What I did for beer today

Took my starter (overbuilt to harvest some) off the stir plate to cold crash before tomorrow’s brew day!

Also made some long overdue modifications to the kegerator.

Made some more yeast slants from a wild culture I cultivated from wild apples. Also prepped for my first brewday of the season tomorrow, to use said wild yeast (still have a significant amount of the source culture, aside from the slants).

On the topic of yeast starters....here's what my very first ever yeast starter did to the amber I brewed today. Pitched about 1:30pm and going insane now. Temperature only 70.

Began serious planing for putting together a basic keezer. High time I made the jump.

Maintenance dsy. Cleaned and sanitized 3 cornys, filled up 2 with a blonde ale, then cleaned the conical. Ready to brew a 10 gal Irish Red next weekend.

Made a batch of saison. Drank some ESB, took my American brown ale out of the swamp cooler to spend a few days at room temperature. I also planned my next two brews.

Excited to follow how the finings work in a batch of ESB (never used any finings in fermented beer before). The batch was initially almost devoid of chill haze but the polyphenols from dry hops seemed to cause some haze. I have split this batch in two vessels with different amounts of dry hops and the one with more dry hops eventually formed more haze. I used a little bit of silica gel followed by some gelatin at 0.5°C. At 24 hrs I was a little bit worried but now at ~36hrs it seems to be progressing rapidly. I hope it turns out bright.

Cleaned 2 kegs and filled them with 11 gallons of my house ale. Then drank some of it flat... and warm... waited to long to fill kegs OOPS

seatazzz said:

I post way too much in this thread. Worked at the brewery today cleaning kegs and manning (womanning?) the taproom until the regular Friday bartender could show up. Relaxing with a pint of HB and overthinking my brewday tomorrow when I get home from kegging. Going to use the yeast starter I started yesterday, I've got backups in reserve if it doesn't take off. Should also mention I turned a hose with 180 degree water onto my foot (ouch) and burned off my left forearm hair lighting a burner.

Click to expand...

OUCH! I fried my arm hair lighting the pellet stove yesterday. Furnace broke, had to order parts and glad I have backup heat! Only 30 degrees in MN the last few days!

Worked out to justify my guilt free drinking ....

Trying to balance the intake of carbs with burning them.

The guilt typically fades about 4 oz into the 2nd beer.

Filled up twelve 12's last night with my IPA and Brown and gave them away at work today. Everyone was pleased and surprised (mainly because I've been promising to do so for weeks and just now got around to it). Hoping to get some positive reviews tomorrow. One of my co-workers lives nearby, has dabbled some in homebrewing, and I'm trying to convince him to come help me on my next brewday so he can see how easy all-grain is (he does partial mash). If he does I'll plan a 10 gallon batch so he can take some home to ferment. He's getting married soon and tomorrow I'm going to try to talk him into brewing up something special for the big day, depending on the venue.

Received my stout spout for my Intertap faucet today. Stout is 5 days into fermenting. Bought a bunch of grain to get ready for the Spring/Summer months.

Brewed two batches...a black IPA and a SNPA clone. A few months ago I wired up the 50 amp outlet for both my welder and my future electric brewery.

Someone convince me to do it.

Took a tiny sample of my APA for a refractometer test, according to Brewer's Friend calculator it's down to 1.017 and 6%. I know it's not completely accurate like a hydrometer test would be, but it's in the carboy and I didn't feel like messing with the siphon to get enough for the hydrometer. Itching to keg this one. Tasted it the other day, the too-warm fermentation with the yeast starter didn't do it any harm, tastes great.

I Bottled a 1 gal SMaSH ( Fruggel), I brewed a 1 Gal SMaSH ( Saaz), I also played with my new SB 10G Kettle. My next brew ( in 2 weeks) will be BIAB in my new kettle. Its Chrismas in March . Working on getting the Boil Off Rate figured out before I brew in it. Then of course getting things together for my brew day tomorrow, Doing Boston Ale Clone, as well as bottling a Boston Ale clone. If Time permits will be brewing a Chocolate Milk Stout.

Received my third sack of grain today, already burned through two sacks and I've only been brewing since late October. First sack was avangard pilsner, 2nd was dingemans pale ale, this third sack is bestmalz pilsner. I ordered it from ritebrew, their low prices and speedee shipping rates are hard to beat. I'm going to brew up a bunch of helles and bohemian pilsners with kölsch yeast to drink when summer arrives. I already have one batch of pilsner fermenting, right now it's at 66 for diacetyl rest for two days then ramping down to 40 to lager a while.

Ordered an Inkbird 308. Building that keezer one piece at a time.

Inoculated my starter wort with the Papazian strain Cry Havoc (wlp862) for my cream ale. This will be brewed Saturday as my family has to travel for the Easter holiday.

