These instructions are the intellectual property of Annapolis Home Brew, and are protected by U.S. copyright law.  They may not be duplicated (in part or in full) or distributed (physically or electronically) under any circumstance.

Please Note:  These instructions work well with PHIL’S MINI LAUTER TUN, which is a 2 gallon bucket outfitted with a false bottom and drain.  At about $20, it’s both affordable and effective for mashing up to 5 pounds of grain.  If you’re using equipment that is significantly different, you may need to modify these procedures to suit.

Each of Annapolis Home Brew’s partial mash recipes includes 5 pounds of grain for mashing.  The remainder of the fermentable sugar comes from malt extract (and in some cases other sugars.)  Depending on how strong each different recipe should be, there could be anywhere from 1½ to 6 or more pounds of malt extract.

When mashing, you need an accurate and precise thermometer.  A meat or candy thermometer isn’t good enough (even if it were accurate, the scale isn’t precise enough.)  In our experience, most electronic thermometers have precise readout, but many are surprisingly inaccurate.  The best low-price thermometers are laboratory-type or floating-type Spirit thermometers.  Spirit thermometers contain non-toxic ingredients instead of mercury.

Psychology of The Advancing Brewer:  There are many different brewing techniques.  As you read and learn more, you may come to feel that you need to do a hundred things just to make decent beer.  This isn’t true!  But we home brewers are hobbyists at heart; we like to try new things.  Plus, everyone likes to earn bragging rights. So our natural tendency is to say to ourselves, “All right, I’ve done that before, now what’s next?” 

And there’s a lot that you can try!  Stuff like step-mashing, decoction-mashing, ultra-precise water chemistry, and the thousand-dollar-you-can’t-live-without-it machine.  If you want to experiment with different brewing techniques or more advanced equipment, we encourage you.  However, you should start with the simplest procedures first, then possibly go on from there... after you get the simple stuff to turn out right!  Always remember that this is supposed to be FUN!  Don’t get so bogged down that you don’t enjoy brewing anymore. 

We’ve tried every technique you can imagine, and lots of equipment.  We wrote these instructions to include all the vitally important steps for good beer, while remaining as simple and quick as possible.  These instructions are the procedures we follow as we develop our recipes.  Follow them, and your beer will come out as intended.  We also avoid steps that require exotic equipment.  When it comes to extra steps, some of them may be worth your effort (these appear here as “bonus” steps.)  Others are theoretically great, but too difficult to be practical in small-scale, low-tech home brewing.  Or they may give a minor benefit at a major cost in time, effort, or money.  We leave that stuff out.  If you’re keen to learn, there are many books, websites, brew clubs, and classes out there to teach you!

Before Brewing: Very Important! Recipes include live yeast.  You must prepare the yeast before brewing!

1.  You may have a standard 50ml Slap-Pack.  These must be activated at least 1 day before brewing, usually more.  First, look for the date stamp on the front of the pouch; this is the day it was manufactured.  You must activate it 1 day in advance for each month of age.  For example, a 4 months old pack should be activated 4 days before brewing.  Slap packs are guaranteed for 6 months, but in reality they’re good for a year in the refrigerator.  Older slap packs just take longer to swell; after swelling they work fine. 

Activating a 50ml slap-pack is fast and easy.  Take it out of the refrigerator and lay it on the countertop.  Feel around for the inner bulge.  You must burst the inner bulge by either squeezing the pack, or slapping it.  Don’t worry, the outer pouch is tough and won’t break open easily.  When activated properly, the inner bulge seems to disappear.  Leave the pouch at room temperature - don’t refrigerate after activation!  The pouch will eventually swell.  As soon as you see swelling, it’s ready to use.  Left for long enough, it’ll swell up like a football!  Don’t worry; the pouch is too tough to pop open.  Once fully swelled, you must use it within 3 days or the yeast dies.  Purchase a fresh culture. 

2.  You may have a Ready-To-Pitch XL "Activator" Pack.  These larger 125ml pouches are superior to tube-style cultures.  An XL-Pack can be used as soon as it warms to room temperature (just like tube cultures.)  However, XL-Packs are even better if you give it a head start by activating it.  Since they only need a few hours, it’s convenient to activate when you decide to start brewing - it’ll be ready by the time you need it!  XL-packs don’t always swell up, so don't worry.  You don’t need to wait for swelling, because there are great benefits within the first 1-3 hours of activation before use.  The yeast pouch is printed with activating instructions.  Shelf life is at least 6 months.  Discard packs if not used within 24 hours of activation. 

