What I did for beer today

Started assembling my temp controller project box. Yay! No more crazy esters!

Got this fermentation chamber and mash tun from Craigslist! Early birthday present to me!!





Can't wait to use these!! Good deal for $200.

Put labels on the last batch of beer, Then de-labeled & washed a case and a half of bottles, soaked a bucket load of bombers & 750s. Off topic for this thread, but also racked & sanitized a batch of wine.

F***** guy at the LHBS, sold me some tubing that doesn't quite fit the 3/8" auto siphon. Went back to the store, but, thats the only size they have that's close. Then the guy working today, tells me to put tape on the end. :smack:

I walked out, not knowing if i'll ever support that place again. Too many times, I've walked out disappointed. I'm already looking up another LHBS, and it has all rave reviews.

Kegged a batch of Pumpkin Ale....

Made a yeast starter for my next batch of ipa (14oz of hops and 19.5 lbs of grain for 6 gallons. Going to be big). Fined my pumpkin ale.

Got a part-time job at a local liquor store to beef up the brewing budget. Got some big, expensive equipment upgrades I want to make that my current salary simply won't support.

Long day. Finally did our club big brew. Ended up putting 50 gallons of Oatmeal Stout into a bourbon barrel. One 15 gallon and three 10 gallon batches with a couple that were over volume. It's gonna need a big blowoff.

Bottled 5 gallons of Smashing Pumpkin Ale,

Ordered up ingredients for next weekends brew. 2 x 5.5gal batches of different pale ales.

Helped two friends brew three 1 gallon test batches a while back, to pick a recipe that we ultimately made 24 gallons of. Today I served this beer at their wedding.

Racked my Red IPA to keg, 5 gal.

Brewed an all-grain batch, 5 gal, and foolishly pitched an infected starter.

First time I've messed up an entire batch, in a year of brewing...

Bought project box for stir plate, bought some yeast, stepped up a 1056 yeast starter, cleaned my new paint mixer for wort aeration

Checked shipping on kegging fittings and temp controller for keezer. They will probably be here tomorrow.... Oh, and added the work keezer to the dictionary in my browsers spellcheck function.

Picked up a 15.5 cubic foot chest freezer for $60 on Craigslist and assembled a heating/cooling temp control. This beast will hold 4+ fermenters!

Do i need words to explain?

Tasted my 1st FG sample of my Cougar Country IPA 15 days in. Aroma reaked of fruit. Flavors resiny piney herbal fruitiness with a nice bite from the warrior hop bittering. It def added a nice touch to the hop flavors. Got it down to FG 1.011 from OG 1.061 so far. It's just gunna be my best one yet. Likely contest worthy,save for the lighter than expected color.

Just finished bottling my Dark Strong. Tomorrow will be an all-day brew. Brewing "Shredy the Brewer" a Pliny inspired Imperial IPA.

Drank the first glass of my kegged 6.7% IPA. Awesome!!!!!!!!!

bought a freezer, kegged my porter, plugged it in to temp control, turned on the carb... first keezer beer on the way!

Hooked up my temp controller to my freezer, soon to be keezer.

set up my temp controller to my carboy warmer for a brett ipa i have fermenting. krausen dropped after 2 days which was odd, this warmer couldnt have came at a better time. settn it at 70 and forgetting it for the next few months.

Woke up at 630am to find my 1gal starters I made at 10pm last night going nuts. Had to rig a blow off for the Alt yeast that blew off half the day.

First day of working the second job at the liquor store, which will be supporting my brewing budget. Also just ordered 2 lbs of hops, Simcoe and Centennial.

nukebrewer said:

First day of working the second job at the liquor store, which will be supporting my brewing budget. Also just ordered 2 lbs of hops, Simcoe and Centennial.

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Unless you spend it all on Ghandi Bot.

Packed & shipped some trades, got some WLP072 going on the stir plate, moved a beer to the fridge to cold crash, ramped the temp on my stout, cleaned some 750s, and cut some more firewood so my beer budget doesn't get use up heating the house this winter.

