Normally fermentation takes about a week to complete but this porter has taken 2 weeks. This could be due to the room temp or how active the yeast is.
Bottling is the easy part of the process taking the beer and putting it in a bottle. However, the important part is keeping everything sterile as this is the point the beer could be ruined. The bottles are washed and rinsed, the soaked in steriliser and then rinsed and allowed to dry. The beer is then siphoned into the bottles and sugar is added to the bottle. As you can see in the bottom picture the yeast and other solids combine together and helps to produce a clear beer. The beer will still have yeast in it and that will ferment the sugar in the bottles. This has only one function and that is to carbonate the beer and not to increase the alcohol level.
I would normally expect to get about 4l from a batch but this one only produced 3l. That is mainly due to the amount of solids from this beer. So how does it taste? Really not bad. Obviously the beer is flat but it is quite bitter and has some chocolate notes associated with porters. It looks promising but now have to wait about four weeks for the beer to condition in the bottle.
Bottle conditioning just means allowing the beer to ferment and carbonate plus some of the remains solids in suspension to drop to the bottom. So I will update in four weeks with how it tastes.
