Making Beer at LBC Step 3, the bottling

Actually, we bottled at the Greenville Arms. First, as with everything beer, I had to sanitize everything to within an inch of its life. That's what I'm doing above.

The next step is to transfer the beer from the fermenting bucket to the bottling bucket. This is called racking. The bottling bucket has the priming sugar in it. The priming sugar is what will give the yeast that have not been racked, the live yeast, the food to make the bubbles. This is very similar to how you make champagne. With champagne and wine, you're racking off the lees, with beer you're racking off the trub. Both of these means dead yeast cells and other solids at the bottom of the barrel. This helps clarify your beverage. Don't forget, we are making real ale, live ale, with active yeast in it and it will condition as you let it age. I had four yesterday from this batch, still young but a lovely beer.



Stooping over to fill bottles, which I started out doing when I was sanitizing, got old fast.



Ah, now that's the ticket. Yeah. That's the way to go.

Look at that happy face.

After putting the beer in each of the bottles I capped.





Isn't that lovely?



What did I do with the left over yeast? I made bread. The yeast looks like sludge but I can make bread with it. I had to put in a little bit of live baker's yeast to get it to rise fast enough. I wasn't patient.



From sludge to bread and what a lovely hoppy bread it was.



Go to the City Brewshop and learn how to make beer. I'm on my second batch and will do one more before the season begins. Next year I'm going to make mead.