Boiling a Partial Mash Recipe:  To make 5 gallons of beer, you don’t need to boil 5 gallons.  Partial mash recipes can be boiled in a 16-20 quart pot on your stovetop.  Don’t try to boil more than 3-4 gallons on your stove, it’s not powerful enough.  A weak boil degrades beer quality.  Leave room in the brewpot for frothing and foaming.  If you want to boil the entire 5 gallon volume, you need a 32-40 quart pot and an outdoor propane burner.

SECTION 1 - MASHING

Step 1:  Measure out the STRIKE WATER for your mash.  Strike water will be combined with the grains to form the body of the mash.  You need 1 to 2 quarts of water per pound of grain.  If you are using the mini lauter tun, we recommend using 6 quarts for 5 pounds.  If your water is chlorinated, you should consider using a faucet filter or purchasing spring water.  Distilled water should not be used for mashing.  You should not mash with water which has been processed through a salt-type softening system, or with Reverse-Osmosis water.

Step 2:  Heat strike water to 175º-180ºF.  Make sure that the drain is closed on the mini lauter tun, and then pour in the strike water.  This will cool the strike water down a few degrees.  Stir while using your accurate thermometer, and go on to the next step when the temperature reaches 172ºF.  If you need to adjust the temperature, you can drain off a little bit of the water and replace it with boiling or cool water.  Just keep the total volume at 6 quarts.

Step 3:  The grains must be at a reasonable room temperature for this step to work.  Don’t use grains that just came out of cold storage or refrigeration.  Pour grains into the strike water.  Let the grains settle into the strike water, then stir gently with a slim instrument to ensure even mixing without disturbing the false bottom.  You don’t need to stir any more once you see that there are no dry clumps of grain.

Step 4:  Cover the mini lauter tun and wait for 1-2 minutes while the temperature of the strike water and grains equalizes.  Now take the cover off and check the temperature of the mash.  The malt enzymes that actually do the work of mashing are active at temperatures between 148º-160ºF, so there is some room for error.

Step 5:  If the temperature of the mash isn’t in the proper range, or if you want to adjust it more perfectly, you can add some cool water or boiling water to the mash.  If you run out of room to add water, the best trick is to drain off a portion of the mash water and either heat in a saucepan before returning it to the mash, or cool it by laying the saucepan in a sink with cold water before returning it to the mash. 

Step 6:  When you’re satisfied with the mash temperature, put the lid on to preserve heat.  It’s also a good idea to wrap the mini lauter tun in a towel to help insulate it.  The total mash time is 45 minutes.  You should check the temperature every 15 or 20 minutes.  Since it’s cooling down, our favorite trick is to boil Pyrex measuring cup with 2 cups of water in our microwave and pour it in after 20 minutes, to give the temperature a little boost. 

Step 7:  When about 15 minutes remain in the mash, begin heating 6-8 quarts of water to 180ºF.  This water will be used for sparging, which is the term for rinsing and collecting the liquid malt sugars from the spent grain husks.  

Step 8:  When the mash is complete, open the drain valve and slowly collect about a quart of mash liquid.  There will be lots of chunks & grain particles in the first runnings.  Now, gently pour the first runnings back into the top of the mash without stirring up the whole grain bed.  Continue re-circulating in this manner, usually 2 or 3 times, until the runoff comes out relatively clear.  During this time the spent grains & husks are forming a natural filter bed.

Step 9:  Now you can begin collecting the runoff in your brewpot.  The flow should be slow enough that it takes 10-20 minutes to collect 2-3 gallons.  As the water level in the mash drops, gently add hot sparge water to the top of the mash to maintain the water level about 1 inch above the grains.  If possible, keep heat on the sparge water so that it doesn’t cool off during this time.  Ideally, you should maintain 180ºF sparge water temperature until the last bit is used.  Heat helps to rinse the sticky malt sugars out of the gelatinous spent grains.  You may read elsewhere that 180ºF is too hot for sparging… but that’s only true if you’re using very efficient commercial brewing equipment.  The real issue is that you don’t want to raise the grain bed temperature much above 170º.  But home brewing equipment loses so much heat that we need to use hotter sparge water just to stay ahead of natural cooling.

