Big Brewing and Bottling Day

I let the Cooper's lager ferment for more than a month before it finally petered out. A skilled lager brewer would set it aside at a very cool temperature to finish, but I was running out of beer. It's just a kit, after all.

I had a few other brewing tasks to accomplish that day, so I mixed up a batch of sanitizer and dove in.

First, I had to try the previous batch of cranberry/apple cider, just finished conditioning in the bottle.

Cranberry/Apple Cider

I had another batch of cider ready to go into the bottles, which I had laboriously cleaned and sanitized. The cider went in to my 750mL bottles, and I always reserve beer for 500mL, 1L, and 2L bottles.

Bottled Cider and Primed Beer

My usual beer bottling rig was assembled in our tiny kitchen. The tube stretched from the fermenting bucket to the bottling station below. I set all the empty bottles to my right and moved all the full bottles to the counter on my left. The setup isn't perfect, but it gets the job done.

Beer Bottling Setup

I finished with 40 pints of tasty lager. It isn't up to the standards of some of our favorite craft lagers, but it is serviceable. Someday, when we have a larger living space in a temperate climate, I'll make a real lager, complete with months-long fermenting and lagering time.

Until then, cheers!