What I did for beer today

I placed a few mason jars with a low gravity wort in them outside to hopefully harvest some of the wild yeast in my backyard.

I also got my brew day planned for this weekend and am trying to decide if I want to brew an updated version of my oatmeal stout or if I want to brew the first iteration of my house pale ale.

Started the process of dropping my beer down to lagering temps .

Cleaning up around the brewery. Might check the Hellfire IIPA again today to see how it's doing on the FG.

I picked up a few tings from Craigslist today. I still needed a CO2 tank, and Wanted another Keg, but couldn't pass up all of this for $300.
Pin Lock Kegs X2
5lb CO2 Tank, Almost Full
7.3 Gal Stout Conical
Capper & Caps
Triclamp Ball Valve X2
Gas pinlock Disconnect X2
Liquid pinlock Disconnect X2

Got some very fresh Bell's Best Brown Ale so I can harvest the yeast. Yes, I was that guy in the store holding the phone light up to the bottles so I could see how thickness of the yeast layer at the bottom of the bottle. And i sampled a couple while setting up the brew gear. They'll work.

Kegged up 10 gal of modified yoopers oatmeal stout. Tasted great right out of the cold crash without any aging at all. This is going to be a great batch.

JonM said:

Got some very fresh Bell's Best Brown Ale so I can harvest the yeast. Yes, I was that guy in the store holding the phone light up to the bottles so I could see how thickness of the yeast layer at the bottom of the bottle. And i sampled a couple while setting up the brew gear. They'll work.

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You have to love the looks you get while doing this. Makes the experience so much better.

Added cocoa nibs to a chocolate milk stout

I'm thinkin' of makin one into a mole' stout.^

Stepped up my starter for tomorrow's brew... Oh, yeah! I also added a tincture of rum and jalapeños to my cream ale, which I'll bottle next weekend.

Bought the grains, hops and yeast for the SWMBO Slayer I'm brewing tomorrow.

Loaded Beersmith 2.2 and went down the rabbit hole!

Last night I took a gravity reading from my Nuggie ESB, dumbed trub and yeast, as well as made a yeast starter for my Belgian Golden ( Rosemary Blonde) that I'm brewing on Monday.

Pitched my lager. Didn't think doing it at 20C (72ish) last night would be such a great idea. Thermal shock yeast + way too hot.

Stared at my primary full of an APA that I pitched Wyeast 1272 into last night. These slow starting yeasts make me sweat.

BigMack said:

Stared at my primary full of an APA that I pitched Wyeast 1272 into last night. These slow starting yeasts make me sweat.

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Stared at my cream ale as I poured in the rum and pepper tincture a week before bottling. Not sure what I saw but the white and frothy layer on top has me worried of a 3rd straight infection! Got me thinking I may need to retire this bucket... Shiznit.

Nice job by your team, BigMack!

Soaking & cleaning some airlocks & spigots. Got a bunch of bottles to do too. Since next Friday is payday, gotta get ingredients for two more beers ordered!

Brewed a White IPA and a German Altbier with my homemade single tier -3 burner brewing stand. Both will be on tap for Thanksgiving.

Pulled off the first gallon of my peach sour and racked onto 1/2 oz of Mosaic, then bottled the rest plain. Dry hopped split to be bottled next weekend.

Pitched my yeast at 7am! Also took gravity reading on my Munich/Tahoma sMasH.

Racked my Grapefruit Wheat IPA to secondary & dry hopped w/ 2 oz of Mosaic.
Cleaned primaries & racking equipment.

Finally got around to cutting the top off my keg to make a HLT! Look out world...I'm moving up to two vessels! Not bad for freehand.

I installed a ball valve in an old cooler. Hello HLT!!!

Brewed for the first time in quite awhile. Used a bunch of my new equipment, too!

Tested my DIY immersion chiller and Brewferm kettle.
Went from 95c (203f) to 22c (71f) in 7 minutes.

gelled a BCS American Pale Ale. Cold crash for a few more days then bottle half and keg half.

planned for a 10G Pliny clone brew day this weekend. Good Jesus that's a lot of hops. It was a tremendous beer last year - should be great again for a December hop bomb.

Gave a 6 pack of assorted HB to a family friend in the hopes of converting him. Only time will tell.

Rescued this poor little fella from the scrap yard, it appears someone went all drunk redneck on it. Gonna make an awesome bottom drain MLT.

Took a gravity and picked up brewing elements series water.

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Finally wrote a recipe for the nearly-extinct German Mumme as done by a British fella in January 2010 in the post I started last April.

I bought a 4 gallon water container with a spigot to experiment with ghetto casking. It should work, in theory.

Bottles up 2 gallons of a sour experiment

Fired up my first of two starters for this weekend's brew session. I like the new White Labs containers much better than the test tube types.

Kegged an all comet IPA tonight and it's delicious for first year hops
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I cleaned up 3 kegs and organized some of my equipment last night. Gotta keg a batch and clean some more tonight.

I did a trial boil run with my new all grain equipment and then ran and got my water and ice for the brew weekend. And now I'm waiting for this wort to boil so I can work up my very first starter, and then i will be christening my Diy stir plate. All in prep for my first all grain attempt with the first recipe I've ever created myself. whew... so many firsts in one night... bowl a cherries and whatnot .... :rocking: :beer:

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Ps: in the what I did for me category.... I switched to this pot cause no one likes wort volcanos....

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I took an extended lunch to go pick up a load of 2-row for a SMASH. Also grabbed one of those new White Labs PurePitch WLP001s.... Yeah, still making a starter...

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Ouch