UPDATE: American IPA (HB#3) now in bottles

I had the day off today (12/5) so I decided to transfer the American IPA from secondary, where it has been dry hopping for a little over two weeks now, into bottles. The process was the same as the last two times: clean/de-label bottles, sanitize all equipment and bottles, transfer beer from carboy into bottling bucket with 5oz of boiled sugar in the bottom, fill bottles and cap.

While you would think on my third go at bottling I would have it down to an error-proof science, that was not the case tonight. My method of dry hopping was to simply poor the hops into the carboy and let them float and soak freely. Some people use hop-bags to keep all the hops together, but I didn't in this particular case because it seems like it is a pain in the ass to fish a bag of hops out of a carboy with an opening barely wide enough for a few fingers. If I were dry hopping in a bucket than I would more than likely use a hop bag since there would be zero problem getting it out. Anyways, since the hops were not in a bag, there was a lot of sediment floating around. The first 3-4 gallons siphoned into the bottling bucket went without a hitch, but once I got to the 1 gallon mark things started to go wrong. I noticed more and more sediment going through the siphon and the flow starting to decrease, and eventually come to a stop. The hop sediment gunked up the bottling wand and was not allowing beer to flow through it anymore, so I dug all the hops out with a fork. Unfortunately I also knocked loose a rubber piece that didn't want to go back on, so the bottling wand was a bit leaky. Next time I will put a piece of cloth over the end of the siphon in order to keep sediment from clogging things up (unless I use a hop bag, which would leave the beer sediment free). Lesson Learned: avoid clogging your siphon when transferring dry hopped beer by either using a hop bag or covering the siphon in some sort of strainer.

The gravity was right on target with the recipe at 1.014, which was a bit surprising since I had that sizable boil over that seemed to skew the numbers in the beginning. I tasted it too, and it was delicious despite being uncarbonated. VERY hoppy. I can't wait to drink this beer, I really think it is going to be a keeper.