I just bottled my first batch

[Aki]

Absolutely awful and horrible experience! I may have ruined a good brew.

There was sediment on top of the wort. I had to bump siphon over and over again to keep the flow running and sediment was soon everywhere. Bottling wand got stuck twice of sediment during the process of transfering from primary to bottling kettle (don’t have a bucket yet). Wort kept bubbling a lot when I had to manually bump the siphon and I left like a litre of brew to the fermenter ’cause there was so much yeast and sediment in it.

I have heard that from tasting the brew after FG reading you get an idea of what the final product is going to taste like, but this one tasted like crap. Very blunt, not hoppy aromas nor malty aromas. Strange flavour.

Attached you can see what the wort looked like in the beginning and after moving to bottling bucket.

If you have tips for the future I am happy to hear them. Have read a lot and the process looked a lot easier than it actually was.

 

[Immocles]

Siphons can take a bit of practice to get the hang of them. They're awkward at best. Try submerging the tip at about the depth where you want it ( an inch or so about the yeast cake, it might be hard to gauge in the bucket though), and clip the siphon to the rim of the fermenter with a bag clip or something. That should hold it in place so it doesn't kick a bunch of trub up. Also make sure you're using gravity to your advantage to keep the flow going.

 

[wsmith1625]

Those are some odd looking pictures. I ferment in a bucket and never seen anything like it. I have a few questions about your process.

• What is your batch size? That krausen line is very low in the bucket.
• Did you leave any trub in the boil kettle or did it all go in the fermenter?
• How long did you leave it in the fermenter? Even if you're at final gravity, leaving it in the primary longer will allow all the trub to settle and the yeast to clean up the fusel flavors.
• You're fermenter has a valve in it. Next time try attaching your transfer tub to the fermenter valve and do a gravity transfer to the bottling bucket. This eliminates the need for a racking cane or auto siphon.
• You need a bottling bucket with a valve. Then you can attach a bottling wand to the valve which makes filling your bottles a breeze.

Sorry you had such a terrible time. Don't give up. After a few batches, you'll start building confidence and have more fun.

 

[wsmith1625]

BTW..Your 2nd pic after you emptied the fermenter looks very strange. It's chunky. I'm guessing you stirred it up with your siphon. It should be very smooth and pasty looking. The trubb will settle first and the yeast will settle on top of that. It should all be smooth and compact at the bottom of the fermenter. If you stir it up accidentally, leave it a while and it should settle again.

 

[jrgtr42]

Yeah, when I'm siphoning, I'll get it running, then lower it to the point I see sediment from the bottom coming up, then bring it a quarter inch or so up. That gets me clear enough for government work.
Also, getting to the end, I'll gently tip the fermenter bucket towards me a bit to get that last little bit.
I'm more worried about the stuff on top. It almost looked like krausen that was still going.
How long did you have it fermenting? Are you sure it was complete? Did you check starting and finishing gravities? FG a couple times, 2 or 3 days apart?

 

[Aki]

Thank you for responses and tips. Next time I'll try to stick the bottling wand on fermenter tap and drain it to the bottling bucket that way. Brew day tomorrow so I'll keep on practicing!

• What is your batch size? That krausen line is very low in the bucket.

Only 5 liters - the trub.

• Did you leave any trub in the boil kettle or did it all go in the fermenter?

Almost everything went to the fermenter, through strainer. I mashed in a bag.

• How long did you leave it in the fermenter?

14 days.

- I'm more worried about the stuff on top. It almost looked like krausen that was still going.

I accidentally pitched almost a full smack pack of Wyeast 1056 to 5 liters so that could be it, could it?

- Did you check starting and finishing gravities? FG a couple times, 2 or 3 days apart?

Nope, due to the small batch size I wanted to minimize brew going down the drain.


About the brew taste, is it normal to have blunt flavour before bottle conditioning?

 

[wsmith1625]

It doesn't sound like you did anything wrong, just need to work on your technique. I'm guessing you just had a lot of settled yeast for that volume of beer and you stirred it up a bit. I'm also thinking you introduced a lot of oxygen when bottling, so that will have a negative effect on flavor. Let them carb up and give them a try. It's only going to get better.

FYI

• Tranfer tube goes on the fermenter valve
• Transferred beer goes to bottling bucket
• Bottling wand goes on bottling bucket valve. The spring loaded tip makes filling very easy.

Also, make sure you're sanitizing everything and adding priming sugar to carb up those bottles.

 

[bd16]

I'm fairly new to brewing as well and can say personally that bottling is probably the most difficult part of the whole process and is the easiest to mess up. I've also found that most of that difficulty comes from the siphon. A bottling bucket with a tap for sure helps with this, that's the easiest method of transfer from vessel to bottles in my opinion.

Another note is that just because something happens that could hurt your beer, it doesn't mean it will hurt your beer. I had a terrible bottling experience on my last batch, I thought for sure that I had ruined the whole batch. But I went with it, and a few weeks of conditioning later it turned out fantastic.

Bottling can be tough and frustrating, but it gets easier with practice. Don't put too much trust in how it tastes pre-conditioning, it'll only get better with some time in the bottles.

 

[IslandLizard]

5 liters

That's a small batch! In a huge bucket from what it looks. You probably only had 4-5 inches of beer and trub in there from the start.

When I rack from a bucket, I slowly tilt the bucket forward (stick a wedge or rolled up towel under the high end) to keep the well I'm siphoning from as deep as possible. I start tilting when I'm at the 1-1.5 gallon level. That's where you started from. For a small amount of beer, next time tilt it before even starting to siphon.

They sell bucket clips for siphons and racking canes (for different diameters, so get the correct one), to clamp a siphon or racking cane along the side of the bucket. You start high, and slowly lower the siphon as the beer level drops until you see it starting to suck up trub. That's when you stop. By using the bucket clamp it also frees your hands.

They also sell (plastic) inverter tippies for racking canes and auto siphons. They attach to the bottom of the siphon/cane, to divert the flow to come from the top instead of the bottom, again to prevent sucking up trub.

By next time, first rehearse by siphoning 4 inches of water from a bucket. Get a feel for priming the siphon in that shallow depth of beer. Tilt it, since it's so shallow already!

For proper terminology sake, it's wort before you pitch yeast. As soon as you pitch yeast wort becomes... beer!

 

[Aki]

Thank you everyone!