Scott pointed out to me that brewing beer is not for people who don’t like doing dishes. You have to clean and sanitize everything and it is a pain in the ass.
A friend of ours had loaned Scott a bottle tree a few years ago. It sat, full of bottles, in garages and sheds for a few years, until it ended up in the garage of our current house. Because the bottles were full of dust, spiders, and god knows what else, I had to vigorously clean and sanitize them before bottling the beer. I washed and sanitized the bottle tree parts as I went so the bottles had a place to hang out and dry before bottling.
After cleaning and sanitizing the bottles, I added the priming sugar that I had melted in water over the stove to the bottling bucket. I then set everythign up to siphon the beer from the fermenter to the bottling bucket.
Siphoning was another pain. I had some trouble figuring out how to stand, where the buckets should go, and starting the siphon without getting beer all over the place. Scott had to step in to pick up the bottling bucket so i didn’t have to lean over like a weirdo.
If I read my hydrometer correctly, the beer is 6.3% abv, which is close enough for an IPA. I wonder if over-boiling the wort had any impact? I have no idea.
The beer will hang out in the bottles for two weeks and will be fully carbonated and ready to drink by then. We tasted some of it before bottling it and it definitely tasted like an IPA. I think the beer will be successful!
Adventures in Beer Brewing, Part 1, can be found here.
