Homebrewing adventures: Pale chocolatey stout part three -- Bottling day!

I have to confess something. Last week, when I wrote that I was never going to write about homebrewing on a Tuesday, I was lying. I have a bunch of really good excuses too! Plus, I got an email yesterday saying something sure to stimulate the arteries was shipped to my house and it will definitely make up for this.

But what's more important is that 49 bottles of pale kinda chocolatey stout are now carbonating in bottles in a basement in Redford, Michigan. The best part is that the beer smells like Count Chocula. A non-carbonated room-temperature taste test indicates a mild chocolatey, sort of creamy flavor with very little hop bitterness. If our calculations are right, it's around 6% alcohol. Oh and we're probably going to call it Count Chocustout.

Sanitize your bottles (no twist-offs!), bottling bucket, racking cane, bottling wand, etc. Properly sanitizing everything is a huge pain in the ass and wastes tons of our precious time takes patience and is a very important step!


Syphon the beer from the carboy into the bottling bucket, which in our case is the "deluxe" fermenter. See how much beer you can spill on the floor.


Here's the bottling wand. It has a flimsy valve in the bottom that likes to stick, giving you more opportunities to spill beer on the floor. It's also nice because your hands will smell like beer for about 12 hours after you use this.


The bottling wand in action. Pretty exciting. Leave 1.5 inches or so of air at the top of the bottle when filling it.


Cap your bottles with this device that looks sort of like a Snood character with long arms. Make sure that you've sanitized your caps and you have more caps available than bottles in case some of them get messed up.


Take a little sample while you're at it.


Look for a review of my own beer in the coming weeks.