What a long beer day. It began with me cleaning bottles for the bottling of the Altbier. I got together what appeared to be a little over 5 gallons worth of bottles. 8 of these bottles were the plastic PET bottles from the Mr. Beer kit. I should drink from these first. Long term storage in plastic is not as good as glass. I filled the bathtub with warm water and added three scoops of the oxygen based cleaner and submerged all the bottles in it. I also dunked in a soaked equipment I was going to need for the day (thief, tubing, siphon, etc.). Also, I filled the bottling bucket with warm water and dumped a couple of scoops of oxygen based cleaner in it and moved over near the dog food and let it soak.
After a few hours I emptied the bucket and gave it a light sponge cleaning. I then moved over to the tub and removed the bottles first. I made sure to empty the bottles until they were about 1/3 full and then I covered the opening with my hand and shook the crap out of it before emptying the remainder of the water. My thinking here is that any yuckies that have been soaking but not dislodged would become dislodged by the vigorous shaking. I moved all the bottles to the kitchen. Then I emptied the water out of the equipment that was in the tub and emptied the tub water.
I decided to move the fermenter out of Ellie's closet to the kitchen. As I was doing this my dad knocked on the door. We were going to do the rest together. I expected my sister to come but he said she wasn't going to make it. Half an hour later she arrived at the door. So that was nice. Ellie even joined in. So, it was a happy family event.
I mixed up 2.5 gallons of santization solution (starsan) and poured about a gallon of it in the pitcher I used to water the dogs with. I then used this pitcher to put some of the solution into each bottle. This was messy. Thankfully I had a towel to clean up but I need to get a smaller funnel. After they all had some solution in it we covered the end with our hands and shook it up to get the solution everywhere in the bottle.
Then we moved to preparing the priming solution. I got 2 cups of water and heated it up to a boil. We then added 4oz of corn sugar to it and let it boil for 10 minutes. While this was going on I sanitized the equipment (tubing, siphon, bottle wand, etc.). After that we got the thief out and took a gravity reading.
The beer measured 1.012 which surprised me. I last checked it two weeks ago and it measured 1.017. Two weeks ago, the beer was two weeks old. So that means from the two weeks mark to the four week mark the yeast continued to work away. I figured it would be done after two weeks. Interesting that different yeast ferment quite differently. This yeast was very aggressive for the first few days (we blew off the air lock) and then appeared to mellow and continue steadily along for weeks and weeks. Anyhow, this left us with a ABV of about 5.7%. We then passed around the sample and tasted it. It was wonderfully mellow and smooth. No characteristic was overbearing. I think it will be the best beer yet.
So then we got the siphon into the carboy and the bottling bucket in position and we are ready to do this. I put my mouth to the siphon and blow (not suck as before). Lo and behold! The beer begins to flow into the bucket. After about half a gallon we hear leaking like someone taking a piss. I had opened the valve on the bottling bucket to sanitize it and had forgotten to close it. Thankfully, I was thinking ahead and had put a towel on the kitchen floor so there was no mess to clean up later. Yeah team!
So after 1-2 gallons had been transferred I had dad pour in the priming solution. We got about 4.5 gallons of beer out of the fermenter and into the bucket. Then we moved the bucket up to the island in the kitchen (which is where the fermenter was) and started hooking up tubing and the filling wand.
Dad really started to get involved here by getting the PET bottles emptied of the sanitization solution, dunking the tops of them in the sanitization solution, and handing them to me to fill. Once I filled them I handed it back to him and he would screw on the cap which had been soaking in the sanitization solution that was in the pitcher. This went on until we were done with the PET bottles. Then we moved to glass bottles and Ellie got in the fun. She would empty the solution out of the bottles, dunk the top in sanitization solution that was in the pitcher, and hand it to me. I would fill it and hand it to dad. Dad would then cap the bottles. We made sure to dunk the bottle capper in sanitization solution and got the caps from the pitcher holding sanitization solution (I had put them there an hours or so earlier).
It was around this time that Tom showed up. He was on his way to Vegas because his dog was entering an agility competition. We decided to do a beer exchange. He brought over a couple and I sent him off with two bottles of Light Ale and one large bottle of our newly bottle Altbier. I tried to bottle some of the Bodacious Brown from the keg but that just made a huge mess. Tom said I should just pour it in a glass and give to him. I did. He seemed to like it. So, Tom hangs with my family and I while we drink some beer. They all left at about the same time and I cleaned everything up and got it back in the garage. Cleaning the fermenter was interesting. The slurry was not as solid and sludgy as before. This yeast slurry was loose and liquidy. It allowed me to just turn it over and empty it out. I then filled the fermenter up with water and added a couple of scoops of oxygen cleaner and let it sit all night.
Just as soon as I finished with all that, my buddies came over for a beer party. A good time was had by all. We ate tri-tip, beans, chips, etc. and watched Jackass 3. Ellie talked to Wendy for a bit. We drank all of the Light Ale that was in the chest freezer. Only two bottles of that batch remain in the cupboard. I would say we drank about 1/3 of the keg.
I tried to pay attention to the comments about the beer throughout the night. The Light Ale got another "it smells good" comment from Zack. Yes it does Zack. Yes it does. That must be it's fifth or so person to say that. I find that fascinating. That that many different people would have such a similar thing to say about a beer. Anyhow, I heard some folks say they would be willing to pay money for the beer. I heard Zack say that the Light Ale was still a little flat. I wouldn't disagree.
My critiques are that the Bodacious Brown is too hoppy in the aftertaste. Not horribly so but enough to matter. It made the beer slightly bitter. Again, this is in the aftertaste and not something you detect the instant the beer hits your mouth. Also, the hops smell was pleasant but not overbearing. The color was dark and it didn't end up as clear as I thought it would be. It kind of had a haze to it. The body was perfect.
The Light Ale was, well, light. I felt that it needed more body. Also, I think I need to add more priming sugar to my beer. This was bottled weeks ago. It should be fully carbonated at this point. As previously stated it smelled awesome. It had a pleasantly perfect balanced taste in terms of malt/bitter. It had a lovely light golden color that was optimally clear. I don't like perfectly clear beer. The world is not perfect. I don't think my beer should be either. It should have a little character. Having said all that, it was pretty damn clear. People must have liked it though. It's all gone.
Jackass 3 was a lot of fun. I recommend it if you liked any of the other Jackass movies. It was their best yet.
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