I checked the specific gravity of the mead and beer tonight and the alcohol content of the mead is about 9.9% and the beer only changed a little bit since the last time I checked and it is between 4.2% and 4.4%.

The beer hasn't changed much because the fermentation really slowed down after I checked it last and I didn't add more yeast until just a few days ago on Friday. It took a couple days for the yeast to really get going again. Because of the way the beer is bubbling now I think it should be ready for bottling by this weekend.

You have to sanitize everything that comes into contact with your beer. The easiest way is to mix up five gallons of iodine solution in the fermenter and throw all of your equipment in there. That works great for most of my stuff but there are a few things that stick up well above the top of the bucket. Also on nights like tonight when I just need my thief and hydrometer it is wasteful to mix up a full five gallons of solution, but the thief is one of the long things that stick out over the top of the bucket.

Well I had a brainstorm and came up with the perfect solution. I went to the hardware store and bought one of those plastic troughs you use to wet wallpaper rolls. It cost $3 and one gallon of iodophor solution is the perfect amount to adequately cover everything. Here is a picture of it in action.



The thief is in the trough being sanitized and it is what I use to pull a sample out of the carboys for testing.

On the counter next to the trough is a racking cane. I don't use it because I bought an autosiphon, but the cane came with the bottle filler so I keep it just in case.

The next thing on the counter is the autosiphon. This is a racking cane inside of a tube with an airtight seal between the two. You pull the racking cane out and then push it back in and it automatically starts your siphon going. You don't have to suck on the end of the tube to get it going and contaminate things. HIGHLY recommended.

The last item is a food grade high temperature plastic stirring paddles for stirring the wort in the brew kettle.

I took this picture a couple weeks ago after I racked the beer from the primary fermenter to the carboy. The stuff in the bottom are the dissolved hop pellets and yeast hulls. The tube is the autosiphon with the flexible tubing attached to it and is of course what I used for the transfer.