What I did for beer today

Bottled 4.5 gallons of Janet's brown ale also washed and harvested the cal ale yeast. Painted trim pieces for collar on my keezer build... prepped for the first brew of the year tomorrow

Did some long over due cleaning and mixed up a batch of free Mr Beer.

Did my first back to back brews today. 15g of Haus IIPA and 10g of Haus PA. The holidays drained the lineup.

Cleaned 2 kegs then filled them!

Bottled the first (EKG) version of Smashed Otter, got 44x0,33L bottles plus two with high air content due to a siphon malfunction but capped em anyway. Lucky no sour taste this time, to be precise not a whole lot of taste what so ever but learned to not judge the brew until it`s in the pint. Got enough bottles lined up for sth like five brews and planning to fill each and every one as soon as I can. Absolutely loathe the tedium of pot & pan scrubbing, bottle cleaning, bottling and capping but A) cannot afford or don`t have the space for a kegerator B) I donate quite a lot of the bottles away to friends and neighbors so that`s practically the only way to do it.

went in to work a little late so i could kick off a vienna lager starter

Few slight modifications to my new Corona mill. Hopper extension (press fit, can be removed with moderate force) and a table side mount from a scrap piece of angle stock (need to replace the screw with a longer, proper bolt later) The catcher box is just a temporary jerry rig, the final one will be sawn through the table so it ejects into a bucket directly under the mill but that's somewhere in the distant future as there are a lot of other more important projects to do before that.

Planning to do my first grind tomorrow so I can brew @ friday.

started cold crashing my german pilsner, added gelatin

Yes a bit early, but took a sample of the Arrogant Bastard clone I brewed last Saturday. From SG of 1.080 down to 1.022. Grain bill was 13.5lbs 2 row, 1.5lbs special B, and 1lb dextrose at 30 minutes to end of boil, using Columbus hops (nice sub for Chinook, and I have a LOT of it). Flavor is incredible, clear, smooth, nothing off. I really don't want to get fusels with this one so planning on kegging tomorrow (yeah 6 days so what?). I know it might benefit from a few more days but it tastes perfect as is. I say, if it's done, it's done. Flavor is a bit drier than the real thing (thank you pound of dextrose) but it's where I want it. I don't want it much drier and need to have this on tap by Wednesday. Fastest brew day at 4 hours, and fastest grain to glass. ABV at 7.75%. Been biting my nails over this one all week and now I'm celebrating. Woohoo!!!

Gonna sell my compressor tomorrow since I never use it so gonna get a little cash and some extra storage space, couldn't let that go to waste could I

Cleaned some kegs and I kegged two five gallon kegs of my London Porter. In one keg I experimented and used some chocolate coconut extract, so one keg will be the porter and the other will be a chocolate coconut porter, to see how it turns out. Also went to Air Gas and got a 5 pound refill canister of C02. Lastly, trying to stay warm today, pretty cold here in Florida!

John

Cold crashing the second half of my most recent IPA.

Cold crashing my Helles and raising the temp on my Amber ale...gonna hit the Helles with gelatin tomorrow and keg on Sunday!

Brewed a Belgian Dark Strong, and kegged a Gratzer. @davevjordan I sealed my kettle lid on with Saran Wrap and put it outside to chill down the wort.

Broke in my new Grainfather and brewed a Dopplebock. Target was 1.088 and I came in at 1.083. Then, I washed and cleaned everything!

Also, listened to two episodes of Experimental Brewing.

Filtered 18 gallons of water to brew Sunday, washed some stuff so it is ready...

Cleaned and sanitized equipment and kegged a Brown Porter based on Samuel Smith’s Taddy Porter via Brewing Classic Styles. The Nottingham really liked that wort = the ‘ring around the collar’ was about 1.5 inches thick and was even on the lid of the SS Brewbucket.

brewed up a vienna lager. kegged a german pilsner on saturday.

