This morning, I bottled the Petite Saison d'Ete into 43 bottles plus one 22-oz. bomber. Everything went smoothly and the whole procedure lasted about 3 hours, including clean up.
I did get some help from both kids today, too. The younger one put the bottles back in the cases after I capped them, and the elder (who was my helper on brew day) labeled the caps with a big S for saison. On bottling day, there really isn't much to help with, and I had done most of the work anyway before the were even out of bed.
The biggest thing I look forward to on bottling day is tasting the beer's progress. I have to bear in mind that the beer is flat (they carbonate in the bottles) and warm, but tasting still gives a good indication of where the flavor is heading.
At bottling today, the saison tasted surprisingly similar to Boulevard's witbier I just bought a week or two ago. When I opened the fermenter, I was struck by the pleasant clove notes, and wifey tasted banana and nutmeg in the sample I pulled. To say the least, I'm very excited about how this beer is going to develop in its bottle conditioning over the next 2-3 weeks.
Before I move the beer from the fermenter to the bottling bucket, I measure the density (specific gravity) of the beer with a hydrometer. By measuring the gravity before and after fermentation, I can tell about how much alcohol by volume (abv) was produced. With an original gravity of 1.044 (water is 1.000) and a final gravity of 1.005, we should end up with 5.2% abv. My target original gravity of 1.041 and target final of 1.008 projected an abv of 4.4%. Looks like my saison may not be so petite after all.
The bigger the better! You're going to train those girls right; they'll be brewing and bottling for you before you know it!
ReplyDeleteChild labor! It's a beautiful thing. This is sounding right up your alley. That last paragraph didn't mean much to me but I know you loved typing every last character of it. Your brother's interest is seriously piqued!
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