Friday, January 16, 2009

Bottle Cap Bob!

Bottling:
     After finally getting all the labels and crap off the bottles, I sanatized them in the dishwaster and sanatized the bottling bucket.  I racked the beer from the secondary fermenter to the bottling bucket.  Into the bottling bucket I added 3/4 of a cup of corn sugar.  Corn sugar (dextrose) is a simple sugar easily broken down by the yeast.  The addition of dextrose before bottling the beer will alow the remaining yeasts to reactiveate and produce some more of those lovely CO2 bubbles that make the beer taste like beer, and not flat beer that's been sitting out all night after a frat party. 
      All of this assumes of course that you can actually get the stupid caps on the stupid bottles once they are full of beer.  Of all the things I leanred from David and Mike, getting bottle caps on bottles was not one.  Clearly, it should have been.  Enter my dad, Bottle Cap Bob.

Bob to the Rescue!
    My parents came over to help me put some beer in some bottles, which I thought was very nice of them!  They even brought wings over!  I managed to get the beer in the bottles with little mess or issue.  I could not for the life of me get the "red baron" bottle capper to crimp the stupid bottle caps.  At this point I feel it necessary to explain the oxygen is not good for the beer in this stage on its way to delicious-ness.  The longer it is exposed to oxygen, the more potential problems.  If Pa hadn't been around to figure out the bottle capper, I'd be stuck with a lot of open bottles of flat beer.  Thanks Dad!

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