Shortly after brewing my sparkling ale, I read through the recipe for the lager I planned on making next, and suddenly remembered a major difference between lagers and ales:

Lagers take about 3 months to condition while ales only take a week or two.

This time requirement is the main reason everything I have made so far has been an ale, along with the fact that it would require another 3 or 4 cases of bottles.

We bottled the sparkling ale Sunday and I went ahead and brewed the lager last night.  This way I have something to drink while I wait.

The ale, or sparkling beer, as I decided to call it, will be ready around the 27th.  The lager should be ready for bottling this weekend, so I will probably buy bottles from my local homebrew store tomorrow.

In case you are keeping track, the sparkling beer was BEER dad brew #14 and red lager is #15.

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The corn sugar and caps I ordered ended up shipping late, so we were forced to wait an extra day before bottling our American Ale. While an extra day may not seem like much, the effect it has on homebrew can be disastrous depending on your recipe.

Our ale seems to be unaffected, but it is always good to bottle your beer at the precise time it’s ready. We ended up with 72 bottles this round, which will be ready for tasting in about 10 days.

Many visitors to BEER dad ask me “how do you know when your beer is ready to bottle?” and some even ask how exactly you bottle it, so here are a few tips on when and how to bottle beer.
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