Took a hydrometer sample of the APA. Kinda meh on flavor but the yeast starter with washed yeast did its job well. Down to 1.019 and still a bit green, will let it sit another week before kegging. Can't wait to try it on a bigger beer.

Just bought 55# of Belgian pale malt.

Making beer! It’s been a few months and I actually tried to talk myself out of it today. Then I thought - I could sit outside drinking beer and smoking a cigar, or I could do the exact same thing and watch a nice rolling boil!

I racked the Cinco de Mayo Vienna Lager to a keg to begin lagering and to clear the fermenter for a Blonde Ale I brewed today.

Racked my English Cask-Style Pale Ale to a keg.

This one is dried out with little bit of inverted demerara sugar.


dem·e·ra·ra
ˌdeməˈrerə,ˌdeməˈrärə/Submit
noun
noun: demerara sugar

1.
partially refined light brown cane sugar coming originally from Guyana.

2.
a dark rum fermented from molasses, made in Guyana.

Participated in club brew day of 50 gal Märzen.

Just finished a 2 brew day. Did a 5 gallon batch of smoked apple lager this morning and then did a Honey Bee Kolsch for a buddy of mine, who wanted something different for his kid's graduation open house in May.

Busy day. Did two batches back to back, a DIPA a'la Pliny the Elder and a pseudo-cream ale off the second runnings. 1st batch is already happily bubbling away (and after less than 4 hours, wow!!) on a yeast I washed, and the second is sitting on 5lbs of raspberries, also with washed yeast. Bet that one takes off quick too. Damn I love brew days....everything all clean and put away, and dinner in the oven as well (tuna casserole). Good day.

Bagged up the 50 lb bag of crystal 60 malt into two pound bags, and did the same with the 50 lb bag of carapils I have.

Kegged up the amber I brewed last weekend, and washed the yeast. I'm kicking myself I didn't start doing this earlier, it is so easy and having clean yeast to start with is a bonus. Even got the carboy cleaned out and contemplating reorganizing the brew room (I don't brew in there but it's where all the miscellaneous brewing crap & fermenters live). Meanwhile...oh look, beer! How did that get here?

Brewed an extract kit that I had bought my parents for Christmas last year, but I converted it to an AG recipe (I just needed to buy 10lbs of 2-row). I made the switch to AG from extract at the beginning of March this year...second AG brew thus far.

cleaned two kegs, kegged ten gallons of american brown ale, cleaned two carboys

Yesterday I cleaned 2 kegs and the keg lines in my kegerator, and closely monitored my first wild ale. Going well so far

Popped off my perlick faucet and popped on my nitro faucet for my English pale ale hopped with East Kent Goldings at 60, 15 and 5. I was kinda wowed on EKG hop flavor. Made me think of citrus....

I haven't used it in years... I always seemed to dislike English hops. Definitely not this variety now....

From YCH:

AROMA PROFILE: CITRUS, SPICY


Developed from wild Canterbury Whitebine in the late 1700s, East Kent Godling is the quintessential English variety. It has been used in kettle and dry hopping and is known for is subtle citrus, floral and herbal characteristics.



Aroma: Specific aroma descriptors include smooth and delicate with floral, lavender, spice, honey, earth, lemon, orange, grapefruit and thyme overtones.

Ordered my ingredients for a Patersbier.

Payed for my water report. Which I also received today. Found out my water is great for stouts straight from the faucet.

On a suggestion from Yooper went ahead and dropped the first dry hop in my Pliny clone. Taking the lid off and smelling it was heaven.

This might be more appropriate for the "uh oh" or the "don't do that" threads but I am ready to bottle my American brown ale after sanitizing bottles, caps and bucket, but can't locate either of my bottling wands... Gotta get my brother's.

Uh oh! Don't do that.

attended to my Strata-Enigma American Barleywine. Stalled at 1.032 (shooting for 1.022 so I added some CBC-1 and dryhopped with more Engima. Should be racking to secondary by Tuesday or so into bulkaging.

Tapped the APA that was the first I did with a washed-yeast starter. Quite happy with it, flavor is good and the hops aren't overpowering. First time I've used Warrior, really liking it.

I'm smoking my next batch of grain with oak. It's half winter red wheat and pilsner.

Gonna use it to make a smokey light Polish Beer. Called Grodziskie or Gratzer. Hopped with saaz to hit 40 IBU.

It's a dead style but figured I'd give it a whirl.

The smokey oak smells awesome.

Went to the LHBS, grabbed a 50# bag of 2 row, 50# of German Pilsen, 5# Flaked Corn and 5# of Caramel 40L. Then came home and brewed a 5 gallon batch of Biermuncher's Cream of Three Crops ale.