Muntons Winter Warmer with pics part 2 Bottling

[Weejock]

This follows on from previous post on brewing a Muntons Winter Warmer kit viewtopic.php?f=4&t=27271

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Bottles from friends, I suspect they expect them returned full...


Get them de-labeled and in to a sanitizing mix...


The bottle tree I bought from http://www.the-home-brew-shop.co.uk is invaluable...


The Grolsch style bottles have the seals removed to sanitize seperately...


I have an open packet of sprey malt in a tupperware container to use as secondary fermentation fuel...


80 grams weighed out


And tipped into a mixing jug


Boiling water applied


and mixed... ahhh the smell...


Poured into (sanitized) secondary FV


All set up ready to transfer to FV2, reason being to mix secondary fermentation sugar (in this case spray malt) with beer before bottling...


I'm senile enough to have this wrong a few times, so make sure the container you're transferring to has the tap turned off. The "on - off" markings are also there becauase of past mistakes, laugh if you will...


The length of sanitized tibing will help for a aeriation-free transfer. Experts - am I right? you don't want oxygen in the mix at this stage?


For extra caution, a sanitized food-grade bucket below in case of disasters...


At this stage, the world will not implode if you steal a little taster...


Gently mixing the brew to distribute the sprey malt...



Attach the bottling stick to the secondary vessel and away we go...


I find if you fill to the top of the bottle, when removed from the volume displace by the bottling stick is just enough air gap...



If you have more than one bottling on the go some kind of labeling ins needed


I find some childrens water-soluble gluestick works well, will wash off easily after use...


The finished bottle ready for conditioning


As always, comments and critism from the experts (and all you fellow beginners) welome.

[kfm]

Good work Weejock

[mark simpson 2340]

Hi weejock

where do you get ur labels from? Are they off a specific computer program as they look v professional

[pyrotech]

Thanks for that weejock, new kit brewer myself. This makes things as plain as the nose on my face.

Mark, re labelling, there is a fantastic free programme supplied by avery called design Pro lite. I've used it for a few years for wine labels. does everything you will need and more, indiviual bottle numbers, bar codes, etc.

http://www.avery.co.uk/avery/en_gb/Temp ... 18140aRCRD

Templates for all Avery labels , I use a six to the page clones I get from ebay. L7166

[Weejock]

Labels are a bit of a bodge, knocked up in MS Word (OpenOffice works just as well and is free), printed onto plain A4 and cut up using a cheap Rymans guillotine.

I've used Avery templates before, which labels do you use for easy removal when cleaning the bottles for re-use?

[wgardner]

Great post!

[pyrotech]

wee jock, I get my labels from AJB-Direct.com 25 sheets at a time, item number 310116642828 they are clones of avery L7166. they come off very easily, by the filling the bottles with warm water method. your local stationary supplier will probably have similar. these are six to the sheet. The design pro works very well, I make a master label for each batch, then i can personalise individual labels if I want.