Bottling Day
21 February 2018 | La Cuz
Annette
In preparation for bottling day we realized that we were going to need about 48 empty bottles. So we bought 2 cases of the local lager and got to work. It was a thankless job, but we persevered and by the appointed day we had out quota of empties. After two weeks of waiting patiently (not!) for the fermentation of the beer to happen, it was finally bottling day.
First we set up buckets, hoses, filters, and nozzles then sterilized everything, including 48 dark brown bottles to fill with the beer and sugar water combination. We had 5 and ½ gallons of beer to transfer into bottles. I was the "filler upper" and Mike was the "bottle capper". The first few bottles were filled and capped just fine (those bottles just happened to be bottles we had saved from beer we had brought with us from the states), but when we tried to cap the Mexican beer bottles we were foiled. As it turns out the Mexican beer bottles don't have a lip on the bottle neck which our "home bottle capper" needs in order to fasten down the cap. So now what? Luckily, in addition to the old IPA bottles we had saved a number of my plastic mineral water bottles to see how well the beer did in plastic, but still those weren't nearly enough. So we ended up emptying all the rest of my precious mineral water over board for the bottles, and dug out an empty growler we kept from a local brewery in Loreto.
Technically one should wait at least 2 weeks before sampling, this is to allow the sugar and yeast to carbonate and for the residue to settle to the bottom. After just 3 days the plastic bottles had become firm with pressure and we're hoping that the bottles are strong enough. For experimental purposes, after 7 days we had to open and sample our first Rum Doxy IPA. It was a bit sweet and very foamy but very promising.
One week later..........much better, tasty even.
Now a month after bottling day I can say that our first beer making attempt was a success. the plastic water bottles work fine and, as an extra benefit, are 20 oz instead of 12. We are now enjoying the fruits of our efforts like "nectar from the gods".