In the Big Rock Candy Mountain
You never change your socks
And little streams of alkyhol
Come trickling down the rocks . . .
This is a five gallon jug of beer I started brewing a week ago. Also in the picture are an overturned lawn chair and Boy #1’s feet. The five gallon jug was legally purchased. I just can’t for the life of me remember where I bought (not stole) it.
A close up of the top of the jug. It shows a rubber stopper that has a hole in the center and an airlock stuck down in said hole. The airlock allows carbon dioxide to escape (yeast produces this as a by-product when converting sugar to alcohol) without allowing air to enter (in the presence of oxygen, yeast will go on to convert the alcohol into vinegar (bad!)).
This is the tool used for capping bottles. As with most of my brewing equipment, it was purchased from the great teat of brewing supplies - Brew Ha Ha on Magazine St. in New Orleans.
This is a bottle washer. You hook it up to a hose. There is a bar that extends perpendicular to the main nozzle. When you push a bottle down over the end, it opens a valve that lets a blast of water out of the nozzle (which is then inside the bottle).
The bottle washer in action.
My bottles soaking in bleach water. I also add dishwashing liquid. Of course, you want to make sure you rinse the bottles well.
Later that same day . . . I am siphoning the beer out of the water jug into a five gallon bucket. I begged this bucket from a Burger King near my house. It used to hold pickles. The thought of five gallons of pickles makes me want to puke. Anyway, this way I was assured of getting food-grade plastic for my bucket.
You want to siphon off the beer before bottling to avoid bottling all of the spent yeast that settles to the bottom (the light colored layer at the bottom of the jug).
Before you bottle, you add another dose of sugar, so-called "priming sugar". This gives the yeast a little more food. The carbon dioxide that we were letting blow off through the airlock earlier will carbonate the beer when it is tightly capped.
Boiling the bottle caps before use. I'm not sure this is necessary, but I was told to do it, so I do.
When bottling, you don’t have time to stop and take pictures. However, I do have a picture of my wife when she found out how much I spent at Brew Ha Ha.
Ah! My happy little family!