra 500g of spraymalt I orginally intended on using for priming, and use the Fuggles hops to compare to Cascade. Not sure about the rest yet – I think I might go for something a bit lighter, though a simple comparision with this recipe changing only a couple of ingredients would also let me see how each effects the overall taste.