Bottleneck

Another hydromoter reading and no change from last time so things were  looking pretty good for getting my brew out of the barrel and into bottles. Unfortunately the loose cap on the testing jar let me down again. It wasn't beer thar went everywhere this time though, it was the hydrometer as its glass frame smashed all over the floor. Looks like I need to find somewhere that sells hydrometers...

With that cleaned up I got out my thirty plastic bottles. Not exactly classy but apparently you can't just use any old bottles because they need to be able to cope with the pressure. (I won't ever forget the big cider bomb war of the early 2000s...) Science.

To make sure not to get infected by that dirty bacteria it was time for some cleaning again. Last sachet of cleaning powder from the kit (best be grabbing some more of that) and half filled the laundry sink with cold water and then swished the powder around just like I do with the Napi-San. Although this time it was rubber gloves on to save my soft office hands. I chucked a couple of bottles in the sink and then vigorously went to town on them with the bottle brush. Only one sink in the laundry so had to use the sink and draining space in the kitchen for rinsing. My timing may not have been best as there was jam bubbling away on the stove only centimetres away. It was a self sufficient house today.

Once clean the bottles also had to be sterilised so it was time to clear out the sink of soapy water and fill it with 5l of water to which the steriliser sachet was added and swished around. It was a careful case of removing the bottles from the pyramid without toppling the rest everywhere and then swishing them around in the sanitiser water. The bench in the kitchen was being used to jar jam so the washing machine lid needed to double as a bottle stand for my sanitary bottles. Lids and bottling attachment floated around during all of this too so they should have been pretty well sanitised by the end of it all (as would my t-shirt have been from all the water it had been splashed with too.)

All that cleaning finally finished it was time to finally get some beer in the bottles. Two carbonation capsules in each bottle (I assume they make my beer fizzy). Fortunately they didn't start fizzing straight away. The bottling attachment is a long tube which attaches to the tap. I think it is supposed to have a valve on the bottom so you can just switch on the tap but it only fills when the tube touches the bottom of the bottle. My tube has no valve so I was switching the tap on and off to fill my bottles. Fortunately with the tube on the bottles sat nicely on the floor and I could start filling one as I put the lid on another. Efficient.

The beer wasn't exactly gushing out so I patiently watched each bottle fill up as the level inside the barrel went gradually down. It got a bit worrying towards the end of my 30 bottles as there must have been some sediment stuck in the tap and the dribble became a drip. A bit of swishing the barrel got things moving again. Hope those bottles don't end up half full of grit. Might have to see if someone else wants to try those ones...

Thirty bottles full and it was time to clean out the dregs from the barrel. A bit of a struggle to get the lid off but some wrestling and leverage got me there. It was all pretty rough in there. Some brown liquid swishing around. I'm not convinced the finings did anything. It sure wasn't too clear. Once I tipped the remaining liquid and sediment into the sink it was not too dissimilar too the way beer looks after coming back up again. Smelt similar too. I was pleased to be leaving that stuff behind. Proper cleaning was going to have to wait though. No more cleaning sachets left so a rinse would have to do for one day.

Job well done. Time for a beer. Know where I can get some?