Bottle Day Outside

[TAK]

Ok, so a lot of people brew outside, of course, but does anyone BOTTLE outside? It's so nice out today, it'd make this otherwise boring task a bit more enjoyable. One question comes to mind though, am I at much risk of infecting? There's probably more wild floating things outside than inside, maybe.

 

[tre9er]

In general, probably.

 

[Revvy]

Man, I wouldn't. Bottling's not a fast process, that's a lot of time for naked beer to be sitting there vulnerable.

Typically when we brew outside our beer is not in the "danger zone" for all that long, it's going into a fermenter and getting yeasted asap. The point of that is to get the good bugs competing against any wild ones. Bottling's not the same. You're not throwing in a ton of yeast to out grow any nasties.

To me, too much risk.

 

[atom]

I bottled my first batch outside...it was fine.

 

[TAK]

I bottled my first batch outside...it was fine.

Was it just the one batch, or did you ever bottle outside again?

If I had to wager a guess, I'd say if I do it once, chances are it'll be just fine. But, if one makes a habit out of the practice, eventually you'll probably have a batch pick up some bug.

 

[Revvy]

Why would you even wanna risk it? There's too many uncontrollable outside to risk, all you need is a bird to take a dump as it's flying by, the wind to change direction, some insect be attracted to the sugar (one fly with acetobactor on it's from landing in dog crap will turn everything to vinegar, )or even just having a neighbor decide to fire up their lawnmower and kick everything around them up in the air, and it's 5 gallons down the drain because you thought it'd be fun to sit outside.....

I lost a gallon of mead made with 50 year old honey because of a neighbor's lawnmower just as we were pitching yeast. Lucky it wasn't everything we were working on that day.

I just don't understand why you'd really wanna risk it even once. Just because another person dodged a bullet, does it mean you will too? The odds are so against success in that.

But hey, it's your product...just be prepared for bottle bombs or vinegar. *shrug*

 

[PorterGlenn]

I dont have any strong feelings either way, but tend to agree with what revvy said.

I do wonder though how the sunlight would play into this before the beer gets into your bottles? From what I understand sunlight starts to hurt beer much faster than you would guess?

 

[Revvy]

I dont have any strong feelings either way, but tend to agree with what revvy said.

I do wonder though how the sunlight would play into this before the beer gets into your bottles? From what I understand sunlight starts to hurt beer much faster than you would guess?

Oh crap...I totally forgot about this, since noone's ever mentioned bottling outdoors before. But you're right. SUNLIGHT IS THE ENEMY OF FERMENTED BEER WITH HOPS IN IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's been shown by the basic brewing guys that FERMENTED beer's exposure to sunlight for as little as 15 minutes can cause it to skunk.....and only a little longer if it the brown bottle....

This is your beer in sunlight.....



You're talking nearly an hour exposure to uv light will bottling.... *shrug*

Best line ever.... "I wouldn't clean a wound with that."

Good catch Glenn

 

[atom]

Was it just the one batch, or did you ever bottle outside again?

If I had to wager a guess, I'd say if I do it once, chances are it'll be just fine. But, if one makes a habit out of the practice, eventually you'll probably have a batch pick up some bug.

I only did it once because it was in october and one of the last warm weekends. i have since kegged outside...also fine.

i really don't understand all the concern. the bottling bucket is covered with a lid, bottles are in a starsan soak until ready to be filled and then immediately capped.

 

[PorterGlenn]

i really don't understand all the concern. the bottling bucket is covered with a lid, bottles are in a starsan soak until ready to be filled and then immediately capped.

I have always bottled inside, however I dont put the lid on the bottling bucket, in the beginning I am gennerally smelling the beer, then at the end I am tilting the bucket and trying to get minimal sludge from the bottom in the bottles.

Should I maybe start putting a lid on? I have never had any problems with this approach?

 

[Yooper]

I'm certainly NO microbiologist, but I would think that there are far more microbes in a typical kitchen than outside in general.

As long as you're out of the sun (say, a covered porch), I can't see bottling outside being any riskier than being in my kitchen. You may have some insects outside that could be a problem though, that you may not have inside (like fruitflies). Fruitflies would ruin the beer.

 

[homebrewdad]

I love the outdoors, myelf, but I can't see the upside of fresh air balancing out the potential hazards of being outside.

There's the skunking factor. There's the "crap falls in my beer" factor.

Boiling outside is no big deal; if a leaf or a bug falls in your beer, it'll get sanitized. Bottling, though, has no such safeguards.

Think, too, of the pollen in the air in springtime.

Get somthing in one bottle, ruin it. Get something in your bucket, maybe ruin the batch.

I'm sure that bottling outside CAN work, but why risk it?

 

[Sheldon]

We just had a screened in porch built. Will be able to finally walk on the finished floors this Sunday. I might try bottling up there one day, but I have all my brewery stuff here in the basement, so it might be more of a hassle to carry stuff back and forth.

 

[TAK]

I certainly wouldn’t say that bottling outside is notably safe. But I also wouldn’t say that doing so without catching an infection is tantamount to dodging a bullet. It’s just like missing one of your sanitation steps. If you forget to sanitize your bottling bucket, for example, as long as it’s clean, you probably won’t catch an infection. I know I’ve forgotten to do this before, and everything turned out fine. It’s that you don’t want to make a habit out of it. We dial in our sanitation standards and steps, not because if you miss one thing, that batch is doomed. Sanitation is the process of leveraging in your favor the aggregate of probabilities from the myriad of vulnerabilities.

I cover my bottling bucket, either loosely with a lid or a sheet of foil, and the caps go right on from the sanitizer to cover the bottles. I always do this inside; so either there or outside, the beer shouldn’t have much exposure to the air. Or light for that matter, although I concede that even refracted sunlight inside a garage or something is likely to be more detrimental than the light inside your house.

I'm certainly NO microbiologist, but I would think that there are far more microbes in a typical kitchen than outside in general.

As long as you're out of the sun (say, a covered porch), I can't see bottling outside being any riskier than being in my kitchen. You may have some insects outside that could be a problem though, that you may not have inside (like fruitflies). Fruitflies would ruin the beer.

+1 to this. The sponge, rag, or whatever sits next to the kitchen sink in your house, is the dirtiest object in the household, as measured by the number of little nasties, even worse than the toilet. And I expect a lot of people bottle next to their kitchen sink, but no one bottles next to their toilet. Or at least they wouldn’t admit it.