Bottling, Bottling, and Dry Hopping

Multiple topics here: on Feb 5, I bottled the robust porter and the cider. Then on Feb 9, I dry hopped the Kansas City Pale Ale and racked it to secondary (even though it's not necessary and sometimes not worth the risk even you dry hop or add fruit or things - discussion and more discussion).

Pale ale being siphoned into the carboy for secondary fermentation.

Bottling the Porter and Cider
My recipe said to carbonate the porter to 2 to 2.5 volumes CO₂, so I split the difference and decided to carbonate to 2.25 volumes. Using the nomograph in the back of Brewing Classic Styles (also available at How to Brew, but I don't know where it comes from originally), I needed to add 3.2 oz of sugar to my 5 gallons of beer. The sugar was dissolved in a small amount of water,the beer was racked into the bottling bucket above the dishwasher, and the priming solution was added.

I purchased a vinator to help sanitize the bottles, which was a huge help. I also soaked my bottle caps in a mason jar of sanitizer and used a plastic rod with a magnet on the end to fish the caps out. I got mine in a canning kit that also included a big funnel for filling mason jars and tongs to pull the jars out of the hot water bath.

Bottling appeared to go off without a hitch, so we moved to the cider. Originally the plan was to put it in 22 oz bottles, but the cider had turned a little sour. Just in case it ended up not tasting good after some time to condition, we nixed that idea and put it in normal 12 oz bottles.

Lots of bottles. 42 cider and 54 porter.

The final gravity of the porter was 1.022, off of the target FG (1.015), for a total ABV of ~5.5%. The cider had a final gravity of 1.018.

Dry Hopping the Pale Ale
Primary fermentation of the pale ale was complete after sitting in primary for two weeks. The target final gravity was 1.016, but we came in just under that at about 1.014 (and about 6% ABV). After sanitizing everything, the hop pellets were dropped into the bottom of the carboy and the beer was racked on top of that.

Opening the bucket revealed how strong the primary fermentation was.

After all the beer was transferred over, I added gelatin finings. They were soaked in cold water to dissolve, then brought up to 160 to kill anything that might be in there, brought back down to temp and then poured into the carboy.

I'm not sure what to make of the tasting since I've never dry hopped before. It definitely had some bitterness, not too much, but kind of one dimensional since it's only had bittering hops in it so far and not any aroma hops.

It looks so lonely! I better brew some more.