Brewed an extract clone of Moose Drool. Dry fit the collar and measured out four tap shanks on the stainless drip tray for my keezer build.

Washed and bottled enough 3522 Ardennes yeast for three more batches of Belgian tripel.

Switched the garden hose connections on my immersion chiller to camlocks to allow for easier usage. I can shut off from the location of the chiller without running over to the hose tap and back. Also I just hate garden hose and the connectors. Still no tubing but some nice easy to use 1/2" silicone is on the way to finish up the project.




Also I put together the start of my inline oxygenation system. Still need a few parts but its taking shape.

Made a starter last night of OYL-052, which I will over build and save the extra for future brews. I plan on blending this yeast with WY1318 and using the blend later this week for a NE IPA.

Made the stencils for level indicator markings on the inside of the new kettles, and did a test logo etching on the inside if my brew kettle lid. Worked great. Goodbye sight glass!

Visited the LHBS. Picked up the ingredients for an ESB (haven't brewed an English ale for a while) and a Bohemian Pils SMaSH.

Mark

Got my WY1318 starter going for my brew day on Monday.

Bottled 22L of Finlandia dark ale, sampled one Smashed Otter. Still conditioning as head retention is minimal and it tastes sweet. Kinda guessed that though, mainly wanted to make sure the lactobacillus sour infection has not taken this batch too.

Moved a full keg into the fridge to replace one that kicked a week ago. Otherwise recovering from brewing yesterday!

Oh I forgot to mention I also made another cigar box stir plate so I could have two starters going at once.

Here they are going strong. Hopefully the one on the right will be ready to cold crash tonight so I can get the second step going tomorrow.

Got a saison yeast starter going
Swapped out for a new bottle of CO2
Kegged a saison and cleaned the carboy!

Yesterday I pulled the trigger on two more 7G fermonsters but they won't arrive till wednesday. In the meantime I'll get everything ready to brew next Saturday.

Today I harvested yeast from a bottle of a saison I brewed back in October; a blend of 3724 and 3711 that I would like to use for a couple future batches of the same recipe.

Bottled five gallons of APA. Another 1 gallon of grape pyment made with juice from these giant purple grapes that grow on the vine that came without house, and taste terrible till they get frosted once or twice, but then taste so goo you want to make pyment with them. Then brewed 5 gallons of BM Centennial Blond (Or rather I am doing that as we speak, got about 20 min before the next hop drop.) Got a ? about the APA but that is for another section!

Drove to DC to pick up a very nice Keggle to upgrade my boil kettle with.

I had time because FedEx hasn't delivered the box with my yeast and bugs in it for 12 days. It's been sitting in a local FedEx location since the 2nd.

Yes, MoreBeer is sending me more yeast because even with ice packs, the viability is in question now.

They rule. FedEx isn't ruling this week though. I really wanted to put my Glutton Free Lambic into Secondary (hence why I'm waiting on the bugs)

fermentation slowing down, swapped out the blow offs for s-locks and cleaned the blow-off components (carboy cap, tubes, overflow vessel, etc.)

I just sat down on my deck, fired up a good cigar and the heater, and turned on the Vikes game. What does this have to do with “what I did for beer today” you ask?

Well, I am going to do my best to empty a keg!

Racked a Cider into secondary, Added some Dry hops to one of my kegged Pale Ale's and now drinking some.

Racked my Cyser to secondary, taste tested it(oof that stuff has some alcohol!) and put it back into the pantry for another month or two...

Bottled 3 gallons XMas ale.

Brewed a Bohemian Pils and kegged a wheat pale ale I brewed about 3 weeks ago.

Added a couple of ounces of Cascade to a batch of APA. Smells divine.

Kegged my American Stout. My siphoning stopped fairly abruptly, felt like the end of the cane was stuck on a hop bag, took a few goes to get it going smoothly.
On opening the bucket I found a large iceberg. I cold crashed it along with the pale ale I kegged a few days ago.

Eis Stout is born.