99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall

Ah yes. Bottling Day.

Not nearly as fun as this day looks, but it has the potential to be as messy.

The essence of bottling day is that you clean and sanitize around 48 bottles, transfer your beer into a container with a spigot, clean and sanitize a cool little bottling gizmo, and you're off!

The pic you see here is of Chief Assistant Brewmaster Joel, me and the totally-insane Smitty Jr. He watched in fascinated awe for 15 seconds and was then distracted by what must have been a very important meeting with the living room, given the speed at which he dashed off.

At any rate, we are bottling Joel's fantastic brown ale (thus far unnamed). This should be ready to go after about a 2-week bottle conditioning period.

Mrs. Smitty and I bottled my Belgian Cherry Dubbel this evening, but with only 2 of us, there was nobody to take any pix. Mine is also unnamed, but will probably have something to do with virgins, since it has cherries in it. Heh. It should also be ready after a 2-week bottle conditioning. Also, about 2 months ago, we bottled my Russian Imperial Stout (named Anastasia's Assassination), but that has at least another 4 to 6 weeks left in the bottle.

And finally, it is down to crunch time. If I don't get an Oktoberfest brewed and in a fermenter by this weekend, it won't be ready for our Oktoberfest at the Smitty household the last week of September.

That's all for now...though I am shotly to post about the Michigan State Fair Homebrew Competition...the largest in the State. I want to post a little piece about it before-hand and will surely post some pix from the actual event itself. I'll be judging and if we can swing it, Joel will be a steward. Stay tuned.