What I did for beer today

Bottled a pale ale. Used Kveik so the quick turnaround seems unnaturally. Underwhelmed with the flavor as it stands, but I'm banking on that improving as it conditions a bit.

CLEANED. The basement needed a good sweeping and vacuuming. Its a nice feeling when all the gear is cleaned up and waiting to dry to be put away.

Brewed a 5 gallon batch of wheat ale. It will be split into two batches and flavored with blueberry and apricot.

As prep for the upcoming school year, I bottled and gave to my co-teachers a case of Blonde Ale. Everyone's ready for Monday.

Did not do any brewing in July, but started harvesting hops mid-july. Normally I do a wet hopped ale when I have a bunch ready to harvest but did not do one this year. Some of those beers have had a slight watermelon flavor but I never knew which hops was doing it. It appears that watermelon flavor is coming from my columbus hops, as I picked it up while making plugs for freezing.

Brewed a batch of extract golden ale a couple days ago, fermenting it with Voss kveik. Today after 2.5days at 90F looks to be at final gravity or close as bubbles are greatly decreasing.

Dropped the dry hop (3.4oz, all I had left) in my Mosaic IPA done on Loki; taster was very good, Loki didn't throw as much pineapple in this one as it did in the Citra/Sabro it did last. Put my American Strong back on tap after letting it slow carb for a week, could still use some more carbonation but it's tasty. And finally put the Lemon Drop Blonde in the kegerator to chill; it only came down to 1.020 in the fermenter on S33, so since I needed that fermenter last week I went ahead and kegged it, in a keg that had Loki yeast dregs in it; left it in the warm garage all week, pulling the PRV a few times. Letting it chill until tomorrow then will give it a taste. It tasted fine on kegging, although sweet, and I'm hoping it dried out a bit. If it turned out well I might use lemon drop again in a WF lager I have planned for tomorrow, with some Citra for bittering.

Well, this weekend: kegged 5 gallons of Cran-Raspberry cider, 5 gallons of a Fuggle Amber Ale, started 5 gallons of Ginger Cider, and brewed 5 gallons of Chinook Amber Ale.

That, and I had to fix two beer lines in my kegerator. For some reason, neither wanted to work with my Fuggle Ale, but they are now.

Beer run!


really just wanted a couple sixers of local Oktoberfest. Wife doesn’t even drink and went rogue with convincing me to grab a few more things.

Out of town beer run in Huntsville

Turned the 24 hr burst carb down to serving pressure

Put the stout on carb lid at 30PSI, will turn down the gas tomorrow and see where it's at. Hoping tomorrow is a brew day, but it should at least be moving day for several fermentations. Maybe even a dessert wine-making day so that I can get it aged before Christmas.

Kicked my IPA and brewed an ESB. Am sad to see the IPA go, but looking forward to Tasting how the ESB turns out. First time using my new fermzilla all rounder.

Ended up brewing yesterday to avoid today' predicted 97 degrees. Did a version of no-chill; ran the hot wort into one of my old fermenting buckets (HDPE2, it's safe) and stuck it in the ferment fridge to cool off. Just got down to 68, so pitched the yeast. Hoping this method works as I'm getting the stinkeye from the husband lately about the water bills, and the neighbors have made some noises about how much I waste on a brewday. I do re-use as much as I can for cleaning but still a good portion goes down the street drain from the chiller hose.

Also tapped the Lemondrop blonde; getting a slight hint of phenolics from it, or it might be the hops, dunno since I've never used them. Not a dumper, but not entirely what I was going for; so this keg is relegated to the will-drink-when-everything-else-is-gone space.

Am working intermittently on wiring my Auber controller for my eBIAB setup. That's been going on all weekend. Also mounting my water setup (two outputs--through a filter, and a bypass) to my steel brew table.

Trying like mad to get this system going by end of September so I can do a ton of brewing through the fall and winter.

Brewing my second version of an IPA I call danky meteoroids ! Used hops from my comet plant along with centennial and cascade. Switched yeast from London ale III to imperial a34 julius and doing a big whirlpool addition this time because I finally installed a whirlpool arm! Dry hopping on day 3 and 7 with 3 oz each and 6 in whirlpool

seatazzz said:

Ended up brewing yesterday to avoid today' predicted 97 degrees. Did a version of no-chill; ran the hot wort into one of my old fermenting buckets (HDPE2, it's safe) and stuck it in the ferment fridge to cool off. Just got down to 68, so pitched the yeast. Hoping this method works as I'm getting the stinkeye from the husband lately about the water bills, and the neighbors have made some noises about how much I waste on a brewday. I do re-use as much as I can for cleaning but still a good portion goes down the street drain from the chiller hose.

Also tapped the Lemondrop blonde; getting a slight hint of phenolics from it, or it might be the hops, dunno since I've never used them. Not a dumper, but not entirely what I was going for; so this keg is relegated to the will-drink-when-everything-else-is-gone space.

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FWIW I run my cooling outflow into my rain barrels and save the water for later (like now when it's super-dry in Los Angeles).

JAReeves said:

As prep for the upcoming school year, I bottled and gave to my co-teachers a case of Blonde Ale. Everyone's ready for Monday.

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We are virtual till November. Start that stuff right after Labor Day.

Today I brewed a Pale Ale. Took a Sierra Nevada recipe as a start but added a touch of wheat and a touch of Munich.

