What I did for beer today

bought a pound of date sugar, two 3.5gal buckets and some french saison yeast.

got a 3942 starter spinning, cleaned and sanitized and rebuilt and resanitized another soda keg.

Finished refurbishing a Firestone keg, hoping to put it in use tomorrow.

I took yet another reading on my Saison. It was at 1.012 after 2 weeks. Maybe I'll transfer it to the secondary with my hops tomw.

Brewed a batch of oatmeal stout.

And then i rebuilt another keg and filled it with star-san.

And installed a 1/2" ball valve from bargainfittings on my HLT, and then drilled about a half inch hole in my boil kettle. Damn cordless drill batteries are 10 years old. will finish tomorrow.

Noted that i forgot to properly clean my MLT cooler last brew day, stank of lacto, filled with hot water and PBW.

Very productive day. Transferred a bitter to secondary. Cleaned bottles and conical. Drank a 2009 octoberfest homebrew that was in deep storage, was excellent.

Finished the day by brewing up an amber for fall golf trip between rain storms...

Drank far too much of it.

Right now I am beyond happy and I've just poured another glass of homebrew AND managed to keep the yeast cake in the bottle intact

Informed SWMBO that brewing yeast cannot possibly cause v@ginal yeast infections. This is fact. And she looks at me like I'm an idiot. It's like comparing house cats to tigers. We do what we can, I guess :/

I was finally able to get my 4 x 8 sheet of rigid foam to the house for my chiller. I have my cut list, saw, straight edge, tape measure, saw horses and motivation. The next step, acquire about 1-2 hours of time to make the cuts without help from my 3 year old assistant. Then assembly.

Meanwhile, listened to a couple brewing network archived podcasts. Good stuff.

Later today, have some friends coming over to help me consume some of this homebrew I have been stockpiling. Soon, I will need to make more.

This actually took place yesterday but entered beer into local county fair homemade beverage judging contest. I had two beers take 3rd place and one beer took Best in Show. I was pretty proud since this was my first competition I have ever entered by beer into... I won a new turkey fryer and kettle for Best in Show provide by LHBS.. More equipment!!! Currently, debating on giving it to up and coming brewers that need to break off into the all grain reign.

I'm brewing my first 10 gallon batch on my 'awesome' three tier setup (watch out blichmann). My buddies are all still in bed and I'm about to start the boil. Early bird gets the worm!

Kegged 5 gallons of 2 Bad Dogs Double (almost) IPA. Next up is another 10 gallon batch of BM's Centennial Blonde - what a great summer beer!

Worked at the homebrew shop. Since our mill is motorized, I crushed about 100lbs worth of grain.

Promoted home brew by bringing some hefe and brown to my MIL.

I worked on the brew shed

Finished installing a weldless spigot on my boil kettle and brewed a Celis White clone - my first pourless brew day. Got to use my diy o2 diffuser wand, too.

Kegged my pumpkin spice porter.

Got one more stainless 1/2" valve, this one will go on the march pump to help gate the flow. Gonna make a Herms outta my mash cooler, keggle, and wort chiller.

Ordered stuff to make a heat stick.

Read some articles on calibrating equipment for my Beersmith trial software. They seem to make this more mysterious than it needs to be.. Went through and added all my old hops and grains to inventory. Added a couple recipes. Not sure I like the direction of holding my recipes hostage in the cloud for a monthly fee. Seems like he is copying Beer Tools in a few ways. I always end up trialing both these softwares at the same time and end up buying neither.

Made a mental note to create liquid volume measurements for tun and keggle.

Found a recipe for a Sierra Nevada clone, noted I have all ingredients already on hand and plan to make this next after I read about yeast washing.

Checked hops plant for the first time in a week. First year for homegrown hops for me and cones just starting appearing a week ago, now they are getting massive. Probably be able to use them this year.

Studied some articles on March pumps and learned some stuff about cavitation, proper priming technique, after marker pump heads and their customer support as well as March people are active on this forum.

Debated buying a yeast stirrer. While my homemade one works, it's kinda cobbled together with hot glue and the magnets seem to come off occasionally. Like to just have a reliable one in case I get into making lagers.

I didn't do anything today, but last night I drank a whole bunch of them. They did more for me than I did for them..

Bottled my Midnight in Belgium and brewed another batch of my saison last night.

marinated a pork butt in sweetwater motorboat.... so i guess i motorboated that butt.

now i am about to start my pumpkin ale

Kegged my two SMaSH beers. Samples were fantastic. Started at 15.8 Plato, finished at 1.8.

Hops were Columbus for one, Willamette for the other. Maris Otter pale malt.

Ordered new ingredients and some additional equipment from Northern Brewer. This will be my first batch since National Homebrew Day. I was originally planning on brewing a lot this summer, but I brewed soooo much in the srping, I havn't had the need to until now.

Also re-figured out finances in an effort to budget more cash towards my brewing set-up.
Research, research, research. If only I still had access to all the Scientific Journals like I did back in college...

Not a damn thing.

Well, I guess i lovingly lowered my ear to the top of the digitally controlled freezer I'm using as a fermentation chamber to experience the rhythmic burping of the blowoff vessel on my hoegaarden clone (Capdabbler White).

And maybe later I'll add the rest of the lemon juice and 2nd batch of nutrient & energizer to my skeeterpee, which isn't beer.

Researched ideas for using a friend's pineapple mint herbs in a porter for my next winter beer.

Pulled a sample of the Apricot IPA I helped the SWMBO design, carbing up nicely.

I brewed some Dark Brown Ale. Just finished cleaning everything up.

Lovingly looked at the (albeit) few hops I had. Played with the refractometer I received.

Yesterday Culligan come to the house and remove their water softener and RO system. I will be installing my own system this week.

Got my new brew pot and ordered some new kegging supplies. Also promised to make an IIPA for my bro the next time he comes up for a visit. I hate that style, but I don't get to see him often and he hasn't brewed with me since I started all grain and kegging. Simcoe/Chinook/Warrior/Galena......like sucking on a pine cone covered in cat piss. Don't mean to offend all you hopheads. Just not a fan.

Couldn't resist a sample of the Columbus and Willamette SMaSH beers that I kegged on Monday. 28-30 psi, 42F, 48 hrs. Fantastic, splendid, awesome, perfect, and amazing, but improving.

Yesterday I drew up a new recipe...today I am brewing the new recipe

Picked up 2 lbs of specialty grain and 4 ozs of hops in preparation for the porter I'm brewing on Friday, and will soon be prepping the recycled Notty for the starter for Friday.

Placed my ingredients order for a this guinness clone.

Took the SG of my Strawberry Blonde Ale. Also tasted the sample of course!

Brewed a 5g batch of AHS's Blue Moon clone (partial mash kit) with booster.

Good Day for Beer!

I went to the LHBS for supplies. Kegged my stout. Washed, sanitized, and bottled more stout. Washed and sanitized more bottles for my Saison to bottle tomorrow. Got jars ready to wash said Saison yeast tomorrow too.

Oh yea, had a homebrew or three too.

I washed my rabbits...
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/funny-brewing-mishap-pics-347897/

I made the yeast starter for the Pumpkin Spice Ale I'm brewing tomorrow.