Last week I bottled my beer. I was very surprised I made it to this step
as I was concerned about the contamination to my beer. After I taste
tested it and determined that it tasted like flat beer, as it should, I moved on to the bottling stage.

A couple of things I learned to help me in the future were:
Sanitize the measuring spoon - I did not realize until I was about to
put the sugar into my beer bottles, that the spoon was not sanitized.
Use a funnel - pouring the sugar from the measuring spoon to the bottle
became very messy and wasteful.  I was unsure of my true
measurements and had to estimate how much sugar I was
putting in my bottles.

Another little tidbit I need to remember from now on is after brewing to leave the fermenting barrel in position for bottling.  Minimizing the movement of the barrel should help the beer from getting cloudy by not disturbing the sediment at the bottom of the barrel. 

Bottling was definitely not as stressful or exciting as the brewing step but never the less as important. The directions kept reminding me about sanitation but hopefully this brew will be forgiving.   

Now I am the proud owner of 8 happy little 1 liter bottles carbonating my beer at the bottom of my pantry. Yes, I do check on them every day but I refrain from moving them. After a week of sitting at the bottom of my pantry at room temperature I will move them to my fridge for cold conditioning. This step will take about another week before I will allow my first batch of beer to be enjoyed.