TNGabe said:

Unless you spend it all on Ghandi Bot.

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Though I am tempted, the supply of GB in my neck of the woods is spotty at best, so no worries there. Plus, I think I can put aside the lure of instant gratification for the equipment upgrades that will lead to better homebrew.

Did the first FG test on my 2nd batch of Maori IPA with fresher NZ hops,day 14. OG 1.074 down to 1.015. I'll check it again Saturday to see if that's it or not. I usually get great attenuation,so it's probabely done. Musta got some of the 2" of trub,cold break & yeast in the barrel tap on the ale pail. Def cloudy. That or I'll get a couple more points. Temp atm is 75F internal,corrected is 1,017. Next is 2nd FG for the Cougar Country IPA. Maori IPA down to 1.010 from 1.011 Monday. I think it's done,so I'll go ahead & dry hop it in a while.

Racked my Dark Chocolate Hazelnut Porter from secondary to a keg for conditioning. The SG sample was very tasty!

nukebrewer said:

First day of working the second job at the liquor store, which will be supporting my brewing budget. Also just ordered 2 lbs of hops, Simcoe and Centennial.

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For curiosity sake whats the employees discount?

Cleaned and sanitized my keg line, shank, faucet, and disconnect. Then attached it all, to my carbed keg of IPA.

ChefRex said:

For curiosity sake whats the employees discount?

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10%. Not much, but every little bit helps.

Brewed Le Petite Orange, than transferred Brown Ale and Oatmeal Stout into secondary.

Thawing out 4/.8oz flavor hop packets to dry hop my Cougar Country IPA this morning. This gunna be good...
Just dry hopped it @ 9:46AM with the remaining 3.2oz of flavor hops in a sanitized muslin grain bag. I save the muslin sacks from kits & the like for hopping. Also ordered 2lbs of PBW from midwest & a PM traditional stout kit to turn into my Whiskely ale. Gunna let that one sit in bottles till Christmas.

Cleaned another case + of bottles that had been soaking. Then I finally got that last of the empties soaking so I don't have a huge pile of dirty bottles everywhere. Now I have a huge pile of clean bottles!

Buying a small amount of supplies for another cream ale (3Crops). Also some miscellaneous supplies...

Same her mcb,the last few weeks. Also started buying cases of beer for the bigger boxes to replace about 2/3's of my Lienenkugel 12 pack boxes. Fewer boxes & a smaller stack to deal with. But I'm only one man!...

unionrdr said:

Fewer boxes & a smaller stack to deal with. But I'm only one man!...

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I used to be two men, but when I sobered up the double vision and confidence went away.

Oddly, I'm more productive than those two guys were.

I was wanting to brew today, but I felt like I was in a brewing funk. Decided to brew a blonde ale that I mashed with rhubarb, and will later rack onto cranberries and rhubarb for a pre-Thanksgiving dinner we go to every year. During the mash I went to the LHBS and picked up a couple of different yeasts and a 50-pound sack of German wheat malt. Figured that ought to help break up the brewing blues!

Local brewery (Apocalypse Ale Works) just partnered with another brewery a couple hours away (3 Brothers) to make "Bropocalypse," an authentic German Oktoberfest. Since it was an excellent beer, made sure to swing by the brewery/LHBS to congratulate the brewmaster. Good beer always deserves recognition.

I also decided to give some wart a new friend to play with - some apple cider. I made 2 gallons of wart, and combined it with 3 gallons of natural apple cider to make a Graff. I think they'll be very happy together

I was wondering what a graff was,mrp. As for myself,I checked the status of my latest order with Midwest & paypal. It was cheaper to buy 2lbs of PBW than That big 4lb jar by about 8 bucks. 2lbs is plenty for me on a budget. Now I can make up a full strength batch for the jug I'm cleaning out for my wifes kid burnt pots-n-pans. Dry hopped my Cougar Country IPA yesterday. Gotta wait till next Wednesday to see if my next batch of Maori IPA is done & ready to dry hop. Gunna be eventful beer activities next week.