The next steps in the process are simpler than the first half of the homebrew process. Once the airlock stopped bubbling I waited another 2-3 days. I believe the beer sat in the fermenter for about a week. I wish I had taken better notes at this point. Once I opened the fermenter, I used an auto siphon to transfer the wort into the botting bucket. The bottling bucket has a hole at the bottom for a bottling spout. I learned later that the bottle filler, which has a release pin on the bottom of a plastic tube, I used to transfer the wort instead of fill bottles. I filled bottles straight from the spout. It worked fine I think, but I could see the bottle filler working better because it would aerate the beer less. I filled about 52 bottles and capping them went fine, no bottles blew up from too much pressure. Once I'd fill a bottle I'd put a cap on, but not cap it until I filled all the bottles. Then I went back to the first bottle I filled and capped them in the order I filled them. I wait is supposed to release the oxygen from the head space of the bottle and fill it with CO2.
I learned more than a couple of other key things from this completed process:
1) I did not put my hops in at the right time. The instructions were vague at best about when to put my hops in once I started boiling. All they list is a time in minutes, in this case 45 minutes, next to the hops ingredients. I was not aware until recently that the time means "how long before the end of boil" instead of "time into boil". They need to specify a little more clearly.
2) I may have put too much water in. A homebrew book I was reading suggested putting 1.5 gallons of water in the fermenter (because I was doing a 3.5 gallon boil) before adding in the wort. I'm pretty sure I ended up with 5.5 to 6 gallons in my fermenter. Next time I will top the fermenter off to 5 gallons after pouring in the wort.
3) I am not sure the priming sugar mixed evenly. I read after the fact on a homebrew website that you should mix in the priming sugar by creating a nice whirlpool. Some of the bottles I opened streamed out the top for a good 30 seconds, while others maintained their level upon opening. The only difference I can account for is two days between opening and some were from the beginning of the bottle filling and the others were from the end/middle. I'll have to continue monitoring this to see if the difference is more about what order they were filled or how long they are bottle conditioned. By the way, I've only let them sit in the bottle for 2 weeks, so maybe they will also improve after another week or more?
4) My first homebrew came out alright but not great. It was hazy brown, light in the mouth, on the sweet side, had an aroma that was not necessarily off but hard to discern. I would smell it at first smell late in the palate and sometimes after I'd swirl the beer in the glass to aerate it.
I had my beer at the most recent group tasting event at my place and I think it went over OK, but no one was crazy about it, including me. I'm ready for my next homebrew.
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