Step 10:  Stop sparging when the runoff no longer tastes sweet, when you run out of sparge water, or when you run out of room in the brewpot.  Tasting the runoff is really a great technique.  The first runnings are very sweet.  As sparge water works its way through, the runoff becomes thinner and less sweet.  Eventually it tastes astringent (tongue-drying like red wine.)  When you taste astringency with no sweetness, stop collecting runoff immediately.  In a perfect world we’d constant test the runoff with a hydrometer and do some math, but hot runoff is hard to accurately test, and it thins so quickly on this small scale that your sense of taste is much more reliable.

SECTION 2 – BOILING

Step 1:  If you didn’t collect enough runoff to fill your brewpot, you can add water now.  If you’re boiling on a stovetop, don’t try to boil more than 3-4 gallons because residential stovetops aren’t powerful enough.  And the “side burners” on outdoor barbecue gas-grills are actually less powerful.  A weak boil degrades beer quality.  If you want to boil the entire 5 gallon volume, you need to start with at least 6 gallons (you lose a lot to steam) in a 32-40 quart brewpot, on a high-powered outdoor propane burner.  This is desirable, but not necessary for good results.

Step 2:  Put the pot on high heat.  Keep an eye on the pot when it begins to boil.  At first, there’s a tendency to foam up and boil over.  Keep a few ice cubes handy - throwing them in will stop a boil-over instantly.  Adjust the heat until you have a steady rolling boil, keeping the lid off of the pot.

Step 3:  When the boil is stable, pour in the first bag of hops, labeled “Add this packet of hops at the beginning of the 60 minute boil.”  Hop pellets are made from finely crushed hop flowers.  They dissolve and disperse quickly, so there’s no need to stir.  Don’t use bags or strainers for hops.  Bags might seem to prevent sediment in the boil, but mostly they prevent full hop utilization.  Kettle sediment (known as “trub”) is both inevitable and harmless.  The first hops may cause foaming, so watch for boil-over.  Begin a 60 minute countdown to the end of the boil.  Most (but not all) recipes include more than 1 bag of hops.  Add each bag to the boil at the times printed on their labels.  Some recipes include “dry hops,” which you won’t use today, save them to add to the fermentor after a few of days.

Step 4:  If you’re using an immersion-style wort chiller (highly recommended for best & fastest results,) put it into the boiling wort when 10-15 minutes remain in the countdown, heat sterilizes the chiller.  When the countdown reaches zero, turn off heat and remove the pot from the warm burner if you can move it safely.  Pour in the malt extract and stir to dissolve.  There’s plenty of heat to dissolve and pasteurize it, so don’t worry about contamination.

Step 5:  From now on, don’t let anything non-sterile touch the wort.  Cool the wort to room temperature as quickly as possible.  Rapid cooling is not just a way to save time, it’s crucial in preventing bad flavor compounds which can build up in wort that remains hot after boiling.  The best tool for cooling is a wort chiller.  Follow the instructions for your chiller.  Be careful of hot exhaust water.  If you don’t have a chiller, an ice-water bath is very effective.  Simply cover the pot and carefully move it to a sink or tub.  Surround it with ice and cold water.  Don’t use ice alone, the water really helps.  It’s often a bad idea to add ice directly to the wort.  Placing the pot outside in cold weather or snow isn’t very effective.  Ice-water is best because it has lots of mass to absorb heat.

Step 6:  While your wort is cooling, take use the time to sterilize/sanitize (for our purposes we’ll use the terms interchangeably) your fermentor with a brewing sanitizer.  Follow the instructions for the particular brand you’re using.  Don’t try to “improve” things!  Some sterilizers don’t work if you mix them too strong, and some no-rinse sanitizers don’t work if you rinse them.  In a pinch, you can use unscented household bleach at a rate of ½ cup per 2 gallons, but it requires a long soak, lots of rinsing, and cam leave nasty flavor deposits.  It’s much better to use a sanitizer which is made for home brewing.  Avoid other household disinfectants and “antibacterial” products.

