Last Friday was when I was supposed to bottle my apple crisp ale. I couldn’t though because the bottle caps had not yet arrived (either had the bottle capper.) Spoiling my plan to have this post appear here yesterday morning and why you are reading a post here on Tuesday. I received the capper on Saturday and the caps showed up on Monday. Seeing as I was already behind schedule I decided that last night had to be the night. With the help of D I sanitized all the instruments, brought the beer out from its dark hiding space and tried to move it into a pot.
Why did it need to go into a pot? Well the pot had some honey in it which I believe is necessary to either sweeten the beer after the yeast has eaten everything or give the yeast a little more to eat, maybe both. I have no idea really this is my first time doing this and I spent more time just trying to get the procedure right without worrying too much about the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ of it all. The hardest part by far was managing the suction in the hose and getting the beer to flow into the pot and afterwards into the bottles. I also had a small problem with some of my bottles, when it came time to cap them. They were screwtops. It only took me breaking one bottle and for D to point this out to me before I figured it out though! So, not a lot of beer was lost nor any additional bottles broken.
All total the one gallon kit made nine beers. One which I couldn’t drink because it had broken glass in it. Two which might become contaminated because I couldn’t cap them all the way. All in all not the most efficient use of my time or money. Beer is cheaper just about anywhere. These cost my, not including labor, more than $4 dollars a bottle. But, the experience of brewing my own beer is priceless, right? RIGHT? Right. Next time maybe I’ll share some with you.
Your blog reminds me of Virginia Woolf–St. Woolf I call her–and her line in THE YEARS about how we shape our adventures which end up shaping us. The risky beer caper sounds funny and difficult, and sad too for the broken glass, but triumphant with the lovely bottles. $4 per bottle doesn’t sound so bad to me. We have a micro-brew ‘library’ in Eugene–the Bier Stein–that ‘shelves’ beer from all over the world. They cost at least $5.50 each.