Last night my friend Jared came over to show me how to bottle the beer I brewed and also to help me make some oatmeal stout.
Things went a little weird, as I didn’t know what I was doing and Jared was too tired to think straight. So, I’ll relay the brewing first, then the bottling.
We started with sanitizing stuff (the bucket, the hose, the beer dispenser thingeymajigger, etc.) Then, we got my stock pot, added 2-1/2 gallons of water, and brought it up to a rolling boil. Added the bag-o-malt stuff, then some corn sugar, then the oatmeal and let that brew for a bit around 190 degrees.
Now, of course, brewing beer makes you thirsty for some. And not having any, we went to the store to get some. Jared settled with a Fosters (he likes lagers more than I do), and I got something a bit arrogant…
Now, once we were done with that we attempted to bring the pot back up to a rolling boil. That’s when we smelled something. We pulled the pot off the stove, scraped the bottom with a spoon, and sure enough some of the oatmeal got a bit scorched. Ugh! I almost panicked, but we took a sample from the pot and tasted it and it wasn’t too bad. Definitely salvageable. We strained the oatmeal out and poured the rest into the bucket. Then I scrubbed the pot and we started with the next part.
Opening the can of Coopers Irish Stout malts, we put a touch into the pot with 2-1/2 gallons of water and added some Irish moss (to help the head of the beer.) After 15 minutes, we added the rest of the stout can and boiled for a bit.
We strained that again, adding it to the bucket. Then we topped the bucket off with water, put our air thingeymajigger in the top (I forgot what it’s called), and mission complete! Six gallons of oatmeal stout.
Then it was time to bottle my last batch of beer, a nice Belgian style Flemmish Brown ale. Tanisha was there to help as well. We sanitized the beer bottles earlier and proceeded to start filling them with beer.
Tanisha did the honors of capping the bottles
Then we labelled the bottles with some cheezy labels I made (I wanted to keep track of what I brewed and when I bottled it.)
On the whole, it was a fun evening, but a very, very long evening.
Many thanks to Jared for his expertise, tired as he was, he was a big help!
4 comments
1 pings
Skip to comment form
Tanisha had a blast helping!
If the beer tastes anything like the way you look, remind me to buy some when I get around to degreasing my car engine.
Seriously, though. It looks like you guys had a lot fun. I can’t wait to try it.
A very nice posting. Thanks for the insight and the pics. My youngest helped me bottle my latest batch as well. She liked using the capper.
BTW – I will email you so we can exchange instructions on how do get a bottle of that brew to BarryDean. 🙂
It was a blast. It was a lot of fun to incorporate Tanisha. It reminded me a lot of how I used to brew with my dad. It was a huge blessing to get to see you guys bond.
Another thing about Foster’s, it was about 1/2 the price of the Arrogant Bastard you picked up. I’m unemployed. Do the math. Besides, Fosters, though it is a macrobrew, is an exemplary Australian style lager. I don’t drink it often, but it is always refreshing when I do.
All in all, it was great fun and I look forward to getting to brew/bottle with you again sometime soon. We’ll have to enjoy a pipe full of good tobacco when we do.
[…] have the evening detailed on my other blog for those who want to read about the evening. It was quite a bit of […]