Bottle up and go

I finally got round to bottling the beer. This should have happened weeks ago but I just never got a round tuit. I’ll just pretend it was getting extra matured. The alcohol in the beer will prevent anything growing in it and that air trap should prevent it going sour.

Bottling itself is pretty easy, you just have to sterilise the equipment.

You can basically use any bottle that can withstand a bit of pressure. In the past I’ve used half litre water bottles: these are still l sterile until you open them. But I do admit they look a bit naff. Bene agreed and had thoughtfully bought me a set of beer bottles.

A little sugar is added to each bottle to condition it. Filling the bottles is very easy. The kit comes with a little pump to get things underway. Then, as long as the bottles are below the flask, the beer will literally be pumped into the bottles by gravity. The only thing is you really need two people for this with one filling the bottles and the other holding the pump just deep enough into the beer to keep it flowing so that as little sediment as possible goes into the bottles.

And here’s the end result. A couple of weeks in the cellar and then it’ll be ready to drink.