Bottling Day: Orval Clone and Budget Conditioning Cabinet

Today, I bottled my Orval clone. I am getting pretty good at this process and it went without incident. I like a little extra carbonation in my beers and so I always prime with a bit more sugar than the style guidelines recommend(yeast turns the sugar into CO2 and carbonates the beer in the bottle, more sugar = more carbonation). I tasted the green beer and it's very similar to Orval except a bit drier and more floral in the nose. I think it should be delicious when aged.

I recently got a bottle tree and sanitizer which made the whole process a lot quicker. Previously, I would line a box or cooler with a clean tower and put the bottles in upside down. The tree setup gets the bottles drier, faster and is convenient to grab bottles off while racking.

Bottle conditioning often takes forever in my cold basement (right now between 53-58F) so I rigged up a budget fermentation cabinet. I filled a picnic cooler with the sealed bottles, filled in the gaps with water and then put an aquarium heater in there. These little heaters are cheap at $10 and some (like this one) come with a little thermostat built in. This should keep the inside of the cooler at 65F and the bottles should carbonate within 2 weeks. I'm not in any rush, though, as this style benefits from some cellar aging and will probably mature in a few months.