Bottling the IPA
So essentially over the last three days I prepared to bottle and bottled the Saturday IPA.
It was pretty uneventful per usual, which is always good with bottling. Saturday I put four cases of “clean” (read: no mold/funk) bottles in a PBW hot water solution to soak overnight to help with label removal and to help dissolve any organic material that may remain in the bottles that I didn’t notice.
Sunday came along and I sat in the basement for about three hours delabeling, rinsing, and sanitizing all 96 bottles. This part of brewing for me really is a labor of love, I can’t stand it sometimes. The work itself isn’t hard, I just always feel like I’m wasting my time or something, like I should be doing something more productive.
Monday (yesterday) was the actual bottling day. Karen offered to help me which always makes the time go by faster but also puts me more on edge. I’m not sure why because she knows what she is doing, I guess it’s more of a lack of total control during a delicate part of the process. The bottling went well though, I was filling Karen was capping. This was the 10 gallons of IPA that was fermented with two different yeast strains, then later 1oz. of bourbonized oak chips were added to one of them. After checking the FGs of each carboy (1.015 – OO1 yeast & 1.005 – dry yeast) and sampling each one side by side, I was surprised there really wasn’t too much of a difference. The one with the lower gravity was the one that had the chips added to it and I did not notice any flavor profile that suggested oak or bourbon, oh well. Hopefully we won’t see any problems with carbonation, which has been not 100% as of late.
That’s a picture of a quart of the 001 IPA that I was able to enjoy while bottling. I know the thought of warm uncarbonated realatively young beer to some of you is not appetizing, but I quite enjoyed it.
August 14th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
While the bottling sounds….routine (what you want), the PHOTOS look great!! NICE!
August 14th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
So inquiring minds want to know – How was the (admittedly warm and flat) 001? Uber hoppy? Nicely balanced?
August 14th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
Oh, the beer was hoppy as hell, in a good way. Real bitter at first, but it grows on you and doesn’t seem bitter anymore. The aroma is delicious and the flavor is slightly sweet, slightly sharp, and slightly catty, but not bad. I can’t wait two more weeks to try it again!