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Hand mill / grinderRacking, Priming, and Bottling Your Ale

Once your wort has finished fermenting, you will proceed to the priming and bottling stage.

You will know your wort is ready when the airlock shows no activity (no bubbles) and then you wait at least 1-2 days. Keep the ale bucket sealed right up until the day you are ready to bottle. This is a good time to check the final gravity to assure fermentation has completed. When you remove the lid, there should be almost no sign of top-fermenting yeast on the surface.

Hand mill / grinderEquipment Checklist (for 5-gallon batch):

- 48-54 sterile 12 oz bottles (or equivalent in larger bottles)
- Caps, bottle capper
- Racking cane bottle filler, and 1/4" tubing
- Bottling bucket
- 1 1/4 Cups dry malt extract or 3/4 cup corn sugar
- 16-24 oz clean water
- Medium-sized sauce pan

As with all brewing procedures, it is crucial to maintain very sanitary conditions when bottling your beer. Be prepared and do all the steps in tight order.

Procedures:

  1. When you are certain yeast activity has ceased (air lock activity is null), wait at least 1-2 days before bottling. Inspect briefly to be sure yeast activity has ceased on the surface of the beer. If activity is null, proceed. If not, recap the fermentation vessel and wait another 1-2 days.
  2. Place 48-52 cleaned and sanitized bottles into your dishwasher and run a cycle with heated drying.
  3. Pour a little less than 16-24 ozs. of spring water into a medium-sized sauce pan. Place on high heat
  4. Add appx. 3/4 C of corn sugar or 11/4 C. dry malt extract (spray malt). (Some recipes may vary)

    load bottles into dishwasher
    Load 48-52 bottles into your dishwasher after a thorough cleaning.
    		 
    Rack the beer to the bottling bucket
    Rack the beer into the bottling bucket .
    		 
    Trub
    Notice the trub left behind (center of copper coils) as you rack off the wort. This effect is increased by creating a whirlpool as the wort cools from boiling point.

  5. Boil this wort for 10-15 min. Reduce temperature and set it aside (covered) to cool. I put mine into a square tupperware container 1/2-full of ice.
  6. Rack your beer to your sterilized bottling bucket.
  7. Take a final gravity hydrometer reading. Record it with your recipe.
  8. Prepare your bottling stick and tube.
  9. Remove all bottles from dishwasher.
  10. Add the wort mixture you created earlier by decanting the clear wort into the fermented beer. Stir quietly.
  11. Fill all bottles possible.
  12. Cap and label the bottles.

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