Belgian Double - Bottled
Brewing No Comments »I bottled up the Belgian Double today after a week in the fermenter. The author of the recipe indicated that a secondary wasn’t necessary but would help settle out some of the sediment. I took a chance and just bottle it up today, final gravity was 1.016. I added 6 oz of priming sugar to the beer per the recipe.
I think I have my bottling system down now although it still is a pain. First thing I do is a full field day of my bathroom, top to bottom, everything. I make sure to scrub the tub particularly well. After the initial cleaning is done, I then douse the tub in straight bleach and scrub it again, then rinse thoroughly. Once that’s done, I then fill up the tub and put in the sanitizer, about 1 lb of the One Step. I haven’t actually done the math of how many gallons of water the tub holds to how much One Step to add, but about a pound gives the same consistency as when it is measured exactly in a fermenter bucket so I stick with that. The next step is to add all my gear and bottles into the tub and let it sit for a few minutes to sanitize. I then take out the bottling bucket and rinse it to get it out of the way, then start on the bottles. While the instructions for One Step indicate rinsing is unnecessary, I don’t want any of that crap in my beer so I start to empty the bottles of the sanitizer and move them a few at a time to the kitchen sink. Once there, I have a bottle jet attached to the faucet to give each bottle a good rinse. Then I let them dry on the bottle tree while siphon the beer into the bottling bucket. I use a small strainer I have to strain the beer before going into the bottling bucket just in case there are any big chunks of hops or yeast that come out. I add the solution of priming sugar and water to the bottling bucket first, then fill it with beer. The next step is to wash out the fermenter as it will serve as my seat for the bottle filling. Once done, I move the bottling bucket onto the counter, attach the tubing and racking cane to the spigot and then setup the bottles. I line up 12-16 bottles, depending on type and start to fill. Although I recently upgraded to a “better” spring loaded racking cane, I found the original that came with my brewing kit works better as it does not have a spring and I can just set it in the bottle and let it go. For Grolsh type bottles, I just fill, move to the next and cap while I’m filling the next one. For the 22oz capped bottles, I have enough time while filling one bottle to cap the previous bottle so I get it all is one pass. One that run of bottles is done, I rinse off each bottle, let them dry for a couple of hours and box up and put in my closet. When everything is done, I clean it with soap and water and then let sit in the tub o’ sanitizer again, rinse and let dry. All ready for the next batch.