What I did for beer today

Harvested a 1/2 oz. of fresh coriander seed.

On topic: Bottled 5 gallons of ginger beer for a friend's going-away-for-medical-school party later this week.

A bit off topic, but SO much more important: after two years, I finally completed the mental journey from:

"I'm a noobie and I think bottling is going to be fine for me for a long time"

to:

"If I have to fill one more bottle I am going to commit crimes against nature and humanity."

I'm currently researching kegging kits (thanks to you all I'm shamelessly leering at the Torpedo keg system from morebeer.com); telling myself that I have to wait until my bonus check comes in, and KNOWING that I'm not going to.

Dry hopped my Chinook IPA, drank beer... weeded garden for 2 hours, tied up tomato plants after pounding in 6 more stakes, then after supper I processed strawberries into 16 half pints of strawberry sauce.

Sujeto said:

Ahh Maui! Aloha nui loa! I love the Valley Isle and plan on making it there in February to get my dose of island life and see some whales. Tell Garrett us mainlanders say mahalo for all the great beer MBC produces.

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Maui no Ka Oi. Will do. Maui brew co has a new facility with a massive tasting room. Anyone who is fortunate enough to visit must check it out! And check out cow pig bun next door for awesome bourbon and burgers.

Getting everything back in place, including BS2, after HP tech fubared my new computer. Was up all night with it...no rest for the weary. Gotta get back newest recipes to add on to/finish the English gruit version of the Mumme I'm fermenting/finishing up.

unionrdr said:

Getting everything back in place, including BS2, after HP tech fubared my new computer. Was up all night with it...no rest for the weary. Gotta get back newest recipes to add on to/finish the English gruit version of the Mumme I'm fermenting/finishing up.

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Do you keep back-ups anywhere?
Separate disk or hard copies?

Got a starter going of American ale ii for an ipa in a couple days

CJ-3 said:

Do you keep back-ups anywhere?
Separate disk or hard copies?

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Yes, I made a backup to my external hard drive. But the newest recipes weren't there. Like my hybrid lager 2,3 & latest 4.2 I was getting ready to brew. And the Mumme, both English & German didn't show. Can't find any of them after searching computer & all drives? I'm beginning to think BS only saves a certain number of recipes with the program itself? Gotta buy more cloud space, both from them & Microsoft. Both get full quickly. Dammit. I always loose all my notes that way, Besides my BS cloud sign in...

skydiver30960 said:

I'm currently researching kegging kits (thanks to you all I'm shamelessly leering at the Torpedo keg system from morebeer.com); telling myself that I have to wait until my bonus check comes in, and KNOWING that I'm not going to.

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AIH Xmas in July sale, $199 for 4 used ball locks right now, free shipping. Goes through the 27th. They will be dirty and need a full rebuild (come with a set of o-rings each), budget $20 for full bags of o-rings from McMaster Carr in the next couple weeks.

While I was searching everywhere for my lost BS2 recipes, including the Mumme I'm just about done fermenting, I found Beersmith site had the gold membership (including increases cloud space & saving notes), for $9.99, on sale from $19.99! I can now save notes & up to 125 recipes on my BS cloud. I won't be loosing anything again! Not being able to save notes was frustrating when computer fubars somehow...

Oven roasted some Munich to make a Dunk'ale in time for Oktoberfest.

Before

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After.

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Hm...looks like you're going to get a nice brown color from those?

Ive malted barley many times, you have to be real careful not to introduce a burned flavor in your beer, its easy to do, I'm sure yours is fine especially since its already malted, good luck

he didnt malt it though. It was malted professionally. He justy toasted his munich for a brief period. Ive done this with a bunch of different malts without issue. I dont know if Id choose a darker base malt like munich, but it works

Made a couple of starters, trying out some yeast blends for the first time. American Farmhouse Blend (WLP670), and the other is a Roeselare Blend, given to me by a local brewery that makes awesome sours. Release the funk.

Made a yeast starter for the RIS brewday on Friday, ground the about half of the grains so far. Might wind up with a torn rotator cuff by the time I'm done.

Sold some Xbox One video games I wasn't playing anymore to take advantage of the AIH Christmas in July sale. Then I purchased a new 2.5 gallon ball lock corny for my small test batches!

Trying to close my racking system a bit. I found an extra pin lock "out" fitting and put it on the out of my siphon. I purged my sanitized keg with CO2 and then racked from my fermenter through the out post while keeping the PRV open. It was slow but it should cut down on oxygen quite a bit.

