Bottle Daze

It's Bottle Day for B) Endarkenment 2.0, my second attempt at Chocolate Peanut Butter Brewing Goodness!

All y'all might recall last years attempt ended up being a huge messy muckety mess, that failed to pick up even a hint of peanut butter flavor. And it tasted terrible for the first 6 months! Once it hit it's flavor stride, it kicked ass and was absolutely the best beer I made last year. But I only found one bottle with even a hint of peanut butter! It still had enough potential that I was very willing to give it another shot this year. There were some mishaps in the Kitchen, but it seemed to be working out. The yeast seems to have laid down once the gravity hit 1.035, so instead of adding "priming" sugar to a racking bucket, I'm going to try using Prime Dose Carbonation Capsules. I've never used these before, but they seem tailor made for my intended use: carbonating bottles of a brew where the original yeast has stalled out for whatever unknown reason. (I'm guessing lack of oxygen and/or too high an alcohol content? But what do I know? I'm just mucking about in the kitchen!)

Stopped by Liquor Barn to snag some brews earlier today, and snagged a new bottle filler. I love the 3/8" filler that came with my original "brew kit," but those fancy Speidel fermenters that I've been bragging on come with a 1" spigot. I could stretch out the 3/8" tubing to fit, but then I'd have a leaky mess next time I bottled from anything else. So I'm gonna give this new filler tube a shot. I fill my bottles on the dishwasher door, so if it's not working out, I shouldn't make too big of a mess. (OTH, I usually make a pretty big mess regardless, so we'll see... and no, there likely won't be pictures or video if it gets messy!)

Yesterday, I started rinsing off bottles and set up my sanitizer bottle tree. I wanted time to get everything sanitized AND time for the bottles to air-dry. And I do love the little sanitizer bottle tree. I might want to add to it's height/bottle capacity, but it's built to expand. and the "spray top" is just too handy for making sure all my bottles are completely sanitized.

Yep, that 5 gallon speidel with the blankets lovingly wrapped around it is the one getting dropped to bottles tonight. The blanket wasn't so much for love or to keep it warm...mostly to keep the light out. Smaller fermenters just get a borrowed T-shirt. (They are happy, and well-cared for. No emails about them not receiving equal treatment, please. Besides, the one in the T-shirt looks soo much cooler.)

I thought I was gonna skip the usual routine of the Leadbelly's classic cover of "Bottle Up and Go," but I can't bring myself to ignore my ridiculous superstition. Dmn you, Huddie Ledbetter, for being such a fine musician! Or dmn you, Shriekback, for making me think such discordant thoughts on Bottle Night! This is scientifical cooking Magic, with which mortals should not fere. (If I did have to change bottling tunes, Shreikback would definitely be the go-to.)

Nearly three cases run through the sanitizer, so I should be plenty good to go. Caps sanitized also. Fillers and tubing sanitized. We're just freaking golden here, I hope!

Well, that 1/2 inch tubing is fine for dropping wort from one container to a lower receptacle with those Speidel spigots, but the back-pressure from a closed filler tube was enough to sprew brew everywhere! Yeesh! Ended up heating the 3/8 inch tubing with hot water enough to stretch-fit it. Lots of beery, chocolately mess! Ended up with 36 bottles capped and happy. BTW, putting the cocoa nibs in a mesh "hops" bag before adding them to the secondary fermenter was an awesome idea, and saved a boatload of cleanup. (Took days to get those damn things out of the filler tube last year!)

Now, since the yeast seems to have stalled a little early (1.035 sg) I thought it a perfect  opportunity to try out my Prime Dose Carbonation Capsules. Little pills of yeast and yeast nutrient:  add two to each bottle, and consider it good. Easy to use, but a little pricey--on the other hand, much less pricey than a batch that didn't carbonate! I'll update once these bottles get opened. Ended up with only 36 bottles out of 4.5 gallons...the rest was left soaking in peanut butter sludge.

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Fast-forward a week, and it's now Bottling Day for the chocolate milk stout that's been in my 7.5 gallon Speidel for two weeks now. No activity in the airlock for a week, and it's dropped from 1.060 OG to 1.025 (that's with the 8 oz. of lactose that was added.) With a net 4.5 gallons in the primary, I'm OK with the numbers. Normal routine of boil the priming sugar, drop the simple syrup into the priming bucket and add a bottle of chocolate extract flavor.

 Couldn't resist another pic of my happy sanitized bottle caps!

Here's the Priming Bucket with the filler tube attached and beer runnin thtough it. On the left of the pic, you see my 7.5 gallon primary. Its just been emptied, so it was promptly filled with Oxyclean to soak the grunge off the insides.

Here's a pic of my two current bottle cappers. The one on the left is the more recent addition of a red baron  bottle capper. It has a magnet in the center that makes it much easier to cap individual bottles, very smooth and well-built. On the right is the capper that came with my original equipointment. A little more unwieldy than the red baron, but it works...and at times where the newer fancier cappier can't! I had several Abita bottles in my mix of washed and ready, but the Red Baron couldn't cap those puppies! Yikes!!! The old standby scrunched lids on those bottles, no problem. (I'm still thinking, "Don't bother saving Abita bottles. Bummer, since they use those cute little stubby 12s.)

Chocolate Stout ended up at 43 bottles, capped and waiting. The taste I had while testing the final gravity was pretty decent, so I'm going to try one of these fairly soon! (Mebbe in a month?)

That's it for now, folks--drink like a chimney, and jump like a crocodile! :-)