Well we all did the bottling of the Oceanside Ale.  Took longer than we expected because we are out of practice.  Got about 50 bottles of varying size of beer.  Sadly wasted about a bottle of the finished product since I am so out of practice.  My friends Aaron and Gail showed up to help.

We started by cleaning the bottles.  They needed a thorough cleaning and we scrubbed and put them in Iodophor.  Got my feet wet and when doing this it is best to be in shorts.

We also put up the pop up tent and started in the shade.  Here the bottles have been cleaned and are on the drying rack.  We are also sanitizing the big bucket for bottling.

Finishing up the sanitizing.

Gail brought Princess Pita and she enjoyed hanging out with us.  For some reason Pita wasn’t much help.

Doing the bottling.  We find it easier to sit and fill.  Gail is capping the bottles and Aaron is packing them up and handing me empty bottles.  Mags my wife is behind the camera.

Overall it was a great day. We added a cup of dissolved sugar into the whole batch.  Then mixed it into the beer that had finished fermenting.  That will be the catalyst that will now ferment a little more in the bottle and carbonate the finished beer.  We have to wait another 2 weeks and we will be ready to brew. 

Two funny things happened during this. 

First I found about 3 cases of beer that I have no idea what it is.  I know it is all homebrew, but I am not sure if it is some of our failures or successes.  It has been in my garage for at least 2 years. I am not sure that the heat hasn’t done worse things to that beer. So I will be journeying into the near future by chilling that beer and trying it out to see if it turned out good.  It is kind of like Mystery Cans you get at grocery outlet stores. Except with alcohol.

Second, there was a carboy full of beer (about 6 gallons) from my last batch that I never did anything with.  I made this batch over a year ago.  We did a taste test, I was not impressed and my friends thought it tasted of too much hops.  So I kegged the beer.  This entails me putting it into a 5 gallon metal Kornelious keg.  Then you use the canister of CO2 to carbonate the brew. Cuts out the whole bottling process.  Keys to doing this are simple, you cool it down to a chilled temperature and then you shake the keg so that it rolls the carbonation into the brew (not at all sure if that is a true Zymurgist technique or terminology).  There was about a half gallon of the brew left over, which Gail took to use as a marinade on some brauts.  Tasted them the next day and they turned out very good.  I will be trying this brew soon, so I will let you know if it tastes good.  I am a hop head so understand that if it tastes like greens, it can be a good beer in my opinion. 

Gotta love brew days.