Home Bottling Line

 

Thuggin it with my Beer Gun, Wurd!

Today was bottling day. I had three kegs that needed to be emptied out to make way for future batches and beer that needed to be bottled for the upcoming comp season. Bottling from kegs is a relatively easy process if you have done your prep work.

The first thing is to make sure your beer is properly carbonated. If it’s overly or under carbonated, forget about it. This may mean you’ll have to try a few pints first but that’s just part of the job.

Work Station with everything I need close by

Second get all your supplies together. Make a work station for yourself with everything in arms reach. Have all your sanitizers, caps, capper, chilled bottles <Trick-Chill your bottles; the beer wont foam up as much if the container they are being transferred to is the same temperature as the beer /endtrick>, beer lines, and a bottling tub ready. I also like to have a sharpie so I can label the beer once I’m done <Confession– I’m kinda dumb so I have forgotten what beer is in what bottle so labeling right away helps me a lot! /endconfession>

I use a Blichmann Beer Gun to bottle my beer. It really is the easiest way to bottle. I used to just connect a piece of keg line from the tap but I was having really inconsistent results with carbonation levels in the bottle. They were usually undercarbonated due to so much foaming and underfilling. The Beer Gun alleviates all this and I have been getting great consistent perfect fills.

Now it’s go time, bottle those suckers up.

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In the end, I bottled up 12 Mjolnirs, 12 Hobbit Sauces, and 3 Seattle Depression Chocolate Coffee Stout before I blew out the kegs.  Now I’m ready for comps and sharing with friends. And with the Oatmeal Stout I made last week almost done, it’s time to figure out what to brew next. Any ideas?

Toasted Oatmeal Stout

Sensing that I was running perilously low on my Chocolate Coffee Stout in the keezer I had no other choice but to spend my day off brewing up an Oatmeal Stout. I consider it a heinous beer crime to not have a steady supply of stout on hand during the winter months. Having a dark glass of smoothness is comforting on a cold winters day and to go without is a thought that I just can’t bear.

So I got to work, with a freezing fog layering my valley and a slippery deck beneath my feet, I lit my strike water and hurried back inside for the long wait of 40 degree water slowly heating to 168. In this time I pulled out the main star of my Stout, the Flaked Oats. Now a trick I learned some time ago is to toast your oats in the oven before going in the mash. I put mine in at 300 degrees and let them roast for about 30 to 40 minutes until they are golden brown and smelling awesome. I have found that by doing this it makes your Oatmeal Stout a little more Oatmeal Cookie like in aroma and flavor. Perfection in my book.

The rest of the brew day went with off without a hitch. One bit of advice though…When brewing outside in sub-freezing tempatures, Don’t neglect your hose!!!! Every half hour or so I will run fresh water to purge the line to avoid ice build up. Before I knew this trick I went to run my imersion chiller and I got nothing due to a frozen hose. Nobody wants a frozen hose.

Get the Recipe

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Pairs Well With Lembas Bread, A Hobbit Sauce IPA Tasting

Hobbit Sauce IPA using all New Zealand Hops.

Yay! It’s done and it’s pretty good. The aroma came out a little lighter than I had hoped but it still smells nice. It has a yummy fruity mellony Honeydew aroma. On the malt side it has a toasty carmel light maltyness and finishes out super dry and make you thirsty for another one. The London Ale yeast really brings out the malt character and gives it a smooth flavor.  This is probably one of the best balanced beers I’ve made and I’m excited to enter it in the IPA Hop Madness Comp next week.

Link To Recipe

Kegging Under Pressure

Kegging my beer is the best thing I have ever done. It’s just one container to clean and sanitize versus 54 bottles.

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It’s super quick and easy but I still stress out over kegging. In fact I put it off as long as I can. It’s nerve racking to put my beer through the potentially devastating process of kegging. I have spent so much time lovingly nurturing my beer to this point. It’s sat happily in it’s temperature controlled environment, free from oxygen and light. The yeast cake sits undisturbed and the beer is crystal clear. As soon as I move it I have to trust that all the steps I took a month prior have been enough to ensure the best quality beer. ( I have issues, I know)

 I’m up against the clock, so last night I had to keg Hobbit Sauce. The beer comp is a couple of weeks away and if its going to be ready I was going to have to do it. My paranoia of course was unnecessary. Everything was just fine. Kegging is super simple but I was still nervous about the first taste of the new recipe

Well… Great Success!

The final gravity came out at 1.009 It’s nice and dry, the aroma is fantastic and it’s well balanced. I’ll have more detailed tasting notes after its been carbonated. But I think we have a winner here folks. I’m going to rebrew it for NHC.