This afternoon, I got round to bottling my latest brew, Pe’chance. I mainly judged this one by the temperature curve, watching for when it began to settle down and reflect the ambient temperature of the room. I’d set the brewbelt to activate when it got below 17°C (with my Inkbird controller) but I’m not sure it ever got to turn on. The brew started at about 17.75°C and, without any external heat, almost reached 23°C before gradually descending back to about 17°C.

Temperature is an indication but gravity is also important; the brew had reached 1.008 (from a starting point of 1.053) which was lower than I expected, so I went ahead with bottling. As always, bottling was a pain so I think I’ll give my process a bit more consideration before next time.

As a bonus, I discovered that I still had some bottles of a previous brew hidden away in a box that I thought just had empty bottles. I think this was probably my Painted Summer brew. I was too busy in June to make labels but I am sure it was one I did this year and that is the only brew this year I didn’t make a label for. It’s ageing well!