Step 7:  Once the wort has cooled to below 100ºF, you can pour it into your fermentor.  If you’re using a glass fermentor, either siphon the wort or pour it through a sterile funnel.  There will be sediment (trub) on the bottom of the pot.  Trub is made of proteins and tannins from the malt, as well as hop particles.  You should stop pouring when you reach the trub, but if some of it gets into the fermentor it doesn’t harm the beer.  Don’t try to filter or strain the wort.  That’s a terrible waste of time for no practical benefit, unless you have elaborate equipment.

Step 8:  Add water to bring the volume up to 5 gallons.  You can use cold/chilled water to help cool the wort.  In a perfect world, you’d use only pre-boiled (sterile) cool water, but in reality most water is clean enough to use without bothering.  Again, avoid chlorinated or salt-softened water.  We recommend bringing the volume up to more than 5 gallons, since you’ll lose a few quarts to sediment.  Our recipes are designed to end up with 5 gallons of beer, so don’t worry about “watering it down!”  The ideal “standard” home brew fermentor is a 6½ gallon glass carboy.  The 5 gallon level is about 12 inches above the floor, so we fill them to about 12½ inches.  The extra headspace in the fermentor will allow room for the yeast foam which rises during fermentation.  Some brewers use a 5 or 6 gallon fermentor with a blow-off tube.  We generally don’t recommend blow-off because what’s blowing out is healthy yeast!  This often causes slow-down in fermentation, weakening the yeast population, resulting in more off-flavors.

Step 9:  Stir the wort vigorously with a sterile spoon or paddle.  This is more important than you might think, and for a number of reasons.  Primarily, it adds oxygen to the wort.  Boiling removed all of the oxygen, which the yeast needs to reproduce quickly and to grow healthy cells.  Stirring in a bucket is easy, but in a small-mouthed glass fermentor it’s more difficult.  One recommended tool called a “Mixstir” (it looks like a collapsible propeller on a stick) which hooks to your cordless drill.  The absolute best tool to have is an oxygen system made for home brewers.  These have become very affordable.  They quickly and easily deliver a fine mist of pure oxygen bubbles.  A few 10-second shots of pure oxygen result in yeast that’s incredibly healthy and vigorous - the beer ferments days faster and tastes cleaner.  Mixing is also important to blend the cool, thin water with the thick, hot wort.  Without some vigorous stirring, these liquids of varying thickness and temperature tend to separate into layers.

Step 10:  Optional, but recommended.  Use your hydrometer to test the Specific Gravity (SG) of the wort.  Don’t try to do this test in the fermentor.  Take a sample out and use a test jar or hydrometer thief.  Take care that the hydrometer is floating freely with no clinging bubbles, and then read the printed scale where it lines up with the surface.  This is your Original Gravity (OG) reading, write it down.  We don’t give you a predicted SG reading for a good reason – it’s easy to read a hydrometer wrong!  We don’t want another phone call or Email saying “You said it should be about 1.042, but I saw 1.045 so I dumped it out.”  (What a waste!)  Your OG is a direct result of how much malt extract is in the batch.  It’s not even possible to go wrong without spilling lots of malt or missing the 5 gallon mark.  Gravity starts with water at 1.000.  In 5 gallons, every pound of malt extract syrup adds about .007, and every pound of solid malt extract adds about .008.  Some types of steeping grains add a few points to the total.

Step 11:  Open your yeast package and pitch (pour it in.)  The procedures for preparing yeast are on the first page of these instructions.  Simply use something sanitary to cut open a corner of the yeast pouch.   It isn’t necessary to stir the yeast after pitching it.

Step 12:  If your fermentor is a plastic bucket, attach the lid.  Fill the airlock ½ full with clean water and carefully insert it into the grommetted hole in the lid.  You don’t need to push the airlock all the way down, just make a good seal without pushing the grommet through its hole.  If you’re using a glass carboy, put the airlock in the stopper before you put the stopper in the carboy.  Fill it ½ full with clean water, and then put the stopper onto the carboy.  If you try to put the stopper on the carboy first, it may push through into the carboy when you try to insert the airlock.

