Crown Capper Butterfly: Glass Bottle

Home fermentation is your grandmother’s recipe and does not use any shortcuts, chemicals, preservatives, or anything unhealthy. So there is not a store in the world that can even think of beating it in taste and health benefits. It is a probiotic food that not only tastes good but is also nutritious and low on calories. Unlike the packaged food and beverage which is loaded with chemical food colors, preservatives, and stabilizers.

We will guide you on how to change the taste, color, aroma, mouthfeel, and even the ingredients to suit your tastes, health, and nutrition needs. We have a lot of easy to use customizable kits. Also, we put a lot of emphasis on packaging, which will help you make the best packaging in the industry. This will also help you throw an awesome party for your friends and family and boast of your latest hobby.

Typically it takes 7-10 days to ferment at 25 Degree Celsius after which you can start bottling your homebrew beer or wine.

Excessive carbonation aka bottle bombs usually happens due to a rookie mistake of bottling too early. Use a hydrometer before bottling to ensure all fermentable sugar has been converted to alcohol/ethanol by the yeast before you proceed for bottling. Also carefully weighing the priming sugar is what it takes to control the carbonation (about 8gm per liter).

For carbonation 1 teaspoon of priming sugar is considered ideal. For a more accurate dosage, put about 8gm per liter of beer. Add at the time of bottling (once the fermentation is complete) allow it to rest for 3 days before transferring to the refrigerator.

We recommend you to add 0.05gm of Campden powder per liter to achieve 25ppm of SO2 in your wine. Campden is added in dry red wines to prevent oxidation (turning to vinegar) and color stability (red color turning orange). I typically bottle wine at a pH of 3.5 and add about 25ppm of SO2 (from Campden) at the time of bottling. For other pH values, you can refer to the table below to compute the recommended dosage.

Typically bottled home brew beer has a shelf life of 6 months. However, most home-brew beer is consumed within a week to a month of bottling or kegging. However, some people regularly store homebrew beer for up to 6 months successfully. Beyond this, the beer is still safe for consumption, just that it will not taste fresh. However, a couple of factors need to be taken into account to determine the shelf life.

1. Storage temperature: Beer is like wine, higher the temperature the faster is the degradation in flavors.
2. UV light: Even a couple of hours in direct sunlight can ruin a perfectly fresh beer
3. Packaging: Microbrewery Growlers don’t last 2 days because the beer was oxidized during filling. If you see packaging in proper crown sealed glass bottles or stainless steel kegs, 6-12 months life is easy
4. Oxidation: Once you open the bottle, drink within an hour.

Kombucha can go flat because of a variety of reasons. Here is a troubleshooting guide.

1. Improper packaging: You need a proper container that can retain CO2 pressure. Crown caps are the best for it. However, screw cap type milk bottles don’t hold pressure that well. A swing type bottle is also great.
2. Priming Sugar: If you ferment the kombucha completely, then there is not much sugar left for it to ferment and carbonate. Use a hydrometer and add about 8gm of residual sugar per liter at the time of bottling.
3. Improper bottle conditioning: Natural CO2 takes a couple of days to form. Keeping the kombucha in the refrigerator immediately after bottling does not give it adequate time to carbonate.
4. Lack of yeast. If you filter your kombucha, then you might strip it of yeast and healthy microbes. This would not allow the fermentation to happen in the bottle.

Beer bottling is very simple. Here are 6 simple steps:

1. Wait till the fermentation is complete
2. Give finishing touches: Priming sugar to create CO2 fizz, potassium sorbate to stabilize and back sweeten wine, Campden to prevent bacterial action or spices/secondary infusion to perfect the taste.
3. Use a siphon to pour the beverage into the bottle without oxidation. If you have a beer bottling gun, then it is easy to purge with CO2. This way oxidation chances are eliminated completely.
4. Once the bottle is filled, put a crown cap and crimp it to seal the bottle. The priming sugar will naturally get converted to CO2 and create the fizz or beer head.
5. Paste a nice label and personalize the packaging.
6. Chill and invite the friends over to collect their admirations.

The advantage for Glass bottles:

1. They are easily available, inexpensive
2. A personalized label with a crown cap really gives a professional touch to your beer.
3. It is easy to carry, gift and serve.

The advantage for kegs are:

1. You pour out exactly the amount that you need.
2. Serving from a tap gives an uplift to your minibar. You feel like a microbrewery.
3. It is easier to dry hop, mix different experiments, and do very scientific craft beer recipe experiments.

Advantages for beer can

1. It creates an unbelievable excitement for the customers
2. It is easier to cool, chill. It is not fragile and weighs a lot less
3. Unlike glass bottles, kegs don’t explode due to excessive pressure.

Sediment a.k.a. trub or yeast deposit or yellow ring is very normal in home brew bottle. It is not an indication of there being anything wrong with your beer. This occurs because

1. Priming sugar caused yeast to multiple. After their job is done, this yeast will deposit at the base.
2. The beer was not aged in the secondary fermentation. As a result, there was still some haze that settled to the base. Filtration or cold crashing for 48 hours usually solves this problem.
3. If you use a corny keg and pressure bottle fillers, it will ensure that the sediment is in the keg and not in the bottle.

Does it affect the beer in any way?

Not really. The yeast sediment does not alter the taste in any way. It is completely edible and a good source for Vitamin B.

How to pour the home brew beer?

• Because of the sediment, it is advisable to pour the home brew beer rather than serving it straight in the bottle.
• Remember to leave behind a quarter of the bottle. This way the sediment does not get poured out into the glass.
• Pour the quantity in one go. If you tilt the bottle to pour halfway, then straighten the beer bottle, you stir up the sediment. This will make your beer hazy.
• The key thing is that when you pour beer, you’ll want to ensure that you pour the beer out fully but halt the pour just when the sediment is about to exit the bottleneck.
• The yeast sediment will make your pour cloudy. It can also alter the color. So most brewers avoid pouring it out.