Brewed my first sour...wort looks and smells funny when there are no hops ;-). Co-pitched Imperial Flagship (like 4th generation) with 2 Swanson's l. plantarum capsules. Will add 6lbs of blueberries once the initial fermentation slows. Going for a hop tea for some bittering and dry hopping with mosaic cryo. We'll see...

Today I watched an airlock bubble. Yesterday I brewed my first 10 gallon batch in the newly made keggle. Also did the first wort transfer from garage brewing to basement fermenting via hose. Im glad I didn't have to carry 11.5 gallons down the stairs!

Just bottled a tripel in the higher ABV range. Smells how it's supposed to. I got 36, 16oz'ers. I'm going to tweak the five gallons next time to get 40 bottles per session.

Pitched Weihenstephaner dregs I had spun up into the Dunkels Weissbier.

HB Irish Stout

Finished the port by adding sugar and everclear to the 15% red wine; moved it into a barrel that has been soaked with cognac.


Moved the "Anything Goes" sour into a keg for cooling and carbing.

Moved the barley wine into a keg for aging.

i dumped malted, kilned barley in a tub......ready to be jiggiled around and blown off......(i'm not sure if that's a pun or not)


and i should have a new beer in a week! ready to send off to kegs!

Remembered to bring the yeti mug home from work. I do love seeing my homebrew all pretty in the glass, but having it stay cold longer than 5 minutes in this gawdawful heat (ok my peeps in AZ and other places south, yes I know 97 ain't diddly, but it's HOT) is worth it. Also waiting for the husband to get home with supplies from Home Depot to set up one of the portable AC units in the bedroom so I can actually sleep tonight. The leaky one is out here in the garage running as a fan to keep me from melting into my chair. Embarrassed to admit I had to google how to load my staple gun because I forgot how...husband laughed at me and I threatened to shoot him with it. Ah, marriage.

Just finished bottling the neighbors small batch Mexican lager. Came out crystal clear and tasty...for a Corona clone. Picked up fixings for a last summer brew, Bavarian Hefeweizen. I've done all grain last 8 year's, this will be my 1st extract since 2012...need something quick for whatever football their might be!

What I did for beer today?
I don't think I could do much less: I brought three milk crates of Grolsch bottles (42 in total) up from the basement so they can stare and judge me until I tweak them prior to sanitizing. I've learned to spread a bottling day out which makes it almost effortless.
There's not much difference bottling a tripel after twenty-one or twenty-five days.

Moved my lemon saison from three weeks of natural keg carbing/warm conditioning to another week or two of cold conditioning. Just a little aging experiment based on a bit of the process that Brasserie Dupont uses. I'll monitor flavor throughout and make a decision on whether or not to stow this for several more weeks or not. My best saison ever was aged for 5 months.

Working out a recipe on brewers friend.

Cleaned 7 kegs and got a starter going for a Festbier.

Brewbuzzard said:

Cleaned 7 kegs and got a starter going for a Festbier.View attachment 694572View attachment 694573

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Wow 7 kegs! Dream world! I have (1) 5 gallon and (1) 3 gallon keg and my wife still wants to give me a Come to Jesus for having " all that beer" in the house! The grass is always greener!!

Finally made a starter with some ebbegarden flakes I got awhile back for a pineapple NEIPA. This stuff is serious, I've never seen a 2" krausen in a starter!! Looked like this in 30 mins. I overbuild and collect on starters, so this will go nice in my roatation!

seanjwalker1 said:

Wow 7 kegs! Dream world! I have (1) 5 gallon and (1) 3 gallon keg and my wife still wants to give me a Come to Jesus for having " all that beer" in the house! The grass is always greener!!

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I have 18 kegs and I gave two kegs to my great nephew so I didn't have to haul them back from Illinois.

Brewbuzzard said:

I have 18 kegs and I gave two kegs to my great nephew so I didn't have to haul them back from Illinois.

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I have eight 5 gal and one 3 gal lol.

Brewing some, right now. Pale Ale.

Been beer lazy this week, with a co-worker out for a family emergency and long hours covering their desk. Not brewing this weekend because we "technically" have enough (query: is there such a thing?), so will get one kegged and dry hop another today, and soak the 12g kettle that someone left dirty from last weekend's brew.

Mulched the garden, especially the hops. Just an observation, but it is interesting how differently the hop varieties grow and mature. I have one with full cones at the top and several with just burrs or almost burrs, and a few that are still pushing upwards. Been a weird summer.

JAReeves said:

Mulched the garden, especially the hops. Just an observation, but it is interesting how differently the hop varieties grow and mature. I have one with full cones at the top and several with just burrs or almost burrs, and a few that are still pushing upwards. Been a weird summer.

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Same here for me with the Hops because there was so much heat and then moisture and then heat again in Central Florida mine got black spot fungus in my first-round of comet was pretty much messed up.. triple perle is next to it and never produced cones or burrs yet but it still growing.

Brewed a red ale today.

I went to a Hogtown zoom education session that featured Stan Hieronymus. He said I should try making a basil beer so I'm going for it Today, I made a basil tincture so I can conduct controlled experiments. 50% purple basil / 50% sweet basil. The purple has a distinctive cinnamon aroma after the initial vegetal odor. The sweet is in the same vein but much less distinct. I skipped using any Thai basil as it has a combined aroma of licorice and diesel.

Bottled a gallon of apricot wheat ale. Coming in at 4.9%.