And on the 8th Day, Man made Beer... Part II

And lo, after two weeks had passed they did gather once more, for the Beer was ready to be bottled.  And they did take yon carboy full of Baby Beer, and transferred it thusly into individual bottles that they may drink of it two weeks hence.  And the Men were happy and there was much rejoicing, for the Men saw that it was good.  And those labels were a pretty sweet touch, too.

This is what a couple weeks of yeast can do for you.

We brought the carboy up from the basement and gathered all the equipment.  Bottling Day was upon us!

The siphoning has begun!

You can see all the residue on the sides of the carboy.  That is a normal part of the brewing process, it shows that the yeast has done what it was meant to do.  But you also don't want that sludge in your final product, so you have to siphon out the good stuff and leave the rest behind.

Yes, we used a child's book to tilt the carboy.

Tilt the carboy so you can get all of the good stuff and none of the... not so good stuff.  The trick here is definitely to get as much of the beer as possible without any of the sludge.  After transferring the beer into the bucket we stirred in a small amount of a sugar/water mixture.  Over the next two weeks in the sealed bottle this will add the carbonation to our beer.

And we are bottling!

Next up we attached the bottling spigot to the siphon tube and Matt started filling the bottles.  The instructions said to leave about an inch of space at the top of the bottle.

Matt was a little too good at filling the bottles to the same height.

Above you can see all the bottles we were able to fill.  Not too shabby, really. Almost four dozen bottles of nut brown ale!

Sanitize your bottle caps, you heathens!

We cleaned the bottle caps and we were ready to cap the beer.  We're so close it's amazing!  And then Matt and Rachel had a surprise for us...

 

Don't ask, just drink.

They got labels made for the bottles!  These things look almost professional.  Notice the use of multiple colors and a name for our brewing company.  So you know it's good.

Neck labels, people!  Neck labels!

That's right, neck labels.  This beer couldn't get any more professional at this point.

Sealing in the goodness.

The last thing to do was put on the caps, stick on the labels, and box the bottles.  Here's the final look:

Brings a tear to the eye, doesn't it?

We took the boxes of freshly bottled brew down to the basement to sit for two more weeks.  The beer will carbonate (carbonize?) and we'll do our first sampling in early March.  It will be just like Beer Christmas!

The Alpha.

Above is the very first completed bottle of Gilwapo Brewing's inaugural brew.  We call this bottle simply: The Alpha.

Results will be published soon!