National home brew day dilemmas

I had the privilege this weekend to join my club in a brew day in the parking lot. The weather was amazing...the food was great...my recipe turned out amazingly!

Now the dilemmas: lugging all the equipment was a pain in the a$$...my propane ran out...my first boil over occurred...my regulator to valve connection caught on fire...final volume was only 4 1/2 gallons...I got a sunburn too. Next year I'll just visit after making beer in my garage.

I love this obsession we call a hobby! Cheers

It is a bit of a PITA to haul the equipment, but to me it is so much more fun brewing with 30 people than simply watching like the other 100.

I got to show off my new toy though. Lots of admirers.

Hey at least I noticed the fire ball on your gas line before there was an unfortunate incident

It is a pain to bring out the equipment however it is fun to hang out and brew with everyone. If you don't want to bring out the entire rig to the next brew day I have an extra burner for I can bring for you to use. I believe there are a couple at the store that can be used too.

I've been doing it for years. I love it. To me it's no big deal to haul everything out. My gear is pretty portable.

my setup isn't portable, however, i did use an old camping table with my propane burners.
my car was absolutely packed! but it was worth it IMO, i've brewed with a friend here and there, but the experence of brewing with around 100 other people brewing around me was an absolutely great time, i'd do it again in a heart beat!

When I'm attending a club brew day, I bring my handsome face and some beer to share. I'll let other people do the work. Trying to brew my own beer in someone else's space is just too much...

Toga said:

Hey at least I noticed the fire ball on your gas line before there was an unfortunate incident

It is a pain to bring out the equipment however it is fun to hang out and brew with everyone. If you don't want to bring out the entire rig to the next brew day I have an extra burner for I can bring for you to use. I believe there are a couple at the store that can be used too.

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Thank you again Dave. Better than a fire ball is right. It was fun and you guys had my back. If I had a pickup or van it would've been easier I guess.

It was a new challenge to try and remember everything that you need. I did pretty well, and my brew went more or less as planned.

I enjoyed brewing with a group, it was a nice change. Not quite as relaxing as brewing on the deck, but it was a different type of fun.

we had the opposite (of a fireball) happen.. I think we got an overfilled propane tank because the regulator connection froze and liquid propane started leaking out

It was at my house, so no issues with lugging equipment - but watching people pull up with car loads of stuff made me glad I wasn't going mobile. I think I may brew extract if we do it at someone else's house.

Lack of a fireball would be better anyway. I'd hate to see everybody burning.

Very nice! I redid all of my connections when I got home.

Are they solid now?

The Southern California Homebrew Festival is always the same weekend as the National Homebrew Day event. I wish the SCHF people would pick a different week!

i brewed at home with company over for bbq, and of COURSE i had a boilover and had to make someone run inside for get the fermcap!
but i overshot gravity and the airlock was bubbling away, so no complaints from me!

Toga said:

Are they solid now?

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Yes they are. And I'm only moving it now from the garage to the driveway. So should stay nice and solid.

JonW said:

The Southern California Homebrew Festival is always the same weekend as the National Homebrew Day event. I wish the SCHF people would pick a different week!

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We always have St. Louis Microfest that weekend, so my club does it the following (this coming) weekend. It's a bit of a pain to haul everything, but it's always a great time so I'm looking forward to it. Just hoping for better weather than last year.

LouBrew13 said:

Yes they are. And I'm only moving it now from the garage to the driveway. So should stay nice and solid.

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excellent. If you want to brew at the next brew day just bring a couple pots and a mashtun and I'll squeeze my back up burner into my car for you with the rest of my equipment.

I was lucky enough to get to HOST the brew day at my house...it was AWESOME not having to haul my two batches back home...but I had the lovely job of managing the clean-up efforts...there were 3 boil overs on my deck and enough garbage and spent grain to keep me busy for several hours (even with some help of my fellow brewers).

I'm not complaining though...it was an INCREDIBLE time with INCREDIBLE people and would do it again in a heartbeat...much better than brewing solo!

My local home brew shop sponsored Big Brew Day, free ingredients and they kept water heated for everyone's use. Over 60 brewers in the parking lot. I could not brew due to a graduation party I had to leave for, but spent a few hours hanging around and helping friends. Seemed to me that the extract brewers were having a hell of a time with boil overs from the 7 lbs of DME that were in the recipe. The lot was a river of boil overs!

Free ingredients for 60 brewers? Damn, that sounds expensive...

jdauria, that sounds incredible. Most we've had that I can remember is like 10. I'd love to do a brew day like that.

What was the water situation like? We try to stagger our boils so we're not strapped for water sources when it comes time to chill. I can't imagine the logistics of 50 different brews going at once.

Oh the humanity...boil overs aren't fun. I'm also hoping my beer doesn't taste like garden hose.

turkeyjerky214 said:

What was the water situation like? We try to stagger our boils so we're not strapped for water sources when it comes time to chill. I can't imagine the logistics of 50 different brews going at once.

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I was gone before it go to chilling time as had to go to a graduation party so not sure how they handled that because I only saw one hose. However, while they had 60 brewers over the course of the day, they did limit it to only 40 could do it at one time. And my estimate was 75% of those there did extract. So they would I assume take turns with the hose first to hook up chillers, then they All Grain brewers would do the same later.

But they did have plenty of water on hand, the warehouse was stacked with cases of water and they also kept a two keg burner system going heating water from the hose.

I have to hand it to the shop though, while it was free ingredients for 60 brewers at my local one, they are a chain in Mass and one in upstate NY, so the also gave out free ingredients at least 2 other locations too! So if in MA, check out the Homebrew Emporium!

At cap no cork we have a manifold that folks can hook their chiller up to. Usually about 6 folks can hook up at a time.

I've never noticed a backlog at the chill station. Folks get there at different times, start and different times, and finish at different times. It's not a shotgun start.

Some are doing long mashes, some have long boils, some are just effin around drinking and not paying attention...2 weeks ago I had a 90 minute mash and a 90 minute boil, and between that and shooting the ****, I was one of the last to hit the chill area.

It's always been pretty good natured, if there's a wait, you go grab beer....More often then not, the person finishing up his chill will even hook yours up to the water when he's done.