How to Bottle Your Beer
Okay so now you have brewed your batch of beer now you need to know how to bottle the beer! Luckily for you, the hard part is already done, and with the proper equipment and knowledge bottling beer correctly is a snap! So let’s get right into how to bottle beer 101!
What You Will Need:
- An auto siphon
- Bottling Bottles
- Bottle Caps
- Bottle Capper
- Hydrometer
- Bottling Bucket with Spigot
- Sugar for Priming
- (Optional) Prime Tabs (If priming with sugar is not used)
Step 1: Preparation
One of the most important parts of bottling your beer is making absolute sure the fermentation process is complete. If you bottle your beer prior to fermentation being complete, it can lead to bottles exploding (hence wasting a bunch of good beer and all the money and effort you put into it) so don’t let that happen and make sure your beer is done fermenting! Luckily, it is very easy to determine whether fermentation is over or not. Simply take a hydrometer reading (if you don’t know how to take a reading then click here) after your beer has been fermenting for about a week. Write down that reading and then take another reading about 24 hours after the first one. If you get the same reading then your fermentation process is over and you can start to bottle your beer! If not then simply keep taking readings until you get the same reading 2 days in a row (if you want to be extra safe you can get readings 3 days in a row).
Step 2: Sanitization
Similar to most homebrewing processes, sanitizing your equipment is vital for the health of your brew. Bottling is no exception, you need to sanitize all the bottles that will contain your beer, the siphon, and the bottling bucket.
Step 3: Priming
A process called “priming” is needed, in order to provide carbonation to your beer. There are two ways to go about priming your
Step 4: Transfer to Bottling Bucket (Siphoning)
Step 5: Bottling the Beer
Step 6: Capping the Bottles