I just bottled my first 5 gallon beer YEAH. I have done several Mr. Beers in the past, but those were all using plastic bottles.

Thinking it wouldn’t take more then an hour and a half, I started getting all my bottling supplies prepared. I got 54 bottles ready, sanitized them using star-sans, boiled my 5oz of sugar, transferred my Irish red from the carboy to the bottling bucket (sanitized). I started bottling, spilled a little here and there, but I thought overall pretty good.

I ended up with 51 bottles, which I thought was awesome for my first batch.

Took the first 36 bottles down stairs to my unfinished basement (had boxes from previous 12 packs). Then I was going to take the last of the bottles down stairs. I had 12 bottles which were in two 6 packs (in a plastic bag) in one hand, and in the other hand a 6 pack (3 full/3 empty). I made it about 1 step and the bottom of the 6 pack gave away. All six bottles went down the stairs, 2 of the full ones broke, and I think 1 of the empty ones broke. Beer and glass all over, good thing the basement is unfinished, but still made a huge mess and this is at about 10:15 at night, and I was ready to go to bed. Over an hour later, I am finished cleaning up the mess.

I was too frustrated to take any pictures of the mess!

The bad, I lost two bottles of beer.
The good, I still have 49 bottles of beer.

I put them all in totes just in case of bottle bombs, taking no chances with this.
Just wanted to share my first bottling experience.
The end

New Beer Kit Part 2

January 23rd, 2013 | Posted by tonyscha in Personal - (1 Comments)

So, since this is my first brew, I thought I would show what I have done. Moving from the primary to the secondary (carboy). 

 

 

Full carboy, almost 5 gallons.

Drew a little for tasting, unbelievably awesome. Cant wait for it to be carbonated and cold.

Sludge, glad this settled out.

 

I will post some more pictures when I get around to bottling.

New Brew Kit

January 23rd, 2013 | Posted by tonyscha in Personal - (0 Comments)

Look at what came home with me, a new bigger brewing kit! I received the Mr. Beer kit for my birthday, while it worked great, most of the brewing community does everything in 5 gallons batches, so I have decided to take brewing to the next level.

Brewers Best Kit
Strainer
Spoon
Ingredients to make an Irish Red Ale

Specialty grains before steeping.

Sorry, a little fuzzy, but steeping the grains.

Science!

More active science!

 

More to come!

Mr. Beer Kit

June 26th, 2012 | Posted by tonyscha in Personal - (1 Comments)

For my birthday, I got a Mr. Beer kit. I wanted to get into brewing, but didn’t want to take the leap into a expensive kit, so this turned out to be a great gift.

I brewed the Cowboy Lager first, and it turned out really good. Here is a picture, it has a little yeast from the bottom of the bottle, normally its not so cloudy.

Just brewed the Blonde Ale, look for a status update in about a month.