Step 13:  You should see visible signs of fermentation within 24 to 72 hours after adding yeast.  Fermentation produces lots of yeast foam and lots of CO2 gas.  The CO2 pushes its way out through the airlock, making bubbles like an aquarium ornament.  In a glass fermentor, these signs are as obvious as a lava lamp.  In an opaque plastic bucket, you must be a little more observant.  This “lag time” before visible fermentation is one of the biggest causes of unnecessary worry.  Bear in mind that Friday night to Monday morning isn’t 72 hours!  More seriously, some yeast strains are just naturally faster than others, and this isn’t necessarily a good or bad thing.  Cooler temperatures will slow down the fermentation, and again this isn’t necessarily good or bad.  The amount of dissolved oxygen in the wort also has a big influence on lag time.  Finally, if you’re using a plastic fermenting bucket, it’s very common for the lid to leak - even when new.  CO2 gas will take the easy way out, so you might not see any action in the airlock even though the fermentation is going strong.  Open the lid and take a look at what’s going on if you see no airlock action for 2 or 3 days.  Don’t get so worried about lag time that you pour in some old “emergency” yeast the next day – that’s a great way to ruin a batch which was probably doing just fine.  We’ve sold tens of thousands of yeast cultures, and true “duds” are exceedingly rare.  72 hours is only a guideline, not a time to despair.

Step 14:  Wait for the beer to ferment.  Shield the fermentor from ultraviolet light, like sunlight or fluorescent lights.  Ale Yeasts ferment well at or just below room temperature, 62-72ºF is ideal.  Lager Yeasts ferment well at cooler “basement” temperature, around 55-65ºF.  Some lager yeasts are tolerant of higher temperatures, and we favor these in our recipes.  Wheat Beer Yeasts act like ale yeasts, but for lots of fruity-ester flavors, choose a warm area (up to 80ºF.)  Keep the fermentor somewhere where the temperature is steady, not a porch or unheated garage where the temperature always changes.  In a basement, the fermentor will be coolest sitting directly on the foundation slab, and perhaps several degrees warmer if you put it on a table.  If all convenient areas are too cold, you can get an electric “heat belt” for your fermentor.  If your home is too warm, find a small or cheap refrigerator and outfit it with an override thermostat.  This will allow you to select the exact temperature you desire.

Step 15:  Fermentation usually takes 5 to 10 days, but it may be faster or slower.  The only honest statement is “Fermentation is finished when it’s finished!”  There’s no real way to predict how many days it’ll take, because every brewer has different conditions, and some recipes ferment faster than others. Experience will teach you what to expect.  Fermentation is usually complete when you don’t see any more activity.  In rare cases it can stop prematurely, usually due to lack of oxygen in the beginning or low fermentation temperature.  The only way to be absolutely sure it’s complete is to take another hydrometer reading.  The SG should have dropped approximately 75% (don’t count the 1 before the decimal) compared to the original reading.  In other words, a beer that started at 1.048 should finish at about 1.012.  If you suspect that your fermentation stopped early, move the fermentor to a warmer area, wait a day, then stir it to reinvigorate the yeast.  No activity means absolutely no activity - if your fermentor is still slowly producing CO2, it’s not finished yet.  Also - even after it’s finished it might bubble if you shake, squeeze, or tap the fermentor.  This is caused by the disturbance; it’s not a sign of renewed fermentation!

OPTIONAL – SECONDARY FERMENTATION

Most beers can benefit from a secondary fermentor.  Beers which ferment slowly, such as lagers and high-alcohol ales will benefit the most.  The term “secondary fermentor” is somewhat misleading, because most of the actual fermenting happens in the first (primary) fermentor.  The “secondary fermentor” is more appropriately described as an aging and clarifying vessel.  Ideally, there’s little or no actual fermentation in the secondary vessel.

The best container to use for a secondary fermentor is a 5 gallon glass carboy.  This is important for a few reasons:   

First, you don’t want any air headspace in a secondary fermentor, because oxygen in that air can contaminate the beer.  Although oxygen is necessary before fermentation, after fermentation it will rapidly spoil the beer.  This wasn’t a concern in the primary fermentor because so much CO2 is produced there that it blows out all of the air in the headspace.  However, now that your beer is in secondary, there’s little or no CO2 being produced, so you can’t count on the air being driven out before it does damage to the beer.   

Second, you shouldn’t use a bucket because of the risk of a leaky lid.  It’s common for buckets to “breathe” a little bit.  During primary fermentation, this isn’t a problem because so much CO2 is being produced that any leak is flowing outward.  Since there’s little or no CO2 being produced in secondary, a leak can be much more harmful.   

