About Me

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My tremendously supportive husband & I have 3 wonderful children, 1 dog, 12 laying hens, 2 dairy goats, 3 bee hives, and a 2000 sq foot vegetable garden on a small 1/4 acre lot in the city. In the center of it all is our small 1,000 sq foot house purchased in 2008 as a foreclosure that we fully renovated to host our growing family, home school adventures, and small home business (CozyLeaf.com). We have a desire to learn a path to self sufficiency finding ways to be good stewards of the resources God has given us. We want to learn to live with less as we laydown roots to our little homestead.

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Beer Brew Continental Pilsner Phase 2

Well its been 9 days from Phase 1 and the beer is ready for bottling!!

BEFORE YOU START! Sterilize EVERYTHING!! Thoroughly clean ALL equipment with "One Step Cleanser"(or similar product, follow instructions on package). Dissolve 1 TBSP of One Step in 1 gallon of warm water, Wash bottles and equipment with the solution. Rinsing in not necessary with One Step. Seriously this is probably the MOST important step in home brewing. If you don't sanitize your equipment...ALL your equipment... then bacteria will grow and it will destroy your work. What a bummer to wait several months and then have nasty tasting wine...so CLEAN ALL YOUR STUFF!!
  
We took all the labels off of all the bottles a few days ago with some "Super Grunge Remover" then right before bottling we ran the bottles through the "sanatize" cycle on the dishwasher...then we put One Step through a funnel into each bottle... Bottles should be very clean! You can get some pretty neat bottle cleaning equipment, but that just isnt in the budget right now so we just used a funnel and poured One Step from bottle to bottle :)

(continued from Phase 1)
STEP 9: Siphon the beer (avoid disturbing the yeast sediment) into the strong bottles or a pressure barrel. CAUTION: use only returnable beer bottles. One trip/non-returnable bottles are not adequate to withstand conditioning pressure.
(We put some thin fabric over a funnel to help catch any extra sediment particles that might happen to come through the siphon. Once again, you can buy some pretty nifty filter kits, but we just used a funnel!)



Leave the Sediment Behind




STEP 10: Add 1/2 teaspoonful of light spraymalt per pint to each bottle or a max of 3 oz per 5 gallon pressure barrel. Sugar may be used instead. (We used corn sugar instead of Spraymalt...Once Again - FUNNEL!)

We have some awesome friends and thanks to Cory and Jaden we had a great little assembly line going!!

Syphon the beer into the prepared bottles (prepared with sugar or spraymalt)...or if you have a kegging system this would be the time to put the beer into your pressure barrel. 




STEP 11: Cap and seal the bottles securely and stand them in a warm place 65-70 degrees F for 2 days.

Cory, I dont think you will be able to cap all those bottles with your bare hands...Bottle Cappers work wonders!



STEP 12: Finally, move the bottles to a cool place for at least 21 days or until the beer is clear, before drinking.

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