Bubba,
Sorry I did not respond last night. Your process looks good. I would advise against having a batch going and bottling at the same time because you are going to have to get the carboy and everything else cleaned up for the next batch and that will take a bit of time. Plus you don't want to have a boil over while you are bottling or you will have a real mess on your hands.
Your process looks good and one of the tips I was going to give was boiling the priming sugar in a quart of water and adding it to the beer--as you are doing. Some kits tell you to put a small amount of priming sugar in each bottle and that takes too much time. I would suggest that you gently stir the beer once it is combined with the priming mix in the bucket. This will evenly distribute the priming sugar throughout the batch.
To the questions:
1. I usually place all of the clean bottles in the beer case-keeps the bottles from moving around. I then fill all of the bottles before capping. There is enough alcohol in the beer at this point that there is less risk of contamination plus all of the bottles have been cleaned.
2. I usually sanitize the caps by dropping them in a tub of bleach water and then rinsing with cold water. Then I lay them out on some paper towels to dry while I am filling the bottles. Better safe than sorry.
3. Assuming that you are using long-neck bottles 12 or 22 oz. I usually fill the bottles up to about 1.5 inches from the top. It is good to have some overhead lighting when filling the bottles because the beer rises quick when the filling gets to the neck. That amount of air space will give the beer room to release some carbonation when it is opened without bubbling over.
Another tip--if you end up with enough beer to only partially fill a bottle at the end go ahead and cap that bottle as well. I usually use that bottle as the test bottle about 8 weeks after bottling to see if the beer is ready to drink.
On the burner question--I have an electric stove top as well. I prefer gas but the "War Department" vetoed that when we were building the house. The length of the boil is not that critical, it is just important to make sure that all of the sugars are completely dissolved.
And remember--you have to have a beer or two while bottling!!!
Let me know if you have any other questions.
Tim