Third, a glass carboy is superior to a plastic bucket.  The obvious advantage is that you can glance right into a glass carboy to observe how the beer is settling and clarifying.  Additionally, beer in a bucket has a large surface area where it might absorb oxygen.  A glass carboy can be filled to the narrow neck, where the beer has only a tiny amount of surface area – another protection against oxidation. 

Using your secondary fermentor is easy.  Wait until fermentation is complete or nearly complete, and then gently siphon the beer from primary to secondary.  Leave as much of the sediment behind as possible.  You definitely want the secondary fermentor filled to the narrow part of the neck, so top up with pre-boiled cool water if necessary.  Don’t worry about “watering down” the beer, because you’re supposed to have 5 gallons at this point.  Now let the beer sit in the secondary fermentor until it’s clear.  Although most or all visible yeast will settle in the secondary fermentor, there will still be enough invisible suspended yeast cells to carbonate the beer in the bottles.  However, if your beer sits for a long time in secondary you may want to add more yeast when bottling, or be prepared to wait longer for carbonation.  Beers, especially lagers, can be cold aged in a secondary fermentor.  This can knock out all of the yeast, so you may need to add a fresh culture when you bottle or risk having no carbonation. 

OPTIONAL – CLARIFICATION

Finings and other clarifying agents can help the beer clear more quickly and completely, and reduce the chill haze which will form later.  You don’t need a secondary fermentor to use finings or other clarifying agents.  They’re cheap and easy to use, and won’t have a bad effect on the beer.  Most finings are made from natural materials.  You don’t need to add preservatives to your beer unless you want to.  The best way to clarify is a three-part approach: 

First, use Irish moss (or a refined Irish moss product like Whirlfloc) during the boil.  Brewers should do this with every batch because there’s no drawback to the use of Irish mss.  Just add a teaspoon of Irish moss or drop in a Whirlfloc tablet during the last 10-15 minutes of the boil.  Irish moss causes more protein to separate and settle out of the wort, reducing one of the main causes of haziness in the finished beer. 

Second, add finings after fermentation is complete.  Finings include brewer’s gelatin, isinglass, SuperKleer, etc.  Their job is to make particles stick together and settle more effectively.  In a single fermentor, add finings a few days before bottling.  If you’re using a secondary fermentor, you have the alternative of adding finings when you transfer the beer.  Follow the directions on your finings.  Stirring makes finings work, even though it seems to be a step backwards.  Stirring up the settled yeast looks bad, but don’t worry because this heavy stuff will settle again in a day or two.  But now the finings cause lighter suspended particles to stick to the heavy ones.  In a few days the beer will settle again, and it will be much clearer than before you stirred it up. 

                Third, PVPP-type clarifiers (Polyclar, Divergan, etc.) can be added at the same time as finings.  They’re plastic powders which don’t dissolve in the beer.  You stir them in, and after a day or two they settle to the bottom.  On the way down, they absorb tannins which contribute to chill haze later.  Stirring is very important because the PVPP must be completely dispersed for maximum effectiveness.  It’s a good idea to add these powders slowly, because there’s plenty of CO2 dissolved in the beer.  This dissolved CO2 can foam up when the powder goes in.

SECTION 2 – BOTTLING

Correct Bottles:  Glass bottles with pry-off caps are best.  Home brew cappers aren’t made for bottles with twist-off caps.  American-made brown longneck bottles, such as Samuel Adams, are ideal.  Clear bottles, like Corona, are OK, but keep them away from ultraviolet light sources (sunlight and fluorescent light.)  Flip-top Grolsch-style bottles are great.  Some bottles from Britain and Canada, such as Bass and Molson, are harder to cap with a handheld capper due to slight differences in mouth design.  A bench-type capper is better for these.

How Many Bottles:  Don’t be worried if you have a few bottles more or less, but you’ll need approximately:

53 – 12oz. bottles                
40 – 16oz. (500ml) Bottles                  
29 – 22oz. Bottles
19 – 32oz. (1 liter) Bottles

Alternatives:  Instead of bottling, many brewers choose to use kegs.  Converted 5 gallon soda kegs are popular, because they make filtration & forced carbonation possible for very professional results.  Soda keg systems generally require a dedicated refrigerator.  Mini-Kegs & Party-Pigs are also popular.  They’re smaller, so a batch can be split between kegs & bottles, plus they fit into your existing refrigerator.  Read more about kegs on our website.

