Mr. Beer–The Fermenting is Done so It’s Time to Bottle!

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A few weeks ago we brewed my first Mr. Beer brewing kit.  You can check out the original post HERE from Brew Day.  Since that time we waited a few weeks, and when we sampled the brew it was still sweet.  I suspect we just don’t have anywhere in our house in March that stays consistently warm enough to keep the yeasties active.  I did add some additional yeast a little over a week ago, so today it was time to bottle.

The Bottling process is really easy.  We mixed up the remaining sanitizer in a gallon of water, filled each bottle half-way, capped the bottles and shook each one allowing them to sit for 10-minutes.  It was a little odd that the rings at the bottom of the caps are designed to come off when you open he beer.  Of course they all came off when I opened the bottles to drain the sanitizer.  Purely cosmetic, but odd.

After sanitizing for 10-minutes, we drained each bottle and added 2 1/2 teaspoons of white sugar to each bottle.  This sugar gives the remaining yeast something to eat in order to carbonate the beer.

Of course the next step is to fill each bottle with beer.  This is a fairly slow process, since the tap is small.  I also tried to tilt the bottles to reduce foaming.  It was a bit of a struggle to fill the last bottle, since the level of beer was pretty close to the bottom of the tap, but we managed to fill all eight quart-sized bottles to just below the bump in the neck of the bottle.  This will allow for some expansion room as the brew carbonates.

We put the filled bottles in a dark and warm location to allow them to carbonate for a few weeks (probably 2 or 3).  I’d also recommend the next step…clean out the fermenter NOW.  It was real easy to clean all of the sediment and hop cones now while they are wet and I suspect it would have been awful later once it dried.

So there you have it.  After carbonating for a few weeks, it is recommended to condition the beer for a few weeks for improved taste (even though it is technically ready to drink after carbonating).  We DO plan to carbonate and condition so check back here in about 5 or 6 weeks for our first
Mr. Beer tasting. 

As you can see below we DID clean the keg and sample some beer now; and I’d still describe it as slightly sweet and slightly cidery tasting so we’ll see.  It could be we need to try again with warmer more consistent fermenting than our first batch.  I think this will be much easier to accomplish in May than it was in March…and thankfully the nice people at Mr. Beer sent me enough supplies to do a second batch of beer.
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