Bottling for Competition
So the other day I decided to break out the Beer Gun again and squeeze off a few bottles to put aside for some up coming competitions.
This time it was the Abbey Ale which I will be entering as a Dubbel, this beer turned out really well so I hope that it gets the same kind of reception. I must say though, that bottling went smoother this time than last. For one I was more confident since last time was the first time. But more so than that, I had all the right pieces this time.
Last time for some reason the CO2 didn’t seem to “work” right. I knew it was on, I knew there was pressure in the line, but for some reason it just didn’t exit the Beer Gun they way I imagined it. It turns out the piece I bought that connects from the gas swivel nut to the Beer Gun body (the piece behind the tap handle in the picture of course) was wrong. I bought a one way gas valve which allowed the gas to go in only one direction, the wrong direction. I later replaced that part with the same part but with one that didn’t have a valve and things worked out fine. Hey, it looked right, it just worked like shit.
So from what I can tell there are three local homebrew competitions coming up. Both the HOPS BOPS (24th year) and the Lancaster Homebrew Competition (1st year) are on October 18th, and about a month later is the Split Rock competition on November 22nd. I will probably enter the Abbey Ale into all three. I should look into judging at the HOPS BOPS, I haven’t judged much this year and it would be good practice.