So last night I went ahead and kegged/bottled the cream ale. It’s been in secondary for about 2 weeks and I decided it was time to do the deed.
Now for this project, I bottle up about a case of the cream ale for some of my “brew bartering” because my brother-in-law offered me his old 5lb CO2 tank for 1 case of cream ale. I was sold on that deal!
I think it’s going to need to be inspected and filled, but its well worth it just the same. Now with the 2 tap jockey box Nick and I built (I will put up some pics pretty soon), I will have a travel tank!
Back to the beer at hand; the cream ale. This brew finished off at 1.011 and has a nice sweet flavor to it. It’s a really good session beer and I would like to think that its a good example of the style. It needs a little cold store to properly clear out, but in the end, it should be pretty clear.
For bottling, instead of using my bottling bucket, I tried something a guy in my brew club told me about. I primed the whole batch as if I was going to bottle it and put it in the keg. From here I put enough pressure on the keg from the CO2 to seal the keg properly and shook it to mix it.
I turned the keg down to about 4 or 5 PSI and used my party tap with my bottling wand on the end (without the spring loaded tip) and proceeded to fill bottles from the keg. This was a pretty good way to do this I must say. It was not perfect, but it was a nice alternative and allowed me to bottle and keg in two steps.
I also racked over the Harry Porter which should be a very good brew. I took a taste and the anise in it was good. Not a lot of nose or flavor, but there was a bite. Interesting because there was still a very distinct “porter” flavor to the brew that I was concerned the anise might overwhelm.
This is most likely my last post before x-mas so to all you out there; good night now!
To Cletus and the rest of the guys at Monday Night Brewery – Merry Christmas!
travis, in the holiday spirit, we at MNB can forgive a simple hillbilly from a dwindling town in a part of NY that no one cares about for many things… but naming a beer after harry potter? we expect more – even from you.
I’m not sure what that comment was all about. It was hard to read without capitalization and punctuation
That bottling method is similar to using the blichman beer gun. Hmmm…I still can’t bring myself to bottle. I thought I’d do it every now and then, but, I’m just too lazy. I wonder if Santa is bringing a blichman beer gun?
Anyway Merry Christmas to you Travis and well…to you too Andrew, Cletus, Jim Bob, Mary Ellen, John Boy…
Prost!
Travis and Adam,
Thank you all for your kind words. You are truly the “bigger men.” Santa will indeed be bringing us a Blichmann beer gun. Jealous much?
As much as I AM jealous of the acquisition of the Blichmann beer gun (it included two awesome words in the name, how can you go wrong?), I am a humble brewer and just thankful that I am not brewing with swamp water.
As for Andrew and the use of Harry Porter as a title, I will not back down, a good name is a good name. I am sure they must have named a porno is the spirit of Harry Potter so that pretty much opens the flood gates.
“I am sure they must have”
Way to feign like you don’t own Hairy Potter and all of its sequels.