Brewhouse - Current Pics

It's like MTV Cribs, but for brewing...I took these pics on Saturday. Since then, I've bottled the Porter.


Here's the Brewhouse Cellar / Laundry Room. You can just make out the lagerator in the bottom right corner, in my shop. The boxes, well, that's the homebrew backstock. 14 cases of 12's (two of them are empties), 7 cases of large-format btls, and 6 plastic crates (some of the stuff in crates is commercial brew)...plus two full cases of 12's and two cases of large-formats upstairs in the heated room carbonating. I have way too much beer, but I can't stop. Oh, and you see that chick on the Hofbrau box? She wants my junk. I can tell from the smile.



The current lineup, from left to right: Smoked Porter, Old Slug, Hop Beatdown (fermenting), Oaked Bourbon-Vanilla Winter Ale, Brune Abbey:


And the lagerator: New Bohemia Pils, plus some cold-aging bottles and a bit of harvested yeast-


Life Is Good. I just don't know when I'm gonna be able to drink all this stuff. And SWMBO, well, I don't know how much more space I can take up before she banishes my operation to the shed.

wow.....impressive man, very impressive.

You going to need help drinking all that?

Very nice! I need to finish the rec room portion of my basement before I'm allowed to do the brewery.

Kick ass! Looking good!

Is that really a case of Old Leghumper?

Dude said:

Kick ass! Looking good!

Is that really a case of Old Leghumper?

Click to expand...

No, those stacks are all homebrew. I bring home empty boxes & sixpack holders from the wine/beer shop where I work part time. Old Leghumper is great stuff, though. I like their imperial stout too.

Chimone said:

wow.....impressive man, very impressive.

You going to need help drinking all that?

Click to expand...

No doubt...I've been pounding homebrew like it was my goddamned job, and those case stacks never seem to get any smaller.

That's a sweet setup...

I know where I'm going the next time I'm in C'ville.

Evan, where did you score those Eggenberg crates?

trinitone said:

I know where I'm going the next time I'm in C'ville.

Evan, where did you score those Eggenberg crates?

Click to expand...

Yeah, man, look me up.

I work for a few hours a week at a local wine/beer shop (we got written up in All About Beer as one of the top 70 retailers in the nation!), and the crates were just laying in the basement collecting dust.

Very nice setup .... Just wish I had that much space.

just looking at this really makes me wish I had a basement. Is it a basement? whats the temp sitting at in there?

i want to know what is the mysterious red curtain?

Reverend JC said:

i want to know what is the mysterious red curtain?

Click to expand...

You mean whats behind it?

Oh, yea....well thats where the gimp sleeps

Evan! said:

Yeah, man, look me up.

I work for a few hours a week at a local wine/beer shop (we got written up in All About Beer as one of the top 70 retailers in the nation!), and the crates were just laying in the basement collecting dust.

Click to expand...

They're an awesome find. I've been looking for some forever. You wouldn't happen to be next to an oil change place, would you? If so, I used to be in there a lot. The store, not the oil change place.

That's a fair bit more space than I've got.

Nice set up.

Chimone said:

just looking at this really makes me wish I had a basement. Is it a basement? whats the temp sitting at in there?

Click to expand...

Yeah, basements rock...and this particular part of my basement is mostly below grade. Temp right now hovers between 58-60f, since we keep the HVAC registers closed down there.

Chimone said:

You mean whats behind it?

Oh, yea....well thats where the gimp sleeps

Click to expand...

That's where SWMBO lives. I let her out once in awhile

Actually, SWMBO put that curtain up. And it's not really a curtain, it's just some extra fabric hung over a water pipe. Behind it? A bunch of empty boxes for products that we may have to return someday. Like our blender---Lowe's takes anything back, so we keep the box and when the blender breaks (which it has done several times) we just put it back in the box and exchange it for a new one.

That, and I have this icky feeling that there are nests of camel crickets hatching underneath it all as we speak. Damn, I hate those stupid things. Come summertime, they all but commandeer my basement. They're like jumping spiders. AGH!

trinitone said:

They're an awesome find. I've been looking for some forever. You wouldn't happen to be next to an oil change place, would you? If so, I used to be in there a lot. The store, not the oil change place.

Click to expand...

By golly, we ARE. Right off route 29. Small world.

Absolutely kickass setup. One question: do you keep the lights off in there, or keep all those carboys covered to avoid skunking?

Torchiest said:

Absolutely kickass setup. One question: do you keep the lights off in there, or keep all those carboys covered to avoid skunking?

Click to expand...

I keep the lights off when we're not in there. There's no windows in this particular part of the basement, so no sunlight gets in.

That is a nice setup! Like Rich, my basement is so pitiful right now that it's embarassing. I have a complete shop area that I'm in the process of getting crap out of so it will be my dedicated brew-room, but as of right now it's a cluster f***...

