Beer in the Bottles

I bottled my latest batch of beer this morning. It tasted OK and not a bit spoiled, so I went ahead and bottled it.

57 bottles of beer on the wall. Not a bad yield.

I think I am getting a bit better at this craft. For example, the beer is put into the bottles using a siphon that goes through a wand with a valve on the end. The wand deposits the beer gently into the bottom of the bottles so that air does not get into into the beer and spoil it. Starting the siphon has always been a challenge. But after 18 years of doing this, I think I have figured out a way. Here is the equipment.

The long bent piece goes into the bucket, and the hose fits onto the bent piece. Then, the wand (with the valve on the end) fits onto the end of the hose. The long bent piece goes into the bucket like this.

The trick is to fill that long piece, the hose and the wand with beer… with no bubbles in it… to start siphoning into the bottles. It sounds simple, but I have worn a lot of beer trying to figure out how to do this. I have read all kinds of crazy schemes on how start a siphon, which range from filling the hose with water first (that was a disaster) to using a special pump to start it (which worked fine for a couple of batches, and then the pump stopped working).

So here is the way to start a beer siphon successfully, without wearing too much of the beer and without having to buy a bunch of esoteric equipment.

1. Swish a mildly alcoholic fluid in your mouth to kill the germs. I used to use brandy for that, but I ran out of brandy. Then I used rum for that, but that led to other problems. Right now, I just use some of the raw beer that I took out to measure the specific gravity.

Remember! You are just killing germs. You are not drinking beer! (Really).

2. Put the hoses together as shown in the photo. Leave the wand off.

3. Lean over the sink (to catch any spillage) and suck on the hose until you are drinking beer…. um…. tasting beer. The hose will be full of bubbles. If you have beer running down your face, you need to stop sucking on the hose sooner.

4. After you have a gulp of beer, quickly put the wand onto the end of the hose to capture the beer. Try to do this without pointing the end of the hose at your face.

5. Lift the wand high up over your head.

6. Push the valve button on the end of the wand and the beer will rush back into the bucket, taking the bubbles with it. Don’t let all of the beer go back into the bucket, just the beer with the bubbles in it. If you let all of the beer go back into the bucket, you will have to start over again…. which will involve tasting more beer…. so don’t even think about it.

7. As soon as you hear the bubbles come out of the hose and into the beer, immediately let go of the valve button and lower the hose again. Then, push the valve button on the end of the wand, and the beer will rush back into the hose out of the bucket. Don’t let all of the beer in the bucket rush out of the hose. You want some of it to go into the bottles.

8. Once the beer reaches the end of the wand, let go of the button to trap the beer in the hose…. which should be free of bubbles now.

9. If there are still bubbles in the hose. Repeat the action. Over the head; push the button until bubbles; lower the hose; push the button until hose full.

10. Eventually, you will see-saw all of the bubbles out of the hose, and you can start siphoning beer into the bottles.

See? Wasn’t that easy?

Hint: After filling all of the bottles with beer, go wash your hair.

By the way, while I was bottling the beer, I noticed that the chickadees were flying in and out of the Chickadee McMansion. It is hanging right outside our kitchen window. So after the beer was safely in the bottles, I put the new camera on the tripod, cranked the zoom up to 30X and snapped these photos.

First, the chickadee stops at the door and checks out the situation outside.

Then, checks out the situation on the inside.