Let’s get started by preparing our bottles. Whether you’re using brand new bottles or recycled / previously used bottles it’s always a good idea to make sure they are thoroughly cleaned before filling them with beer. Any dirt or residue left inside the bottle can easily spoil the beer inside.

I find the best way to do clean bottles is to run them through the dishwasher right before bottling time. This has the added benefit of cleaning out the inside of your dishwasher, which we will also use when we bottle. Once your bottles are clean, empty out whatever else happened to be in your dishwasher and keep it empty until after bottling.

Note: I wash 1 or 2 more bottles than I think I’ll need - usually 9 bottles total - just to have an extra one handy if needed.

With our bottles and dishwasher clean, its time to prepare sanitizing solution. Measure out a gallon of water into your bucket and add about 0.2 oz of Star-San. Use the end of the auto-siphon to stir the two together.

Keep a spray bottle filled with sanitizing solution handy. I have one left over from my last brew day two weeks ago. After today’s bottling project, I’m going to empty out the spray bottle and re-fill it with some of the leftover sanitizing solution in the bucket. It’s a good idea to change out the solution in the bottle at the very least every two weeks.

If you have kitchen tongs handy, grab ‘em and drop them into the solution. We’ll use these later to place a carbonation drop into each bottle we plan on filling.

I also grabbed a few bottle caps, placed them into a small Tupperware container, covered them with sanitizing solution and closed the container. We’ll need these caps later.

With the bottles sanitized, place them into the bottom rack of your dishwasher. Why we do this will become clear very shortly but let’s say that we will want to work with, not against, gravity when filling bottles.

Using the sanitized tongs, place one carbonation drop inside each of the bottles.

Note: while I have 9 cleaned and sanitized bottles, I will initially only place drops in 7 or 8 of them. It’s not a big deal to wash and sanitize an extra bottle, however, once one of the drops is placed in the bottle, it will likely get wet from coming in contact with whatever remaining sanitizing solution is in the bottom of the bottle. That means if we only need 7 or 8 bottles but we’ve put drops in 9 of them, we’ll waste a drop because once it gets wet, we can’t store it or reuse it.

Here’s how I set up my ‘transferring station’. Note the bottles are much lower than the beer. Keeping the carboy above the bottles will allow us to use gravity to help fill the bottles. Another advantage of using the dishwasher to hold our bottles is that it’s way more secure (and cleaner) than setting the empty bottles directly on the floor.

We haven’t started the transfer yet but I have placed the bottling wand in one of the bottles for illustration purposes. Keep the end of the bottling wand submerged in the sanitizing solution until you are ready to begin transferring.

Just before beginning the transfer, make sure to swirl the outside surfaces of the auto-siphon in the sanitizing solution as this is going to be making contact with the beer. Remove the cap from the carboy and spray sanitizing solution around the opening of the carboy. Make sure to clear all sanitizing solution from inside the auto-siphon before putting it in the carboy.

You only want to transfer the beer itself, not all of the yeast and sediment at the bottom of the carboy. You can insert the auto-siphon into the carboy and let the rubber stopper end of it rest on the side of the carboy. Begin to pull the inner part of the auto-siphon out slowly, but don’t pull it out all the way - pull it out about three-quarters of the way, then slowly push it back in. You’ll start to see beer siphon its way through the auto-siphon and into the tubing. This step can be a little awkward and you might want to enlist a second set of hands. To get the beer to freely flow through the tubing, the end of the bottling wand needs to make contact with the bottom of the beer bottle - this will push the button at the bottom of the bottling wand, allowing beer to flow through the tubing and into the bottle.

Once you get the flow going, you’re all set. When the bottle is filled to the top, pull out the bottling wand. Its presence in the bottle displaces some of the beer so that when you remove it, you’re left with just the right amount headspace in the bottle. Note that as soon as you lift up the bottling wand from the bottom of the bottle, beer stops flowing out of it. Move on to the next bottle, insert the wand all the way all the way until it touches the bottom of the bottle and then repeat the filling process.

As you work your way through the beer, you will likely need to lift up the carboy and tilt it at a 45 degree angle to keep the beer flowing. Make sure that the tip of the auto-siphon doesn’t make contact with the sediment at the bottom or else you will siphon that into your beer. You’ll be able to get most of the beer out but not the very last drops. Better to leave that in the carboy then risk siphoning yeast and sediment into your beer.

Remove your bottles from the dishwasher and set them someplace stable. Place a cap on each bottle, then secure the cap to the bottle using your bottle capper. It’s easy to use - just center it over the cap and push down on the handles until the cap is sealed.

The carbonation drops will need about two weeks at room temperature to properly carbonate your beer, ideally in a place that doesn’t get any sunlight and has a relatively constant temperature.

Unless you’ve bottled a Stout or Porter that you want to age longer, after two weeks at room temperature refrigerate your bottled beer - that will help your beer to stay fresh in addition to making it more pleasant to drink. Allow about 24 hours of chilling time before sampling.

Some beers - Lagers, Kolschs and Pilsners for example - will benefit from additional chilling time before drinking, anywhere between an additional 2 to 6 weeks. This will aid in ‘cleaning’ up the flavor and clarity of your beer.