Monthly Archives: May 2013

The Fermentation

Fermentation 

1. Place brew pot in an ice bath until it cools to 70°F (21°C).
2. Once cooled, place strainer over funnel and pour your beer into the glass fermenter. Yeast needs oxygen. The strainer helps aerate your wort and clarify your beer (as well as catch any sediment from going into the fermenter). Add tap water to bring wort up to 1 Gallon mark if level is low.
3. “Pitch” yeast. (Toss the whole packet in.)
4. Shake aggressively. You’re basically waking up the yeast and getting more air into the wort.
5. Attach sanitized screw-top stopper to bottle. Slide rubber tubing no more than 1” (2.5 cm) into the stopper and place the other end in small bowl of sanitizer. You’ve just made a “blow-off tube”. It allows CO₂ to escape.
6. Let sit for two or three days or until vigorous bubbling subsides. This is when fermentation is highest. You may notice bubbles and foam at the top of the beer. After bubbling calms down, clean tubing and ready your airlock.
7. Sanitize, then re-assemble airlock, filling up to line with sanitizer.
8. Insert airlock into hole in stopper.
9. Keep in a dark place for two weeks without disturbing other than to show off to friends. (If beer is still bubbling, leave sitting until it stops.)
10. In the meantime, drink beer with self-closing swing tops, or ask for empties at a bar that has some. If you have a bottle capper and caps, you can save two six packs of non-twistoff beers instead.

Bottling

Two Weeks Later: Bottling 

1. Thoroughly rinse bottles with water, removing any sediment.
2. Mix remaining sanitizer with water.
3. Fill each bottle with a little sanitizer and shake. Empty after two minutes, rinse with cold water and dry upside down.
4. Dissolve 3 tablespoons honey with 1/2 cup water. Pour into a sanitized pot. You will be siphoning your beer into the same pot in the next steps. Carbonation comes from adding sugar when bottling, so if you filled your jug with less than the full gallon in the last step, use less honey when bottling. Using the full amount can result in your beer being over-carbonated.
5. Siphoning (It all happens pretty fast. You may want to practice on a pot of water a few times.) To see it in action first, watch the How to Bottle video at brooklynbrewshop.com/instructions.
   1. Attach open tubing clamp to tubing.
   2. Fill tubing with sanitizer.
   3. Attach sanitized tubing to the short curved end of your sanitized racking cane. Attach the black tip to the other end – it will help prevent sediment from getting sucked up. It will probably be a snug fit, but you can get it on there.
   4. Pinch tubing clamp closed.
   5. Remove screw-cap stopper and place racking cane into jug, just above the sediment at the bottom (“trub”).
   6. Lower end of tubing not connected to racking cane into sink. Suction will force beer up and through the racking cane and tubing. Open tubing clamp, let sanitizer flow into sink until beer just starts to flow out of the tubing, then clamp shut. Open clamp on tubing, allowing beer to flow into pot with sugar solution. Tilt jug when beer level is getting low, but be careful in not sucking up the trub.
6. Siphon beer from pot into bottles, pinching tube clamp to stop flow after each bottle.
7. Close bottles.
8. Store in a dark place for 2 weeks.