Bottling the American!

So after much waiting, we were able to bottle our American Lager! except now we have to wait two more weeks for the beer to bottle age... The process was pretty easy, just wash, fill and cap. We had to get a little creative at times to be able to fill the bottles. Here are the pics:

 

The bottle washing process proved to be the hardest. We first soaked the labels in really hot water and hoped the labels would just peel off; not the case. We got some of the labels off but a ton of them tore and they all left the glue behind. I know I wouldn't want to drink out of a glue covered bottle, so I had to find a better way.After some research, I learned from BrewingKB that some baking soda added to the water should do the trick; and.... success! I could literally wipe the labels and glue right off the bottle.

Now that we got our bottles clean, time to put some beer in em!

We were told to use a bottling tube (Basically a siphon hose with a valve for quick shutoff) but, in lieu of that we decided that pouring out beer back into our cooking pot and scooping it up with a mixing bowl to pour would have to do.

We learned quickly that Dan was our bottling guy. I tried on the first two bottles and they weren't TOO bad, however, Dan flew through the bottles faster than Noto and I could fill them.

The First Fist!

Noto and I realized when we were coming to our last few bottles that we didn't have nearly enough bottles, but we kind of knew that from the start. Our trusty guide told us we'd probably be making close to 45 bottles, but we only had 32...So, we decided to make at least one more bottle. I can't think of a more poetic way than with a Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale. That gave us one more bottle, and we still had a ton left to bottle. Time to get ghetto, real ghetto. We had some empty 40's in the recycling which we didn't hesitate once in using. Don't worry we sanitized them, but capping may turn out to be an issue. As some of you may know Hurricanes have twist tops; not ideal for reuse. So We've decided we're going to use those as our testers to make sure the batch is ready for all of our friends and family.

Threw those suckers in a box and now we wait. The unveiling night couldn't be more exceptional either. Super Bowl Sunday. Not to mention I'm a Packers fan. This is going to be great.

So, get excited! and throw down a comment if you want to try some, if you're lucky we'll let ya!!