This is the last racking in the mead-making process. Your mead is in the carboy and you need to get it into bottles (unless you are keeping it in the tapper bucket). Of course, you sanitize your bottles. You can either use bottles with caps that are attached or ones that you'll cork. The ones with the caps are a bit more expensive, but can be used for beer too, and you don't need to buy corks or a corker. Most people will give you their used wine bottles though (read: free) and corks aren't too expensive, so it's great for gift-giving or just because you prefer to have a full wine bottle rather than a 16 oz. bottle.
If you are transferring from tapper to bottle, you can just fill the bottles that way (though it's much more difficult to see where the sediment ends). From a carboy, you'll need to bring out and sanitize your siphon tube. I like to put my (sanitized) bottles in a sanitized baking dish. More than a few fit in there and then the mead that may spill into the dish rather than on your floor. If you've got a pressure release system, then there's less dripping, or you could just bend your tube.
Either cap the bottles or cork them. If you are planning on corking them, you'll need a corker. The floor corkers are the easiest to operate and takes less strength, especially if you are going to cork often, but it is the most expensive choice too.
Label them and share with friends.
No comments:
Post a Comment