SWMBO and I have been having some semi-tense conversations about the amount of CLOTHING in the house. I'm at the "I'm not even going to ask anymore" stage. If it's in a box that hasn't seen daylight in over a year, it's going. I get a little bit more done each night. :rockin:

Ize

That looks really nice, Evan. I've been in the process of adding a crapload of storage space to the basement, trying to get it cleaned up and organized, hopefully getting it wired (it has only a couple outlets) soon so that I can start adding chest freezers and the like. Looks good!

Evan! said:

That, and I have this icky feeling that there are nests of camel crickets hatching underneath it all as we speak. Damn, I hate those stupid things. Come summertime, they all but commandeer my basement. They're like jumping spiders. AGH!

Click to expand...

One night, when I lived in Raleigh, I was sleeping and felt a wierd sensation on my upper lip. I freaked and smashed. Damn Camel Crickets! We used to wake up to a tub full of em. Grrrrrrr.

Ize said:

That is a nice setup! Like Rich, my basement is so pitiful right now that it's embarassing. I have a complete shop area that I'm in the process of getting crap out of so it will be my dedicated brew-room, but as of right now it's a cluster f***...

SWMBO and I have been having some semi-tense conversations about the amount of CLOTHING in the house. I'm at the "I'm not even going to ask anymore" stage. If it's in a box that hasn't seen daylight in over a year, it's going. I get a little bit more done each night. :rockin:

Ize

Click to expand...

Put those clothes to good use---instead of taking up space in your basement, pull it all out one by one and make a list of each garment. Attach a dollar value to each one, what you expect it would fetch at a used clothing store. Take it all to goodwill and get a receipt...then claim it on your tax return as a charitable donation next year. Luckily, my wifey is about as minimalist as I am (must be the whole Architect thing), and so doesn't horde too many clothes...but we're both big fans of turning dust-collecting shyte into tax deductions.

The finished portion of our basement is a bit of a mess right now. We're renovating.

zoebisch01 said:

One night, when I lived in Raleigh, I was sleeping and felt a wierd sensation on my upper lip. I freaked and smashed. Damn Camel Crickets! We used to wake up to a tub full of em. Grrrrrrr.

Click to expand...

Man, I've seen some f'n KING KONG camel crickets in my house. Damn near big as a small cat! There's few things quite as satisfying as that "CRUNCH" when you smoosh one of those big bastards. :rockin:

Real nice set up you have...wish I was closer, I would help you drink some!

I just might have to commandeer part of my woodworking shop for brew space...

Man I need to get some plastic cases like that. I've been getting old wooden soda crates but they aren't really designed for 22 oz bottles...

Cool setup though, I hope to have one just like it when I move into my new house

Those crates are like sasquatch. Good luck on your hunt...

Your set-up makes me jealous.

McKBrew said:

Your set-up makes me jealous.

Click to expand...

His basement makes me jealous. Not too many of 'em 'round my neck of the woods.

IMHO, my gadgets are cooler, but your variety and organization blows me out of the water. Nice job! Wish I lived closer!

yeah, Yuri, your gadgets are definitely cooler. I don't really even have any gadgets. The most mechanically complex piece of equipment I have is probably my immersion chiller ...

Thanks for all the complements, guys! I gotta say, building that countertop/workbench setup was one of the best things I've done. Not only does it give me a big, clean workspace for bottling, measuring ingredients, carboy storage, etc., but it also just coincidentally turned out that it fits my big ingredient/equipment tubs perfectly on the lower horizontal bracing. Believe me, I didn't plan that.

Before I built that thing, that area was dead space...mostly used for storing piles of boxes and lumber. Now, I spend lots of time there

My next operation is to continue my 20A circuit from the shop into this room, and run some 4-ganger receps directly above the countertops. Tired of running extension cords all over the place any time I want to use the heating pad or aerator.

Anyway, thanks again. A side note...we got this crazy cold front sweeping the eastern seaboard last night. I checked my fermometers on the lineup...and the carboys are actually down to 54f. Christ, I could ferment a lager without even trying. But, hey, at least I don't have any ales still fermenting---right now, it's all cold-conditioning for them.

Evan! said:

Anyway, thanks again. A side note...we got this crazy cold front sweeping the eastern seaboard last night. I checked my fermometers on the lineup...and the carboys are actually down to 54f. Christ, I could ferment a lager without even trying. But, hey, at least I don't have any ales still fermenting---right now, it's all cold-conditioning for them.

Click to expand...

Yeah looks like my Fermentis Weihenstephan dry Lager strain is coming right in time.... Cold here, finally feels like winter.

Aw, no doubt. Went to walk the doggie this morning, and I 'bout froze my face off with the wind chill. The best part is how it's been so warm that a bunch of bulbs have come up, only to get their premature asses handed to them by this cold front. Damn. I think the daffodil harvest will be light this year...