Bottling

The first batch was ready to be bottled yesterday.

Normally you put aside a bit of mash before fermenting to provide extra fizz when you bottle - around 15% or so. As we are dealing with close to 300 litres of beer in total, 15% of that would be 45 litres of beer. There is no way I can fit those volumes in the fridge or freezer so I have to use sugar for the carbonizing. I use about 12g of sugar per 1.5 litres of beer. I boil the sugar with a little bit of water and some citric acid. For example, for 450g of sugar, I use about half a liter of water and a teaspoon of citric acid. It must boil for about 20 minutes to break down the sugar in order to improve the fermentation and make it as clean as possible. The formula I use is 30 ml of liquid per bottle (1.5 litres). As I was bottling 35 bottles, I topped up the sugar water to 1.05 litres of liquid. I then added 30ml to each bottle and filled them with the brew.