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Just mashed in biermuncher's Outer Limits ipa

unionrdr said:

Hm...looks like you're going to get a nice brown color from those?

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I wanted a SMASH recipe when I started putting it together. I'm only using Munich malt so I decided to roast 2lbs which will be added to 9lbs of unroasted. I hope the color will be about correct for a dunkel as a result.

I'll probably go with 2 hops, though - magnum for bittering and hallertau mittelfruh for aroma.

laid out all my parts and pieces to transfer my lager to the secondary, so all i have to do when i get home is sanitize, rack and clean.... More time is wasted looking for odds and ends and cleaning than is spent accomplishing what I wanted to do.

Gotta take a first FG on the Mumme. Also starting to make plans for a fermentation cabinet to fit the top of my fermenter stand. That ITC-1000F temp controller has been sitting forlorn since I won it...:rockin:

Took the wire racks out of the freezer side of my kegerator and built a shelf. It's much sturdier and roomier for the two kegs that end up in there.

racked my first lager into the secondary and raised the temp for the diacetyl rest.

I have sorted my gear into storage tubs, all the racking and bottling stuff is in 2 tubs in my kitchen. The brewing stuff in 2 more out in the garage in the brew stand storage. I have doubles of stuff that gets used both places to cut back on finding things.

sleepspeaking said:

laid out all my parts and pieces to transfer my lager to the secondary, so all i have to do when i get home is sanitize, rack and clean.... More time is wasted looking for odds and ends and cleaning than is spent accomplishing what I wanted to do.

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Planned this weekends brew session. Doing a 10 gallon batch of Innkeeper Ale(NB recipe I like a lot for an easy drinking beer). Going to see if I can boil over my 15 gallon kettle! Have plenty of space in the mash tun which is an M2 15 gallon kettle.

During today's brew day, after I added strike water to the MLT I noticed a small drip. I was able to tighten it up enough to continue mashing in but decided I need to get some more gasket/washer surface on the MLT inside bulkhead. I found some wider OD seals and washers so ordered them to rebuild the MLT.

I just spent the day adding removable tri-clover all stainless heating elements to my system, 4 hours I'm ready for a beer

you can remove the elements with one hand, clean them outside of the pot then clean the pot with no cord, been wanting to do this for a year

Added barnwood to the walls as I slowly build a brewery in my basement. The project started in January and I have brewer nothing since. Sigh. But the brewery is coming along nicely!View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1469931226.069328.jpg

Bottled 5 gallons of Chinook IPA (NB all grain kit), made the starters for the 10 gallon brew when I get up today...

Got my first taste of a brew that was:

1.) My second ever BIAB all grain;

2.) My first ever SMaSH;

3.) My first time making my own water;

and

4.) The first time I tried a hop tea addition at bottling.

I bottled half the batch with the hop tea, and half without (the whole batch got boil additions, a hopstand, and dry hopped). I've tasted them side by side and I can only say WOW what a difference the hop tea makes! It's gonna be part of the SOP from now on!

Skydiver, where is your home DZ?

Brewed 10 gallons of InnKeeper Ale(tweaked NB recipe with an extra 1/2 pound of crystal). Hit 84% efficiency!

Added the dry hop to my MO/Sorachi Ace SMaSH. Also brewed my very first lager, a Märzen!

Got my water re circulation system in place and pumping. Now no more wasted water. I also set it up up so my SWMBO can attach to it and use the H2O to water plants around the yard. I am also going to be redirecting that down spout this winter to collect the rain water for storage.

This hose cam-lock part was crucial ....

Cheers
Jay

Cleaned and sanitized a keg... Getting ready to transfer the Oktoberfest tomorrow

Straightened out a bunch of beer caps for trading. Only a couple hundred to go. Tasted FG sample from Mumme, yum.

Replaced the leaky sticking faucet on my secondhand kegerator, that cold-heartedly let the last 1/2 gallon of my precious Dead Guy soak into the now very stinky carpet. Also cleaned out the "new" keg and replaced o-rings. Racked my IIPA to the other keg for dry hopping, now just need to plan what to put in the "new" one!

Dreaded bottle washing... let them pile up to long!

I passed on the homebrew bug to a young dude in line at the store, and directed him to the AHA website. He wondered what I needed such a big pot for.
"Well son, I ain't cooking soup." His wife seemed nonplussed.

Also up till 3 washing bottles...