Step 1:  Before you start bottling, make sure fermentation is complete.  Complete means no more activity.  “Very slow” doesn’t count!  In a glass fermentor it’s easily see fermentation slow down and stop.  Plastic fermentors are trickier – don’t rely on watching the airlock because lids often leak.  It may be necessary to remove the lid.  Inside, there’s usually a tell-tale ring of crud that shows where yeast foam rose to the surface during fermentation.  Remember: disturbing the fermentor may make bubbles to rise, but this isn’t a sign of fermentation.

Step 2:  Optional, but recommended.  Test the Specific Gravity (SG) with a hydrometer.  Don’t try to test in your fermentor - use a test jar or hydrometer thief.  Ensure that the hydrometer is free-floating with no clinging bubbles.  Read the scale where it lines up with the surface.  This is your Finishing/Final Gravity (FG) reading.  Why check? Although fermentation is usually complete when activity stops, in rare cases it can stop prematurely.  The only way to be absolutely sure is to check the SG.  The SG should have dropped (not counting the 1 before the decimal) approximately 75% during fermentation.  In other words, a beer that started at 1.048 should end at about 1.012.  If you suspect that fermentation stopped early, move it to a warmer area, wait a day, then stir to reinvigorate the yeast.

Step 3:  Mix up at least 2 gallons of cleansing/sterilizing solution in your bottling bucket.  If the bottles are visibly soiled, soak them in warm water first to soften the deposits, and then scrub them out.  Run some solution into each bottle, shake, and then pour the solution back into the bucket.  Don’t rinse unless the sterilizer’s instructions require it.  There are lots of gadgets to make cleaning, sterilizing, and draining bottles faster and easier.

Step 4:  Allow bottles to drain and dry upside down.  If you don’t have a bottle drying tree, you can use the pins on the top rack of your dishwasher.  Trying to sterilize with the dishwasher is a bad idea; dishwashers can’t get much water up inside the bottles.  Caps don’t need to be sterilized unless they’ve gotten dirty.  Never boil caps!

Step 5:  While the bottles are drying, use the sanitizing solution to sterilize your racking cane, siphon hose, and bottle filler.  You’ll also need to sterilize a big spoon or paddle and a glass measuring cup.  A racking cane is a clear, rigid plastic tube with a curved end and a black (or colored) anti-sediment tip on the other end.  Flexible hose hooks to the curved end.  Your bottle filler is a 12-15” clear tube with a black (or colored) valve on one end.

Step 6:  Attach the bottle filler to the bottling bucket spigot.  Rotate the spigot until it points upwards.  Next, cut off a 1” long piece of flexible siphon hose, and use it to splice the bottle filler onto the spigot.  Move your fermentor to a countertop or table.  Place the bottling bucket on the floor beneath it.  Soon you will siphon the beer from the fermentor into the bottling bucket, so be gentle when moving the fermentor to avoid stirring up the sediment.

Step 7:  If you haven’t done so already, assemble your siphon by attaching the flexible siphon hose to the curved end of the racking cane.  You can use hot water to soften the hose if it’s difficult to push on.  Siphon the beer from the fermentor to the bottling bucket.  You can start a siphon easily, and without unsanitary “sucking.”  Hold the entire hose-and-racking-cane siphon assembly upside-down by the ends, so it forms a big “U”.  Fill the whole thing with clean tap water.  Hold your thumb over the hose end, and then put the rigid end down into the fermentor.  Aim the hose end down low into the bottling bucket, and remove your thumb.  The water in the tube and gravity will start the siphon.  If this seems like a hassle, there are nice automatic siphon starters available for less than $10.00.

Step 8:  Don’t worry about the water used to start the siphon; it’s not enough to have any effect on the beer.  You should be able to let the racking cane rest on the bottom of the fermentor, because the special tip will prevent it from picking up sediment.  Just try not to let the racking cane move around too much or it might stir up the sediment.

