Beer Gun!

I received a Blichmann Beer Gun for Christmas this year, and I finally had a chance to hook it up and use it.  This was the first time that I have bottled beer from a keg and it was so easy.  The Beer Gun allows you to shoot CO2 into the bottle to get rid of the air that would oxidize the beer.  Once the bottle is full of CO2 you just pull the trigger and it will start filling from the bottom of the bottle.  So quick and painless.  While I had help with capping the bottles, I could see how the Beer Gun makes bottling easy for one person on their own.  The Beer Gun is also easy to disassemble for thorough cleaning.  I can take it apart and put it back together in a minute or two.

What finally got me off my butt and putting the Beer Gun to use was the National Homebrew Competition.  I am entering My P-Dub Vanilla Stout and Guinea Pig IPA.  I am not expecting to win anything, but I am looking forward to getting feedback.

Bottling the Hop Hammer

Bottled a couple gallons of Hop Hammer tonight. It tasted much better than when I moved it to secondary before dry hopping. There was almost an inch and a half of hop matter in the bottom of the fermenter when I racked it into the bottling bucket. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of it. I also had a final gravity reading of 1.014 which is nine points higher than the previous reading I took. I am not sure what happened last time, but I trust this reading a little more because it is close to what I expected.

Bottling is getting easier and easier the more I do it. I put a towel down to work over this time and that made clean up a breeze. I also worked to make sure the priming sugar was thoroughly mixed throughout the beer. The vanilla stout had some carbonating inconsistencies.

Bottle Washing... ugh

After bottling the vanilla stout, I realized I have once again accumulated a lot of bottles that need labels removed or yeast brushed out. I started by soaking all the bottles to soften up the labels and the yeast. Thankfully this soak will make the labels basically peel off without tearing or leaving behind too much glue. I don't mind the process of getting all the labels off.

Unfortunately, I still have to use my bottle brush to get all this yeast scraped out. I hate trying to get the bottle brush in and out of the bottles. It just flings water and dead yeast all over the me and the kitchen. Time to start a kegging fund...

Bottling Day!!

I was finally able to bottle my vanilla stout. We've had numerous house guests and spent some time sick. I am finally starting to get my bottling process worked out. I had the fewest amount of spilled beer on the kitchen floor to date. Definitely made clean up easier and my wife happier. The beer smelled and tasted great. I am really looking forward to drinking this one.

New Toys!

Real life has gotten in the way of updating the blog, but I come bearing good news! I have a couple new brew toys! I bought a new thermometer which was desperately needed. I also got an immersion chiller. Until I can get some fermentation temperature control figured out the immersion chiller will have a huge effect on the quality of my beer. I will now be able to get the wort down to pitching temperature quickly. No more making tons of ice and sitting around for an hour+ to get the wort to cool.

The cheapest thing I purchased was a little pvc elbow from Lowes for $0.87.

When bottling by myself I have always had difficulty tipping the bucket to get the end of the wort out. Trying to keep the bucket balanced while filling bottles is just asking for disaster. The elbow acts as a dip tube and gets close to the bottom of the bucket. That will still pull the wort out without needing to tip the bucket.

When I bottled my special bitter last night the elbow worked like a charm. No tipping the bucket. It only left a few ounces of beer in the bucket as well as a little crud that came through in the siphon.

Bottling Fun!

Sunday night I had some help bottling. A couple friends were in town and really excited to bottle my apfelwein for some reason. It is amazing how quickly bottling goes when you have a bottling line set up. We got through 61 bottles in about 30 minutes. I forgot to add the priming sugar when moving the apfelwein to the bottling bucket so the first 7 or so bottles will be flat.

I am starting to piece together my next project. I am going to try my hand at a Vanilla Stout. I want to get it brewed so it finishes fermentation by the time I get back from visiting family for the holidays.