IPA

Last saturday I bottled the IPA. Gravity was stable from 3 weeks ago at 15 GU, which probably indicates that all the fermentables were used after primary, and the remaining 15 were nonfermentable sugars. It tastes pretty good, and had around the bitterness level I was looking for. I used a calculator to figure out how much malt to prime with, and used a scale rather than a measuring cup when I was putting it all together, so hopefully my carbonation levels will be more in line with what I want this time. Of all the things I would like to have better control over, conditioning is up there near the top of the list. I ended up discarding a lot of bottles because they had scuzz in the bottom, even after going through the sanitizing cycle in the dishwasher. I'm considering dropping the money for some new 20-oz Euro-style bottles for my next batch, just to upgrade my stock of bottles a bit. I like that size a lot better, and if I could get them with the stopper tops, it would really make bottling a lot easier.

I used a new tool for the first time, and I liked it a lot. It's nothing fancy, just a bottle filler wand, the kind where you press the bit down on the bottom of the bottle to fill it, lift it up to stop. It turned bottling into a virtually mess-free one-man operation. Best $3.50 I've spent at a brew store for quite some time.