Farting Yeast and Drowning Bottles

Back on December 29 of 2005 I started my first batch of home brewed beer. On that day I started the wort for my Scotch Ale which requires boiling two gallons of water to steep various grains. This was a very aromatic process (read: the house smelled like A$$ all day)! Once the wort was complete it went into the fermentation bucket along with and was capped. The airlock gave immediate indication that my yeast was farting. YEAH!


Today is bottling day. Sanitization is a great concern when homebrewing. Introduction of bacteria at any stage can kill the entire batch. With that in mind, I am drowning my bottles at this very moment. From the picture you can see the wide variety of the contributors :) Highly biased to New Belgium (I like there bottles best), second place to Bells... even a pumpkin beer from Lake Front of Milwaukee. Ewww, is that a New Holland Mad Hatter? That's going to contaminate everything! They are soaking in about 3-4 gallons of hot water with bleach and TSP. I'll let them soak there for about two hours before rinsing and drying. Then the fun will begin. I'll try to take at least one picture of the bottling process and publish a post-bottling entry here.