What I did for beer today

Doing my first closed transfer keg to keg now. I found a leaky keg filled with Dunkelweizen I need to fix, and I have several good clean kegs sitting around.

Bottled my split batch American IPA this evening. It's a dank-off: Columbus dryhop vs. Nugget dryhop.

Bottled my Baltic Porter this morning, yielded 44 12oz long necks.

Cleaning day: 20 bottles at once at 75°C with my selfmade dishwasher insert. The closures for the swing top bottles are in the cuttlery drawer, also top clean. Never had issues with infections (knock on wood).
And there was also some space for my breakfast porridge bowl.

With recently emptied bottles I have no additional work. If I collect them over time, I have rinse them after drinking. Sometimes it takes 3 or 4 weeks till i get a full tray .. the pressure isn't that strong to clean that long dried remnants.

To make a very long story shorter, I had major surgery on my right leg 5 weeks ago and this morning my surgical team finally said I can start "doing stuff" as long as it didn't stress my leg. I had planned on the surgery and recovery and had brewed six 10 gallon batches of beers to get me through. Five of those kegs kicked over the last few days with the Ballantine IPA kicking last night...



The stout had kicked on Friday, and my youngest son came over to swap in its fresh mate. But I was on my own now for the rest. I decided to go all-in and take the opportunity to clean the keezer lines.

First, I pulled out the four kegs that needed replacing and hooked up the manifold to the six beer QDs.



Then I hooked the drain manifold to the faucets...



Pump on one bucket, drain lines in the other, to pre-rinse the lines...





And away we go!



Rinsed out the cleaning gear and put it away, then loaded the keezer with four fresh kegs!



Taplist looks much better now



With that done I brought out the trusty Mark II and cleaned the five kicked kegs...






Leg is a bit throbby and I nearly filled the vacuum drain I still have connected to it, but it seems to have held up ok.
Totally worth it though!

Cheers!

Tasted the now-1-week in the bottle Summer 24 amber ale. It's one of the best I've made, and I attribute that to (drum roll please) Controlling the Fermentation Temperature!

No off flavors, no acetaldehyde, no Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde, no weird floaters... just good beer flavor. Needs another week or two before puttin' in the 'fridge.

Kegged up my BRU-1 NEIPA before we go on holiday for a couple of days. It looks to have fermented a bit dryer than I'd hoped so I'll have to see how it's looking when we get back to see if it warrants a maltodextrin addition to bring the FG up a bit.

Down from 1.072 to 1.014 for 80% apparently attenuation, which is significantly more than I would have expected from either part of my co-pitch. Lallemand claim up to 83% with Köln but I've never actually got close to that, usually more like 77%.

HM-2 said:

Down from 1.072 to 1.014 for 80% apparently attenuation, which is significantly more than I would have expected from either part of my co-pitch. Lallemand claim up to 83% with Köln but I've never actually got close to that, usually more like 77%.

Click to expand...

The problem with yeast manufacturer published attenuation ranges is that yeast strain is not the only factor. Grain bill and mash parameters are also big drivers.

Today it's finally time to transfer the troubled porter into a keg. I transfered 1.5 gallons yesterday into a torpedo keg. It finished at 1.008 after a 1.054 OG. It taste great and now the torpedo is cold crashing and settling down.

VikeMan said:

The problem with yeast manufacturer published attenuation ranges is that yeast strain is not the only factor. Grain bill and mash parameters are also big drivers.

Click to expand...

A 70°C mash with 15% unmalted grains should have pushed FG up to the high teens. Hence the confusion. This is a pretty typical grist for me and Köln is my house NEIPA yeast so I usually have a pretty good feeling for where it lands attenuation wise.

Perhaps my brewing system thermometer needs calibrating.

I washed some kegs and enjoyed a beer at the same time.

Bottled the Hiphopopotamus Pilsner - 45 bottles.

Brewed another 5 gallons of Bell's 2-Hearted Clone. Dropped in some Nottingham yeast, and fermenting at 60f.

Water sanded down to 1000 grit. It`s not perfect, I couldn`t get the shaft uniformly thick all the way because the raw cut form I got from the neighbor was done a little wishy-washy, which is also the reason why the spoon sits a wee bit crooked to the shaft but I don`t reckon that`ll affect it`s usability.

Yesterday, I cleaned, sanitized and purged 17 kegs.
First I use a pressure washer to get them mostly clean,
Next I put them on a keg washed for ten minutes
rinse and inspect
drain
sanitize and purge with co2
store kegs under pressure.

Put everything a way and finally have a few beers.

Today I kegged my Summer Lightning Bitter 19 litres at 5.1%.

Dosed my too-dry NEIPA with 200g of maltodextrin. Can already confirm that's vastly improved the mouth feel but without making it feel cloying. Shame my lingering COVID is ****ing with my taste so I can't tell the effects of "a full pound of Cryo BRU-1 in a 6 gallon batch" other than observing there's a little hop burn.

Made my first beer in about 200 days. Finally getting back into it.

I am working late tonight, it's 10:30 PM and I am replacing a defective warning LED light.