CrazyP
Well-Known Member
Tonight stepped up RDWHAHB to RDWHAJD (Jack Daniels!) :cross:
I bottled my Pliny clone tonight and man, what a mess. I decided to use my new auto-siphon, which has worked well for racking from one vessel to another, but it is much tricker to use with one of those spring-loaded bottling wands. The trouble started immediately, after I forget to push the wand down while pulling the auto-siphon up. That created a vacuum on the upstroke and a bunch of air in the siphon line on the downstroke. I managed to spill a bunch of beer on the floor while resetting. Then, because my LHBS sold me the wrong diameter of siphon hose, I used some rubber bands and plastic clamps to make the connections tight. The rubber bands weren't working very well tonight though and I was continuously getting small bubbles leaking into my line from the wand side. This oxygenated the wort caused a bunch of foam to form in the bottles which made it hard to fill them fully.
After filling about 24 bottles, I stopped to sanitize the remaining 24 bottles. (I like to break up the sanitizing and filling steps). I put the wand in an empty, sanitized bottle. It took me about 5 minutes to sanitize the remaining bottles, and when I went to grab the wand, I saw a huge puddle of beer. Apparently the tip of the wand was being pushed down just enough to slowly leak beer. It was probably at least a bottle's worth of beer wasted.
My next 16 bottles went okay (still dealing with the small air bubbles), until I saw something going through the hose. I initially thought it was bubbles, but then I realized it was small hops particles that were being sucked into the siphon from the surface of the liquid. The next thing I know, the siphon had clogged with the all hops. I still had a good amount of beer left, so I decided to take it apart, clean it, re-sanitize it, and start the siphon again. The siphon proceeded to clog after 1 bottle! I managed to fill 3 more bottles by pumping the wand up and down, before it completely clogged up again. My final yield was 44 bottles, when I should have gotten 48.
The good news? The beer tastes fantastic! I've never had the real Pliny the Elder, but the flavor and hop aroma were excellent. And overall, this was a pretty successful brew, especially since it was the highest OG brew I've ever done and the first time I've dry hopped.
Some lessons learned:
1) Use the correct siphon hose size (5/16" inner diameter, not 3/8")
2) Sanitize all the bottles at once; don't break up the bottling session
3) If you have to put a spring loaded bottling wand down, don't set it down on the tip
4a) Always press the wand tip down when starting an auto-siphon
or
4b) Buy a bottling bucket!
5) Make sure the beer is adequately filtered so that the bottling wand doesn't clog.
I bottled my Pliny clone tonight and man, what a mess. I decided to use my new auto-siphon, which has worked well for racking from one vessel to another, but it is much tricker to use with one of those spring-loaded bottling wands. The trouble started immediately, after I forget to push the wand down while pulling the auto-siphon up. That created a vacuum on the upstroke and a bunch of air in the siphon line on the downstroke. I managed to spill a bunch of beer on the floor while resetting. Then, because my LHBS sold me the wrong diameter of siphon hose, I used some rubber bands and plastic clamps to make the connections tight. The rubber bands weren't working very well tonight though and I was continuously getting small bubbles leaking into my line from the wand side. This oxygenated the wort caused a bunch of foam to form in the bottles which made it hard to fill them fully.
After filling about 24 bottles, I stopped to sanitize the remaining 24 bottles. (I like to break up the sanitizing and filling steps). I put the wand in an empty, sanitized bottle. It took me about 5 minutes to sanitize the remaining bottles, and when I went to grab the wand, I saw a huge puddle of beer. Apparently the tip of the wand was being pushed down just enough to slowly leak beer. It was probably at least a bottle's worth of beer wasted.
My next 16 bottles went okay (still dealing with the small air bubbles), until I saw something going through the hose. I initially thought it was bubbles, but then I realized it was small hops particles that were being sucked into the siphon from the surface of the liquid. The next thing I know, the siphon had clogged with the all hops. I still had a good amount of beer left, so I decided to take it apart, clean it, re-sanitize it, and start the siphon again. The siphon proceeded to clog after 1 bottle! I managed to fill 3 more bottles by pumping the wand up and down, before it completely clogged up again. My final yield was 44 bottles, when I should have gotten 48.
The good news? The beer tastes fantastic! I've never had the real Pliny the Elder, but the flavor and hop aroma were excellent. And overall, this was a pretty successful brew, especially since it was the highest OG brew I've ever done and the first time I've dry hopped.
Some lessons learned:
1) Use the correct siphon hose size (5/16" inner diameter, not 3/8")
2) Sanitize all the bottles at once; don't break up the bottling session
3) If you have to put a spring loaded bottling wand down, don't set it down on the tip
4a) Always press the wand tip down when starting an auto-siphon
or
4b) Buy a bottling bucket!
5) Make sure the beer is adequately filtered so that the bottling wand doesn't clog.
