Tonight was bottling night–or more succinctly, adventures in bottling night.
First, I don’t like the hop bits that get left over from dry hopping, so I was looking for a way to filter them. My Tazo Awake tea comes in cotton tea bags, so I cut one open, soaked it and an elastic in sanitizer and stuck it on the end of my auto siphon. It started OK, but seemed to introduce a lot of air, and ended up getting clogged, plus, the air bubbles make me worry of oxidation. So I pulled it out, took off the tea bag and elastic and resumed siphoning.
Immediately after, I notice my bottling bucket is leaking! What the homebrew!
I quickly rinse my hands and forearms down in sanitizer and plunge into the fresh beer to tighten up the spigot. It’s a stop gap, but at least the leak has slowed to a drip.
After that, things went according to plan and experience. I enjoy filling bottles and capping them, so that was fun.
The beer smells amazing, and I’m eager for it to carbonate. It might even be ready for next week’s London Homebrewers Guild meeting.