The Cat's Studio

Equipment used:

30 Longneck bottles, 30 crown seals, bottle tree, bottle rinser, small jug, bottler, tall hydrometer jug, sugar dispenser, benchtop capper, marker pen

Ingredients used:

200 gram sugar or Carbonation drops, Iodophor

Sterilising the equipment

Dilute 1 ml Iodophor with 1 litre cold tap water, fill into bottle rinser. Invert bottle, fit on rinser and push down three times. Place onto bottle tree. Repeat with remaining bottles.
Insert the bottler into the tall hydrometer jug and pour part of the Iodophor solution from the bottle rinser over it. Make sure all parts of the bottler come in contact with the steriliser. Fill remainder of Iodophor solution into the small jug and submerge the crown seals in it. Shake jug briefly to remove air pockets. Let everything stand for at least 10 minutes.

Use the sugar dispenser or other measuring spoons to prime every bottle with sugar. Use the following amounts:
Bottle Size Sugar Carbonation Drops
375ml 3.5g 1
750ml 7g 2

Remove the bottler from the tall jug and stick into small jug with the crown seals. Discard Iodophor solution from tall jug.
Remove airlock from fermenter and rinse thoroughly with hot water. Draw about 200 ml wort through the tap into the tall jug to remove sediment from the tap. Discard. Rinse bottler under cold water and insert into tap.

Bottling

Insert bottler into first bottle, open fermenter tap fully and push bottler against the bottom of the bottle. This opens the gravity valve in the bottler and the wort is running into the bottle. Fill bottle up to 5 cm under the top. Pull bottle down to close the gravity valve. Remove bottle and quickly move next one in. The gravity valve occasionally does not shut properly and the wort keeps dripping or even running. If that is the case you have to close the valve when swapping bottles.
When all bottles are filled the next step would be capping the bottles. Sometimes the foam on top of the beer in the bottle rises to high and comes out. That's why I put the crown seal on straight after the bottle has been filled and cap it thus avoiding the mess of having to clean the bottle from the foam. I use my right hand for capping whilst the left is holding the next bottle filling it.
Invert the bottles several times after they have been capped to dissolve the priming sugar. Not needed when using Carbonation Drops.
Last step in the process is labelling the bottles. In my case I just scribble the brew number on the crown seal.

Storage

Most literature recommends to store the bottles with the fresh brew at 18 Celsius or above for seven days or longer to improve the beer. After this period the storage temperature should be cooler than that. Wait at least 3-4 weeks before sampling the brew. The longer it is allowed to improve the better. According to the manufacturers the brew can be kept for up to two years. Mine never gets that old.
I am extremely lucky to have sort of a cave under the house where I keep my beer. It has pretty much a constant temperature all year round. Cool in summer and warm in winter. In summer I use one of these fancy portable coolers which can run on three different power supplies (240AV, 24DC and LPG) to cool my beer before consumption.

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