Step 9:  As the beer siphons into the bottling bucket, try to make the transfer as gentle as possible.  Beer that is splashing or running down the side of the bucket picks up more oxygen, which reduces shelf life.  Ideally, the siphon tube should reach all the way down to the bottom of the bottling bucket.  The anti-sediment tip of the racking cane will stop siphoning with about ½-inch of sediment and beer left behind in the fermentor.  Thrifty brewers sometimes gently tip the fermentor to siphon out the last of the beer, especially in a secondary fermentor where there’s less sediment.  You shouldn’t worry about a few ounces of beer at the risk of siphoning a lot of sediment, though.

Step 10:  When the siphon is complete, lift the bottling bucket up to the countertop or table, placing it so that the spigot hangs a couple inches over the side.  Don’t put a lid on the bottling bucket.  If you suspect the presence of lots of dust or other airborne contaminants, drape a clean cloth over the top of the bucket.  Rotate the bottling spigot so that the filler points down.  You may want to put something on the floor beneath it, because there will be a tendency to drip while you work.

Step 11:  Put about a cup of hot tap water into your sterile measuring cup.  Pour the bottling sugar into this and stir to dissolve.  Pour this sugar solution into the beer.  Stir gently but completely with a sterile spoon or paddle.  Some instructions tell you to put the sugar in earlier, and let the siphon action stir it.  This is a bad idea because it’s very important that the sugar be mixed evenly, and siphoning should be too gentle to do it right.  You can boil the sugar solution on a stove or in a microwave if you’re worried about contamination, but it’s probably not necessary.

Step 12:  Turn the bottling spigot on.  This lets beer flow into the bottle filler, but it should stop at the valve in the tip.  When you slide a bottle up onto the filler, the bottom of the bottle pushes the valve to make beer flow.  Let your bottle fill to the very top, because withdrawing it from the filler drops the level about an inch.  Now the bottle is filled to the perfect height, so you can cap it.  Keep bottling until you’re out of beer!  Partially filled bottles won’t carbonate, so don’t try to scrounge the last few ounces of beer.  

CONDITIONING:  Store your bottles upright at fermentation temperature for at least a week.  During this time, live yeast in the beer will ferment the bottling sugar.  The CO2 produced during this time is the source of carbonation.  Some beers will take longer to carbonate, so make sure that your beer is carbonated before you move the bottles to a cold storage or refrigerator, or else you may stop the carbonation (conditioning) process prematurely.

STORAGE:  After the beer has conditioned (developed its carbonation), you may want to move it to a cooler storage area.  Steady, cool storage temperature will keep your beer fresh for the longest time.  You may have heard or read something like “this beer was lagered at 35 degrees.”  The term “lagering” refers to cold storage after fermentation, which improves the flavor of lagers.  Ales do well when stored at room temperature or basement temperature, but cold lagering can have a good influence on some ales, especially with high alcohol recipes.

MATURING:  Almost all beers will improve in flavor and aroma as they age.  Most beers show the best improvement after 6 to 8 weeks in the bottle.  Storage conditions have a big influence on this, as well as the strength and flavor characteristics of the beer.  Generally, stronger beers age slowly, and light beers reach their peak quickly. 

SHELF LIFE:  Storage conditions have a big influence on shelf life.  Try to keep your beer at a steady temperature, and away from sources of ultraviolet light.  Alcohol and hops are natural preservatives, so high-alcohol and /or high-hop beers last longer.  Even the lightest beers should be good for 4 months in reasonable conditions.  To extend shelf life, you can add preservatives (some are mild and flavorless; others are stronger chemicals.)

SEDIMENT AND CLARITY:  Naturally conditioned beer has two characteristics – yeast sediment and chill haze.  Yeast sediment is a byproduct of the carbonating process, it settles on the bottom of the bottles when carbonation is complete.  It’s healthy to drink - full of B vitamins.  Even crystal-clear beer forms haze when chilled, that’s why the ads talk about cold-filtering!  Chill haze is flavorless, and will settle out after refrigerating bottles for a week or two.  To serve crystal clear beer, refrigerate bottles upright, and uncap them gently to avoid raising the sediment.  Pour the beer into a clean glass in one smooth motion, and stop pouring when you reach the sediment.

These instructions are the intellectual property of Annapolis Home Brew, and are protected by U.S. copyright law.  They may not be duplicated (in part or in full) or distributed (physically or electronically) under any circumstance.