Two weeks down, two to go.
Yesterday I racked and bottled my first batch of beer. Racking is the process in which the beer is moved from the fermenter into a temporary container, where it is mixed with sugar which will kick off the carbonation process once bottled.
Everything appeared well with my nut brown ale. When I popped the top of the fermenter, I was greeted by the pleasant smell of a healthy, growing brown ale. As I moved it to my bottling bucket, I took a small sip. The taste was terrific, although at room temperature and with no carbonation, it wasn’t exactly ready-to-drink.
My only hiccup came in getting the beer into the bottle. I don’t have a bottling tube, and using the long tubing from the siphon was unwieldy, and I feared not terribly sanitary. So I just used the spigot on the bottling bucket, which may have presented too much oxygen into the process. I guess I’ll find out in a couple weeks when I stick it in the fridge and then drink it up.
I had a tentative name in mind, but made an adjustment yesterday. I’m pretty pleased with what I came up with. Today I designed some labels and ordered them. All systems are go, providing the bottles don’t explode because I miscalculated the timing on bottling.
Just another reason for my beer-loving readers to visit Indy, so they can try it for themselves!
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