Okay, so lately I’ve been procrastinating a little on brewing beer and posting blog entries, but I have good reasons. I’ve been busy looking for a car and I finally bought one. I’ve also been working on my MBA application, but enough about my excuses, lets move on to the beer making. Several weeks ago I brewed my Vienna Oktoberfest and it fermented a little too long now, but I finally bottled it.  

The brewing process was a little messy because I forgot to sanitize the measuring cup and I had to guess the amount of water I needed to boil. Needless to say, when I added the liquid extract, the pot could not hold any more.  As carefully I could, I tried to pour the wort into the fermentation vessel,  but despite my efforts some wort was lost and ended up on my kitchen counter. However, I was determined to not let this prevent me from making good beer and continued on with the process.

While the Oktoberfest was brewing I made several trips out to my local Austin Home Brew Supply. I bought a funnel, a brewer’s guide book, bottle caps, and a bottle capper. I also bought replacement seals for the flip-top bottles that my dad gave me a while ago.

After the Oktoberfest had brewed for two weeks, I bottled it and decided to do a little experiment.  I bottled the beer in six 1 liter plastic bottles and three 16 oz. glass flip-top bottles. With three of the plastic bottles I used a trick that I found in a brew book in which I fill the bottle normally, then squeeze out the excess air, and then screw the cap on. The book said that as the pressure builds, the bottle will fill out normally and have less oxygen in it. The other three plastic bottles were bottled normally.

This time I have 9 bottles of beer brewing on the floor of my pantry waiting to be put in the fridge. After a few days in the fridge they will be ready to be consumed and enjoyed. In the mean time, I have a Red Ale refill pack that I have been meaning to brew.  I look forward to that and posting the results of the Oktoberfest.