What I did for beer today

Today was fun. I started off by brewing up a Smoked Rye IPA recipe that I put together the other day which is dedicated to my cat (Rickey's Rye IPA). I ran 3 miles while my mash was resting and came back to vorlauf and get my boil going. Then I kegged my Imperial Red recipe while the boil was going. After completing my Smoked Rye IPA, I took gravity readings from my pumpkin ale, belgian golden strong and dudes Lake Walk pale ale clone (and then dry-hopped the Lake Walk). I am now drinking some firestone union jack while waiting for my chest freezer to crash my carboy of rye ipa down to 60 degrees for some yeast pitchin'. :rockin::fro:

kegged my redhook esb clone(ish) that i made during hurricane sandy. Rightfully named my "SandyHook ESB - Extra Stormy Bitter"

problem with my autosiphon because the tubing i had apparently has a larger ID than the previous stuff i was using (most recent tubing was purchased from midwest supplies) and it wasn't creating any suction at first and when i added a hose clamp all it was doing was aerating the wort. so i went old fashion and used a long section of hose to just create my siphon.. was a pain in the ass holding the hose the whole time but it got it into the keg without aerating everything.


force carbed the keg and through it on my kegerator, looking forward to trying it in a couple days

Took a hydro sample of my 2.5 gallon batch of galaxy pale ale - attenuated from 1.055 to 1.012 in less than 3 days, and tasted amazing! Am definitely looking forward to the final product.

The saison isn't moving nearly as fast, but is slowly but surely making progress.

Tidied up the man cave for bottling day, kicked out a possum who had taken up residence, and created a few empty bottles.

Bottled an Evil twin IPA, going to bottle the other 5 gallons tonight. spare fridge can only handle 1 carboy at a time to cold crash

I should also be going home to find a nice package with Summit, Northern Brewer, Chinook, and Cluster hops.

Broke up a pound of Centennial hops into ounces and vacuum sealed them for freezing. One more pound to go.

I drank some...

I do that for beer pretty much every day though.

Kicked a keg of (delicious!) home brewed IPA while I contemplate the design for my new brew stand build that is still a few months out. Now the only homebrew I have left is an Amber that is going to kick soon. Looks like I'm about to be planning a brew day for this weekend, too!

Ran bottles through dish washer yesterday, bottle up day. :rockin:

Well, Last night I bought some der vodkski, vodka, and mixed it with some bakers chocolate for my chocolate stout that will go into the 2ndary maybe tonight, or tomorrow... or Friday, or some other time in the near (hopefully) future.

Checked the temps on my Winter Dark Ale which is happily fermenting for a week now and checked on my Oktoberfest which as been in the fermenter for three weeks and will be bottled Saturday Afternoon.

Bought the grains and hops at my LHBS for an Amber brew this weekend. They were all out of the Wyeast 1318 that I wanted though but said it will be in tomorrow. So I'll be going back now.

Checked SG of my Irish Red Ale which has been in primary 14 days. Down to 1.014. I'll check it again in a couple days.

Went to Stienbarts, milled my grain, bought some hops, LDME and hop bags...need to find Pacman elsewhere I guess.

Racked 5 gallons of another Evil twin IPA batch, along with 5 gallons of a Dead Ringer IPA.

The color on the Dead Ringer was beautiful, slight hint of red to it.

Watched several reruns of Brewing TV while on the treadmill, and am currently sampling a saison from the new brewery in time. Also had to sneak another sample of the galaxy pale ale (I even took another hydrometer reading to try to convince myself it was necessary).

OK meant to post this on Saturday but I was too busy:

Completed my entire brew cycle in one day--

- Went to the LHBS and bought ingredients for my spiced Christmas Ale
- Brewed my Christmas ale
- Transferred my Doppelweizenbock to secondary--it tasted delicious.
- Washed and sanitized three cases of bottles
- Racked my foreign extra dry stout from the secondary and bottled--it also tasted delicious

This is what happens when you leave home for three weeks on a business trip and have two brews going while you're gone!

Already trying to figure out what I should brew next...

Checked gravity on a Spice Ale and an Imperial IPA
Cleaned a dozen kegs (1/2bbl size)
Updated inventory
Created a hop degredation chart
Ordered grain
Ordered hops

Transferred my porter to secondary for dry-hopping with an ounce of Kent Goldings.

Washed the 1388 West Yorkshire Ale yeast.

Woot!

Transferred 6 kegs of beer
Clean fermenting vessel

Added gelatin and cranked the temp down on a Two Hearted clone. My first time dry-hopping with whole cone hops (still waiting on my 2012 pellets to come in).

Cold crashed the Hop Head double IPA
dry hoped a Big Chief IPA
made a yeast starter and milled some grains for tomorrows session

now to move the MT/HLT upstairs so everything is set for the morning..

Got some pizza and had a buddy over and popped a few tops off the IPA's made on 911. :rockin:

Had to get out of work early (not a bad thing) and take my wife to he dentist, she's in major pain with a root canal gone bad. So I'm being nurse Ratchet... I'm 2 beers in.. Cheers!! Oh and I just bottled my first brew.

Made my third trip in as many days to the LHBS to pick up yet another bit of gear that I forgot to pick up when I went shopping for my first AG setup the other day. I'm pretty sure the staff think I'm king of the short-bus at this point.

I also just finished weighing out the grain for my first two attempts at homebrewing. I see a gallon each of mint chocolate stout & amber ale in my near future!

Took 2nd SG reading for my Irish Red this morning. It was unchanged from 3 days agoat 1.014. Another week in the primary and I'll bottle. Took 1st SG reading on my Cream Ale. OG was 1.044, SG today was 1.012. Better attenuation than what the yeast specs called for. I'll take another reading in a couple days and will probably bottle a week after that. Bottling my Caribou Slobber Thanksgiving day while watching football and pounding some pints. Can't wait!

Kegged for the first time. Kegged my WhiteHouse Honey Porter. will be ready for Thanksgiving

Kegged my Two Hearted clone, wish I could have crashed a couple of more days but my last keg blew lastnight. Cleaned the blown keg this morning also.

Racked my chocolate stout to the bottling bucket, I will bottle later tonight. I want to wait a bit to let everything settle to the bottom so I don't get any/much sediment from the cocoa powder in the bottles, and whatever else may find it's way in. Looks and smells amazing.

Just bottled my small batch. 10 bombers. First go will be at Thanksgiving, hopeful they will last until Christmas, but I doubt it.
I got a nice tall sample

From yesterday afternoon - completed my mini keg cooler, then took it on its maiden voyage for a pre-Thanksgiving dinner last night. It successfully dispensed 3 gallons of holiday spiced cranberry ale.

Yesterday I bottled my Oktoberfest and this morning started a new batch. I thought everything went way too smooth this morning. Once I got everything together and checked my OG which was lower than I expected. Couldn't figure out what the problem but figured there wasn't much I could do but make beer out of what I got! That's when I discovered I'd left out the additional LME!

Bottled my pumpkin ale. Fun times, went fairly smooth. Took a crap ton of pics to use for powerpoint slides in my speech class. Gonna teach the class how to make beer!

Racked my pale ale into secondary and moved it and my fermenting IPA into the same closet at a lower temp.

Thus, the "hop closet" series of ales is born. Every time I open the closet, it explodes with hop aroma. So, Hop Closet Pale Ale and Hop Closet Belgian IPA

What did I do for beer today? I'm currently drinking it so that the workers at the brewery have a job and make more for us to drink while we're waiting for our next batch of homebrew to be ready to drink.

Bottled up my Hippie Holiday ale and sampled a Gonzales IPA which tasted awesome!