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Okay, now that you have made sure that your homebrew is completely fermented (not sure, go back and read 'Bottle Bombs'), you are ready to start thinking about bottling your homebrew. Before you start, make sure you are prepared and that you have the following bottling equipment sanitized and ready: Bottling Bucket (one with a spigot makes bottling easier with less chance of transferring any sediment to your bottles) Enough clean amber coloured* PET or glass bottles** Bottle Caps - PET or Oxygen lined metal caps for glass bottles (you will need a bottle capper for these) Siphoning Tube Bottle...

While researching this blog article I decide to take a step back. Before you begin bottling your homebrew you should make sure that the fermentation process is complete, here are a few things to consider so that you don't end up with bottle bombs. First and I can not stress this enough - make sure that your beer is completely finished fermenting. How do you know if it is done fermenting - well that depends on a few things. Checking your airlock is a good place to start. Do you see any bubbles, if not record when you last saw...

Last week I talked about using a hydrometer or refractometer for obtaining your OG (original gravity) and your FG (final gravity), now I will let you tell you how brewers figure out the ABV (alcohol by volume) of their homebrew with these to readings. The number you get when you subtract your FG from your OG is the number you will use when calculating your ABV. One must remember that when you are taking your FG reading that you should take at least 2 readings a few days apart to make sure that the fermentation is complete. Once you have...

A hydrometer is an instrument that helps you determine the ABV in your homebrew or wine. How does it do this? Sugar is denser than alcohol, so the reading before pitching your yeast (OG or original gravity) and the reading difference of your fermented wort/mash (*FG or final gravity) is used to calculate the ABV. As the yeast turns the sugar into alcohol, the reading on your hydrometer will show a lower number as the hydrometer will sink deeper into your liquid. The hydrometer sinks because once your wort is fermented, the alcohol is not as dense as the sugar, so...

We have been asked this question by a beginning brewer - "what does Sacch Rest mean in my mash schedule". Our first thought was this person is trying to brew a recipe that is 'All Grain', so we asked him where he saw the recipe. Sure enough he had been looking in a forum and saw a recipe that looked interesting, but did not know what all was involved in brewing this type of recipe so he was asking some questions. The sacch rest or saccharification rest is the conversion of starch to sugars by the enzymes produced by the...