The actual bottling was a bit of a fiasco.
We started with the cider as it was in the primary fermenter ...
Once we were ready we realized that Gerry had left his little extension at home we use for the bottling. So Gerry goes off and gets it while I got things ready.
I got the beer bottles sterilized, rinsed and primed. I primed the bottles with a heaping measured teaspoon of sugar. Last time I used a teaspoon from our flatware set. The results were a somewhat insipid flat cider. At least time it will have gusto when it comes out of the bottle.
So Gerry comes back with the attachment and says I ought to get one of my own so that he doesn't have to run back and forth. I said "No, I would be tempted to bottle on my own and I would much rather do it with you. Besides that you have the capper ..." We looked at each other with blank faces as he reached for his keys to go back to his house.
Mind you his house is not that far away, just a quick 10 minute drive ... in all fairness to Gerry it does seem real far when you do it six times in a day (don't ask how I know.) It did give me enough time to get all the wine bottles ready so I don't think it added too much time to
Minimal mishaps after this. We just got in to our bottling routine used all but one of the beer bottles for the cider. All went well.
After cleaning the primary we racked the wine into it. The racking only takes a long time when you want it to go fast. We realized that Gerry should have brought his primary with him one of the three times he came today!
At the end of the day we realized that we had not even drunk the beer that I had put in the fridge for the evening festivities. With all the running back and forth we had missed the whole purpose of this activity ... to drink good beer!
Well here is Gerry bottling the wine ...
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