What I did for beer today

Put together a recipe for a Belgian blond and been working on cleaning the kitch, err brew house . I’ve just acquired a gently used Grainfather (older model) so I need to make some space, but until I use it a few times I’m not likely to part with my kettles.

It is time to clean our Maibaum (May Pole or translated, May Tree) for the May Day and Maibock celebration.
Different towns may have different themes. Here are a few pics of May Poles. Ours will be up on May 1st as tradition calls for.

Brewed my English Brown Ale today on the back lanai. Hit all my numbers and it was smooth sailing all day! Also tapped my Weizenbock and I am a happy man!

John

As noted a couple days ago, a coworker has vacated the cider hobby and dropped off all of his gear…. OMG! 8 carboys, 2 cornies, 10# CO2 tank w regulator, chemicals, 8 boxes of bottles, beer gun, Apple grinder & press, capper/caps, hanging scale and new 15g charred oak barrel. Need to find cheap source of apples by the fall, definitely available for club use! Also more stuff for club picnic sale!

Sniffed the airlock of Murphy’s DIPA, and despite all of the errors, it’s smelling amazing!

Haven't been able to brew anything since late February and I'm jonesing hard. Gonna see how my post-surgery leg holds up while doing a batch of all-Citra neipa tomorrow. Got everything staged and ready to go for when I get 'round to it in the morning...

Cheers!

Went to clean the kitchen up around 11pm , after being out, drinking beer all day so tomorrow morning I could make a quick breakfast and start my next batch.

The kitchen sink has been draining a little slow, but decided to back up completely tonight, midway through the dishes.

Good thing I have some years of experience in plumbing because OMG, what a cluster****ation. Spent a good hour or so snaking the old ass pipes and then doing an initial cleaning of the aftermath. A sad state of affairs to be sure.
The little lady is not going to be super happy tomorrow morning when she sees all of the stuff from under the sink stridden about the kitchen and dining area.
Hopefully I can convince her that I saved us a bunch of money by not having to call a plumber.
Wish me luck.

Sketched out a "Treehouse Style IPA" recipe to try soon. Mostly designed to use up some Cryo Citra and 2020 harvest Strata I've got kicking around, but also gives me a chance to try out some 2023 harvest Luminosa which Malt Miller has just started stocking.

I'm very interested to see how it comes out as it's extremely different to my usual approach, with a very small whirlpool and truly colossal dry hop.

2.5 gallon iPA, BIAB, 2 row, Pilsen, Vienna, Citra and mosaic. Missed a few numbers by a little, but hit my boil off volume. OG @ 1.056 without correction. I am learning not to fret the production details and focus on the end result. Does it meet the style and does it taste good. I am hoping for something sessionable to scale up to 5 gallon and mostly repeatable.

Got my mashing on! A little late but it'll do...



Hit the preboil volume/gravity/pH on their noses, on to the 170°F whirlpooling!



[edit2] Got it done - finally - and hit all the numbers to the fermentors. Leg definitely slowed me as I'm not allowed to kneel, and dragging the spent mash out to the neighbors chickens took twice as long as normal, but it held up ok - it's sore but that's about it. Good enough that I'm going to try to do another batch of my Ballantine IPA on Tuesday.

Chilling to fermenting temperature...



Filling the carboys...



Yeast pitched and aeration in progress...



All gassed up and ready to go in Chamber 1.



Cheers!

Tony B said:

Went to clean the kitchen up around 11pm , after being out, drinking beer all day so tomorrow morning I could make a quick breakfast and start my next batch.

The kitchen sink has been draining a little slow, but decided to back up completely tonight, midway through the dishes.

Good thing I have some years of experience in plumbing because OMG, what a cluster****ation. Spent a good hour or so snaking the old ass pipes and then doing an initial cleaning of the aftermath. A sad state of affairs to be sure.
The little lady is not going to be super happy tomorrow morning when she sees all of the stuff from under the sink stridden about the kitchen and dining area.
Hopefully I can convince her that I saved us a bunch of money by not having to call a plumber.
Wish me luck.

Click to expand...

I have found that having a solid quote from an outside service does wonders for the family’s gratitude. “A new one would have cost $1000!!!! Thank you for fixing that that.”

Picked up a few ingredients for this weekend's stovetop BIAB brew day: my annual summer pilsner. A bit different this year: going with 100% Weyermann Barke Pilsner malt (no specialty malts this year); also using Crystal as my aroma hop instead of my usual Mittelfruh.

Cheers.

