Kegging and bottling the cream ale
So last night I went ahead and kegged/bottled the cream ale. It's been in secondary for about 2 weeks and I decided it was time to do the deed.
Now for this project, I bottle up about a case of the cream ale for some of my "brew bartering" because my brother-in-law offered me his old 5lb CO2 tank for 1 case of cream ale. I was sold on that deal!
I think it's going to need to be inspected and filled, but its well worth it just the same. Now with the 2 tap jockey box Nick and I built (I will put up some pics pretty soon), I will have a travel tank!
Back to the beer at hand; the cream ale. This brew finished off at 1.011 and has a nice sweet flavor to it. It's a really good session beer and I would like to think that its a good example of the style. It needs a little cold store to properly clear out, but in the end, it should be pretty clear.
For bottling, instead of using my bottling bucket, I tried something a guy in my brew club told me about. I primed the whole batch as if I was going to bottle it and put it in the keg. From here I put enough pressure on the keg from the CO2 to seal the keg properly and shook it to mix it.
I turned the keg down to about 4 or 5 PSI and used my party tap with my bottling wand on the end (without the spring loaded tip) and proceeded to fill bottles from the keg. This was a pretty good way to do this I must say. It was not perfect, but it was a nice alternative and allowed me to bottle and keg in two steps.
I also racked over the Harry Porter which should be a very good brew. I took a taste and the anise in it was good. Not a lot of nose or flavor, but there was a bite. Interesting because there was still a very distinct "porter" flavor to the brew that I was concerned the anise might overwhelm.
This is most likely my last post before x-mas so to all you out there; good night now!
To Cletus and the rest of the guys at Monday Night Brewery - Merry Christmas!
