GRABASS: multi-brew weekend

Sweet grill!

Mmmm, pork! You know what goes well with pork? More pork!

We brewed today. It was hot. It was REALLY hot. (I had no idea my fingernails could actually sweat.) Jeff's outdoor thermometer claimed 102 or something like that, but the sensor was not nestled between two friggin turkey fryers going full-bore like Jeff and I were. I arrived wearing pants (smart move, eh?) but jeff's kitchen shears worked pretty well to remove the legs.

The brewing was a little rough for me. I boiled over pretty quickly (fryer n00b). I forgot a few small things (like my spray bottle to prevent boilovers). I had no real recipe, just a rough idea and a bag of ingredients. Hopefully, I managed to produce something that should sort of resemble a Belgian Wit.

In honor of the heat today, I have named the beer it "Titch's Wit". (For those non US folks, we have a saying here that "It's hotter than a witch's tit". Or, if you are not into the whole brevity thing, "It's hotter than a witch's tit in a cast iron bra." (Don't ask me... I didn't make it up.))

By the way.... mobile brewery? Needs a little planning. I was rushed to get things together in about 15 minutes and am surprised I remembered most of my things.

Jeff cooked up his New Zealand Pale Ale using some NZ-specific hop. I can't remember the name. Everything seemed to go pretty well for him (home-field advantage), but he have a few hiccups here and there. I promised not to divulge details.

Billy was just along for the ride, sitting comfortable in the shade and sipping on some beers. He managed to snap some pics, so I'm sure he'll post them eventually. (Thank's again for the use of the burner. I have it still and can return it to you this week if you will be in the office wed->fri.)

I had a couple of Billy's beers, too. I'll review in the proper thread.

-walker

Yeah, it was hot!
I did a PM using a converted 5 gallon water cooler & 7# of grain. It was nice to have Billy there to coach me through the batch sparge.
Yes, I had a few mishaps: I usually use a hop bag whenever putting whole or plugs in the kettle, but yesterday I got cocky and just threw an oz. of Saaz flowers right in....assuming that the would float, eh? Well, they clogged the drain at the bottom of my keggle and I had to perform an emergency
enema using a turkey baster. The next mishap was embarassing but I'll tell y'all anyway. I use a Coleman camping stove to heat up my mash/sparge water. I used the family's 46 quart cooler as a table to put it on. Can you guess the rest of the story? Yep, melted the fu*&^%$ lid! SWMBO hasn't seen it yet. What the hell, coolers are cheap.
Despite the heat I had a great time with Walker & BeeGee. Let's do it again soon.

I've got the pics...just need to get to my computer at work where my IRDA connection is...by Wednesday, no problem. Wasn't that hot in the shade, btw...

Sounds fun guys! Wish we could have had the Hampton chapter around as well--but oh well.

Can't wait to try the beers.

In no particular order.....

Here's BOSTON jabbering away about something.



And Walker sweating like a pig in the heat.

Boston had a teeeeeeny bit of extract in his brew. It was MG (mostly grain) batch.


And got it the boil going:

Boston was a wimp and stirred with his big paddle:




But, I'm a real man and had to step in to show him how to suck it up and stick your arm right in to stir things up:


That shady spot in the background was where BeeGee stayed most of the time.

I did my little crystal malt steep:


And added my wheat DME:


Then I turned up the heat to prepare for my boilover:



And then I boiled over. Note how funny Boston thinks all of this is:

(the joke was on him though... the boilover was on HIS deck.)

My little pathetic partial boil (post-boilover, hence the big wet spot):


And a random pic of Boston mixing up some sanitizer.

Guys that looks like a lot of fun.