Bottling Day (Homebrew Day 8)

Last night Sweet Husband took a final hydrometer reading on the beer and decided it was time to bottle the beer.

The hydrometer measures the specific gravity of the beer, allowing you to figure out the alcohol content. When the reading is the same for several days in a row it means it's time to bottle.

This is what the beer looked like when we began.

The beer is syphoned into a bucket for bottling to avoid getting the scummy sediment from the big bottle in the final beer.

The beer flowed into the bucket fairly quickly.

The nutrient rich gook in the bottom of the big bottle went into my garden.

Meanwhile Sweet Husband and Best Man Friend started syphoning the beer into bottles. We've been collecting bottles for a few weeks, but we still ended up having to buy a few.

The bottling was a two person job. Best Man Friend kept the bottles coming while Sweet Husband controlled the hose.

I ran the capper, and Best Man Friend's Nice Girlfriend packed the bottles into waiting boxes.

All told we ended up with 47 bottles--they'll be ready to drink in about 3 weeks!