bottle waxing, etc.
Wednesday, June 15th, 2011last friday I stopped by san pedro brew co. to swap some beers and check out JW’s latest lineup.
- I dropped off my house IPA and wild patersbier and sampled a red and brown ale, as well as a killer german pils. JW was busy cranking out a black IPA, and I watched as he weighed out pounds of hops for the boil additions. can’t wait to try that one.
over the weekend I also sampled a bottle of my saison, and was pleased to discover that the beer was sufficiently carbonated (not to mention complex and delicious).
- to celebrate, I decided to wax dip the bottles. I had done some research on inexpensive bottle wax and came to the conclusion that polymer “wax” was the way to go. I picked up a few pounds of polymer wax on clearance and also grabbed a bag of wax from the local homebrew store.
- in the spirit of summer, I went with green wax for the saison. I heated up the wax over the stove in a recycled can and held the bottles in the wax for five seconds apiece for a lighter dip that wouldn’t have to be cut off before using an opener. you can double dip for results similar to bottles from deschutes, etc.
- a few tips: use a disposable stick to stir the wax as it heats, and place the waxed bottles on newspaper to avoid drips sticking to the counter top. I also noticed that the wax retained heat for a while after cutting the range off (such that I could dip quite a few bottles before applying more heat).
- I used less than a quarter of the one-pound bag and dipped 24 bottles, with plenty of wax left over (the green wax cost me $11-12/lb). for me, dipping bottles is a great way to produce a more upscale product without having to resort to more costly methods such as corking in belgian bottles.