I have added a few "new" bottles to the horde. I normally avoid green glass as it's more translucent, but an additional type of glass is very welcome at the moment so that I can keep all the planned small batches apart. Lean management in the home brewery...
Necessity has forced me to temporarily switch to non-alcoholic beer - I have to take AB for the next few weeks due to a borrelia infection from a f****g tick. And as I'm not equipped for 0% beer, I just buy it in and clean the bottles: our hot water tank is currently already at 75°C+ thanks to the solar panels. So it's enough to rinse the bottles well and then let them soak in hot water for a while. The labels fall off by themselves, just brush off the glue and put them in the "dryer".


I also bottled my comparative batch of Münchner Hell v2 (kettle mash with an infusion) and harvested the yeast from it. The first differences are already noticeable: the apparent final fermentation of v2 (right) stopped at 3.7°P, while v1 (left, two-mash) went down to 2.8°P. The "archive samples" also show a slightly different colour (even more on the pic) - of course the yeast still has to settle in v2... I'm looking forward to the tasting in a few weeks!

Today I brewed 15 litres of Oatmeal Stout
2800g Maris Otter
300g Porridge Oats
150g Chocolate malt
130g Roasted Barley
25g Challenger @45 minutes
25g EKG @15 minutes
Nottingham style yeast.
OG 1052 expecting 5.4% ABV

Brewed an Irish Red yesterday and have a Flamingos and Fronds IPA, a Morebeer Mai Tai Clone on tap for today. I’m rehydrating the 15g oak barrel dropped off over the weekend. I don’t understand folks, he bought this barrel and just let it dry out, nuts! Plus it’s a weird size, anyone want to trade that has a 5g?

It seems I am pathologically unable to get a batch going before 10 Struck at 10:30 in spite of prepping everything late last night.





Fortunately everything has been going smoothly so far. After only 20 minutes the mash has already gone pretty bright...



Onwards!

[edit] Fly sparge...lazy river of wort...



So far haven't screwed myself...yet

[edit2] Managed to get done without breaking anything - including myself

Hop Stopper did its job well today!



Pitched, aired up, and stuffed in Chamber 2, next to Sunday's Citra bomb...



While hauling the spent mash out to the compost pile I noticed a couple of birds fly out from under our upper level deck. Checked it out on the way back and found a phoebe nest with four eggs...



...as well as a finch constructing a nest inside a plenum for a pair of our mini-split ACs units. Investigated that and found this wasn't the first year, either - the plenum was full of seed husks and nesting materials and chopped up foam insulation that was incorporated in what was probably last year's nest. Li'l bastids, I tore all that crap out and covered the ends of the plenum with 1/4" wire mesh.



That'll be the end of that - though the finch pair are now trying to figure out how to get past the wire. Good luck, bird brains!

Cheers!

I managed to install our May Pole for tomorrows Maibock celebration. Beer is the theme every year.
Ours doesn't compare to the once you see in Germany.

Pulled a gravity sample of the Altbier I brewed a couple of weeks ago. Looks like it’s ready for the keg. It’s a bit pale for an Alt. I scaled the recipe for a smaller batch and the difference between too much chocolate and too little isn’t very much.

grampamark said:

Pulled a gravity sample of the Altbier I brewed a couple of weeks ago. Looks like it’s ready for the keg. It’s a bit pale for an Alt. I scaled the recipe for a smaller batch and the difference between too much chocolate and too little isn’t very much.
View attachment 847650

Click to expand...

"It’s a bit pale for an Alt." You will find a very pale Altbier in Düsseldorf.
I brew the dark copper looking version .

Added dry hops to my brut rye IPA tonight. Decided to take a gravity sample which I rarely do. Man does it taste fantastic already.

I bought a used 6 tap kegerator to replace my 3 units that make up my back bar. It is all going through a major change to make it more user friendly. This kegerator came with 6 taps, regulator and new beer and CO2 lines. Gonna pressure wash it inside and out then paint the exterior before I put it into service.

I survived the start of the Maibock season .

Made a starter with wlp002. Some to save and some for a double ipa this weekend.

Stopped at the LHBS to pick up a replacement SCOBY, some S-05 and some LDME.

I picked the first six tap handles for my new to me beer kegerator. The tap will represent the style on tap. I try to keep a variety on hand. This new kegerator is gonna be a big help. It's gonna replace 3 other refrigerators and a single kegerator.

Yeah yeah I know there is 2 Red Hook Handles, we have a special relationship. Plus both those beers are remarkable examples of there respective style.