Bottling

We finished our first batch and bottled it without incident. We already did a "dry" run with the auto-siphon and filler stem using water, which made it much easier.

Step one was to rinse and sanitize all of our bottles and equipment.


After sanitization we took a final hydrometer reading to calculate our alcohol percentage. We finished off at 12.4-12.5% alcohol, which should mean we fermented all the available sugar in the juice.

Naturally, the next step was to sniff and sample.


Katie took care of filling.

And Aaron corked.


We finished with just over 30 bottles. Bottle number 31 didn't get a cork, so it won't last very long. We're in the process of finishing it off while prepping this post. Tomorrow we'll finish the labels and reveal our brand and vintage.