Raisin and Maple Dubbel - bottling day

 Finally got around to bottling the raisin and maple dubbel. Realised I only had just enough bottles so before I do any more bottling I'll have to ask around for more; Knutsford's Little Theatre bar has been a good supplier in the past. Out of all the jobs involved in making beer, the sterilizing and rinsing of the bottles is the most time consuming, closely followed by the actual bottling; there must be easier ways of doing this, maybe with some gadgets.

 After the bottles have been cleaned and rinsed and left to drain on the bottle tree, the next job is to rack off the beer from the glass carboy into the bottling bucket with 5oz sugar dissolved in boiling water. It's difficult to see how it will taste at this stage before the final bottle conditioning, but it was pretty smooth, rich and powerful.

 Mop at the ready - The valve on the bottling bucket is difficult to operate (for 40+ bottles) so we used a funnel to reduce the mess. There must be some device available to make it easier to get the beer into the bottles without too much foam spilling over.

 Ended up with 44x500ml bottles and not too much mess. Made some labels up based on the template Sara and Emily drew.