Mr Beer - the bottling

So the brew has been lurking in the corner of the kitchen for two weeks, covered by a towel to prevent sunlight spoiling the beer. For the first week or so, I could see some froth on the surface but it had pretty well gone at the end of the two weeks as far as I could see.

They recommend tasting a little to make sure the fermentation is finished. It should taste like flat beer and not sweet and that is exactly how it tasted. It did have plenty of flavour.

Since the kit did not have any bottles, I bought some half litre plastic bottles from a beer making supplies place in Delaware called 'How do you brew'. This is the place you go to when you get serious about making your own beer.

The keg ready to dispense.

First you have to sanitize your beer bottles and caps. The instructions say to fill a gallon container with warm water and pour in the remaining sanitizer powder. Then simply fill each bottle half way, put on the cap, shake and let stand for ten minutes.

The red bucket cost $2 from Target and I will use it in the Russian Line Stage competition that I have organized for my local amplifier building group.

Depending on the size of the bottle, add the appropriate amount of sugar and then fill the bottle to just above where the neck joins the body of the bottle. Because I did not have quite enough dark plastic bottles, I sanitized and used a couple of water bottles and a wine bottle with a screw cap, just to see if they would stand up to the pressure. I used some electrical tape to better seal the water bottles.

Since I expect that there will be an accident, I lined a box with a big black trash bag and put the bottles in. The water bottles and the wine bottle each has an extra plastic bag, the traditional double bagger. The black plastic then covers the box and protects the bottles from sunlight. The box now lurks in a corner of the pantry.

I forgot to take a photo of the remains of the fermentation before I started to move and shake the barrel so you see the well shaken version. Before the shaking, the beer was well separated from the muck at the bottom.

Cleaning the barrel took a while, but I found that the kitchen sink spray worked pretty well.

So now I wait a couple of weeks for the carbonation to work.