King of Jeers

Bottling day!

I noticed a few days ago that the airlock has receded, which indicates to me little activity and otherwise ready to bottle.  So I gently (as much I can with such a heavy carboy) moved the brew to the top of the dishwasher.  Meanwhile, I also sanitized and set to dry the bottles (and beaker) I will need.

All settled down

Bottles washed

Next up…sanitize and rinse the primary fermentor, as I will need to cook up a sugar mixture and stir it in (and since the carboy has sediment, stirring that would be a bad idea).  Once boiled, I added the sugar mixture to the bucket, and set up the siphon.

While that was happening, I filled the beaker with the beer (from the siphon) and tested the specific gravity (to also gain an alcohol content).  Started at 1.035, now 1.010 which converts (4.5 – 1.3) to 3.2%?  I guess I will use the content noted on the box (4.8%), since I did not alter the recipe.

Specific gravity reading 1.010 – very much ready to bottle

Siphon back into the primary fermentor with the sugar mixture.

Once the carboy is empty, I will drop that to the floor, and then stir and plunk the bucket where the carboy was, and reset the siphon hose for the bucket.  I don’t have pictures for this part, as it is quite time sensitive, but I am now filling the bottles, capping them, and adding them to the crates.

Finally, after quite a bit of cleanup, I can add the labels (encountered a printer alignment problem so I will have to finish the labels at a later point).