What I did for beer today

SupervisingChildren said:

I liberated a 5 gallon better bottle from my fiancee's aunt's house. Was helping put new light bulbs in her basement and came across it and she said if I find any other supplies they used to use for wine I could keep them.

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GOOOOAAAAL! Can I get a hell yeah!? But what I did for beer today?? I'm drinking some home brew waiting on the BBQ... It's labor day, mutha f'aaaaahsss! There goes the neighborhood!

I out up a shelf in the reloading room/Man Cave for all my beer glasses. My wife was complaining about there being too many glasses in the kitchen cabinet. So since the beer fridge is in there it just made sense to put the glasses in there as well.

Brewed a Spiced Winter Warmer. Mostly Maris Otter, a fair amount of Crisp Crystal 77L, some Biscuit, Special Roast, and Black Malt, and then a pound of black treacle, a couple cinnamon sticks, and some fresh ground allspice, nutmeg, and clove. Hopped with EKG at 60 and 20, and my house yeast, 1469. Should go from maybe 1.075 to 1.020 or so, and in the ~7% ABV range. That's extra high gravity and unbelievably adjunct laden compared to my normal brews. Hah. But it smelled like gingerbread going into the fermenter, so I think it'll turn out well.

Finally got around to that Espresso Stout recipe a friend sent me, nice finish to the Labor Day Weekend. Should be ready around NFL playoff time. Here it is waiting to pitch, as I sat on the porch steps enjoying my latest Mexican Pilsner on a very humid Summer night:

Racked my club brew Summer Sizzle Saison to secondary. Cleaned the carboy. & associated equipment.


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Today I continued looking for an affordable fridge to convert into a lager fridge. No luck yet but gonna keep on looking.

CJ-3 said:

Today I continued looking for an affordable fridge to convert into a lager fridge. No luck yet but gonna keep on looking.

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HD was having a sale on GE 7 CF for under $200.
I have one given to me by a neighbor that moved & it's very stable. I out in a small fan & used an extra Auber for temp control. Easily accommodates 2 6 gal carboys or two kegs plus CO2 for carbing.


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I brewed an all grain batch, of American Pale Ale, mainly just 2-row, and Columbus hops. Added an oz of Carafa III, just for more color.

Also tried the No Sparge technique, might have gone better, If I wasn't so darn rusty. I overshot my mash temp, and I think my pump compacted the grain bed, and caused a stuck sparge.

I allowed beer to ferment today. Shew, it was exhausting.

Brewed 5gal cream ale. Cleaned a keg . Dry hopped an orange pale ale


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Writing some more of my new home brewing book while i rap with y'all & wait for my stuff to come in for version 2 of my PM dampfbier. Hope it gets here soon enough during the day to use the grains, etc for the cover pic. With a glass of v1 of the dampfbier of course.

left a ball valve in water overnight, after brew day, and had to clean a bunch of rust that formed on the bolts.

Ordered a few bits and bobs.
An APA extract kit, meant to be very highly regarded.
A London bitter all grain mashkit.
A mash thermometer
Some US West coast yeast

Well, the order came in. But Midwest no longer using clear bags for grains as I'd hoped for the cover pic. Naillard Malt bags instead for the German malts. Dammit. so much for a cover pic. I'd have to pay royalties for the copyrights.

Going to brew my first 1gal SMASH shortly, Vienna/Tettnanger with Windsor ('tis what I have on hand).

Brewing beer = Drinking Beer

Harvested hops for the first time. Not a very big yield, but it was the first year for these (and only one plant each). Willamette in the clear bowl and Magnum in the other. My Sterling and Zeus didn't produce this year. I should probably get one brew outta this.

Didn't technically do anything, but I've decided to enter a competition at the end of the month. Luckily I have a helles, IPA, and hefeweizen brewing, a porter and a rye APA ready, and I may brew a blonde this weekend to enter as well.

More hop harvesting! Galena, and willamette

All these hop harvest pics are making me jealous.

Bought ingredients for an amber rye ale.

drainbamage said:

All these hop harvest pics are making me jealous.

Bought ingredients for an amber rye ale.

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Drinking my RyeIPA right now... hmmm rye...

Made my first all-grain Imperial Rye IPA (1.078) yesterday and spent the last day watching the fermenter for bubbles. Took about 24 hours to get started but went from nothing to a blow off full of krausen over the night. I'm happy again.

Not bad for a starter made from a 6 week old harvested yeast.

Brewitt said:

You dry hopped your pickles? Now that is a new one on me.


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I added a bit to a small pot of brine during the boil. 1 jar just to see how they taste. The jar on the left is hopped up.


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Brewed an Oktoberfest. Have it chilling to 48* in my ferm chamber then going to pitch. 14 days at 48 then 6 weeks at 35 then keg and enjoy! Should be ready by middlemof october. Cant wait!

Ordered some keg repair parts. Now I'll be able to cold condition and carbonate so they'll be ready when my other kegs kick.

Racked a wheat onto raspberries and jalapeños. Kegged an American amber turned my fermentation freezer into a cold storage space for 4 kegs for a wedding rehearsal dinner. Cleaned....

Ordered an STC 1000 for my fermenter build.

Went by the LHBS and picked up a new auto-syphon, tubing and several new airlocks. Also defrosted about 1/2 gallon on pomegranate juice to add to my cream ale tomorrow.

I made time to bottle some Apfelwein, I expect to enjoy by the end of the month. With the FG coming in at around .993, this batch will pack a punch at around 9.5% abv.

Today I built my fermenter. Hopefully the STC1000 comes in the next few days and I will be all done.

Started carbing my first hard apple cider in a 3 gallon keg. Siphoned 5 gallons of ESB into two 3 gallon kegs. And pitched yeast into 5 gallons of Belgian White Wheat.... It was a great day!!

F#%@ed with my new Johnson Temp Controller for a few hours. My utter lack of electric knowledge is being increased. I think that I may have figured out how to keep my ale fermentation at a good level using a cheap lamp and what appeared to be the last incandescent light bulb. Temps are holding. Now to brew...

Decided I was too damn tired to mess with any of the beer that needed racking, and way to tired to brew the Kolsch that I planned. There is always tomorrow.

Brewed a six gal batch of Green Bullet/Sylva IPA. Pitched w/ BRY-97.


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5gal yellow fizzy beer. My brew partner will no longer buy BMC. He is now kegging and needs his beer.


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Secondaried and dry hopped my pils/amarillo SMaSH.

I also got my mini pump running. Yeah, no more using a pitcher for strike and sparge water.

Gonna bottle my clone of Lagunitas' Lil Sumpin Sumpin. It smelled amazing when I dry hopped 5 days ago!


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Took a sample from my DIPA and it was goooood. Need to commence the dry-hopping

Ordered a new lid and spigot for my bucket as well as grains for a pumpkin ale to be brewed the first Sunday after I get the grains.

I wrote some more of chapter two of my book on this journey through home brewing. Still got some bottles to clean. Fridge repair showed up around 3PM. Good news; don't need $750 compressor job. Bad news; had to order fan motor, which is going to be cheaper. I need a way to chill a couple gallons of top off water & coolers aren't big enough?...

Bottled my vanilla pumpkin porter. Should be awesome in 3-4 weeks!