What I did for beer today

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Ordered a Chugger pump along with hoses and Camlocks, ect from BobbyM to start moving in the direction of a HERMS.
 
BGBC said:
It's probably 30 gal (we guessed 25 and undershot). It is plenty old, no idea exactly how old. It was one of my grandfather's old wine barrels. It's been empty for a while (10+ years), so we're rolling the dice here, but it's got sentimental value ;) .

Swelled it with water and gave it a thorough rinse. Then hit it with citric/kmeta holding solution for several weeks. We pulled two barrels out of his basement and gave both the same treatment. This one smelled clean and held tight. The other one smelled pretty funky and kept pissing water, even with wax.

Dumped the solution and rinsed with plenty of hot water. Poured a couple handles of whiskey in for a few days before filling to keep it wet, then dumped that before filling.

I want to eventually turn it into a sour solera, but my buddy wanted to see what it would do with a clean beer. I guess we'll see if there are any resident bugs in there already (I'm giving it a better than 50% chance of that).
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Amazing project. You should totally start a thread on this. I want to keep in touch with how things develop, and I have more questions - like - what kind of recipe did you fill it with initially?
 
A welder at the place I work is crafting me a 304 stainless stir rod that I can use to whirlpool with using a drill... Has a solid 1/4" rod and the paddles at the end will be staggered and curved to maximize the whirlpooling. Should be great when I heavily hop at flame out. As I thank you I am giving him some homebrew!

Later today I have to go shopping for a storage tote to store my grains that are being delivered today... Got my monster mill mm3 coming and a 50lb bag of rahr 2-row.
 
philipmeese said:
Amazing project. You should totally start a thread on this. I want to keep in touch with how things develop, and I have more questions - like - what kind of recipe did you fill it with initially?
Click to expand...

I might start one when I have some time, will let you know. I have some more good pics of the process so far.

We used a stout recipe that came from Southern Tier apparently, taken from an issue of Craft Beer & Brewing magazine. I think the average ABV of all the samples is somewhere around 7%. They all tasted good going into the barrel. Interesting to taste them side by side as some were a little thinner, or a little roastier, some thicker, etc. Hopefully they all blend together nicely with time.
 
Called the coca cola bottling plant up the street from my house in hopes of getting some old corny kegs. The receptionist took my name and number and said she would find out for me and call me back tomorrow. Wish me luck fellas.
 
Cleaned two kegs that kicked & the lines & taps for them in my kegerator.
Picked up the ingredients for an AG batch of my Grapefruit Hop Wheat IPA.
 
Finally got around to cleaning and organizing where i store all of my brewing gear.
 
Trail said:
If it gets cold outside in the winter where you live, I strongly suggest elements!
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I really would like to go electric. My biggest problem is power, there is only 1 plug in the garage... I live in AZ so the cold doesn't get below 32F-ish too often in the winter. The summer is brutal.

Do you have a link to somewhere I can learn about electric brewing some more?
 
Just took a quick trip to the LHBS for Regal Pale Ale ingredients. They were out of Nelson Sauvin so I grabbed some Citra.
 
Picked up grains, hops, yeast, and minerals as well as made a starter for tomorrow's saison. Bought hoses for my new mash tun too. Ready to teach my buddy how to brew in the morning
 
My ingredients for two beers that was supposed to be delivered yesterday got messed up. The driver went the wrong way around our cul de sac & thus couldn't see the house numbers on the mailboxes. And they also told me on the phone that they were also making today's deliveries yesterday to get a 3 day weekend. Sop today's folks got theirs a day early, & I got nothing & mine was supposed to be delivered yesterday. No brewing for me...:(
 
unionrdr said:
My ingredients for two beers that was supposed to be delivered yesterday got messed up. The driver went the wrong way around our cul de sac & thus couldn't see the house numbers on the mailboxes. And they also told me on the phone that they were also making today's deliveries yesterday to get a 3 day weekend. Sop today's folks got theirs a day early, & I got nothing & mine was supposed to be delivered yesterday. No brewing for me...:(
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Hopefully you didn't have any liquid yeast in that order!
If so, I'd refuse the pkg & have it re shipped
 
It was dry, but the yeast & hops still won't be having a good time in all this Upper-80's heat around here. Inside a vehicle can easily get over 100F. Over & above having a 3 day weekend for Labor day & no brewing...:(
 
Got a starter spinning for 10g of BCS American Amber. 3rd time I'm brewing this. It's such a favorite in the house I just can't keep it on tap very long. And it's a crowd pleaser to it's the first one I pop into give-away bottles.
 
bought 9 pounds of grain to add the the 6.5 pounds i had to have for my imperial red ale i am brewing on labor day. created a starter of US05. waiting patiently...
 
Cleaned, cleaned, cleaned... then racked a (M)Oktoberfest to a keg... then cleaned the now empty fermenter. IOW: Lots of cleaning today.
 
Racked my Bock into the secondary and cleaned up. Was going to build my stir plate, but the parts didn't come in yesterday.
 
Dry hops to one sculpin clone, and dry hops along with grapefruit juice and zest to the other sculpin clone.
 
Kegged a Maris Otter/ Citra SMaSH. Due to work obligations I ended up dry-hopping it for 6 days instead of 3 like I normally do with my SMaSHes (This is my 4th with essentially the same recipe, only with different hops). I'm looking forward to seeing how this turns out.

I also picked up a quarter barrel keg of Yuengling for my "when I don't want to waste my precious homebrew" tap. It's nice to have beer under all 5 faucets again. This is the first time in a couple months.
 
Kegged 5G and bottled 5G/two cases of a very special APA tonight. Bottles should carb up in ten days or so and be ready to drink right on time for my college reunion.

20150905_224757_Flicker Ln.jpg
 
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Today, I learned a valuable lesson. After, cleaning up ~2 gallons of beer, off my garage floor. Always check, and tighten down, QD's swivel nuts.

:smack:
 
(yesterday) Put the 9/16" fittings on my 3 gallon pinlocks instead of the 19/32" that AIH assured me were the correct ones. Wishing I had returned all 6 pairs of fitting. These seem to be the better choice. Going to teflon tape my other ones and hope they seal a little better - the 9/16" are perfect.
 
Tapped the Maris Otter/ Citra SMaSH I kegged yesterday. Drinking my first pint now. It's not fully carbed (close, though, after sitting at 35 PSI for 28 hours), but it's delicious. Lots of citrus and very bright. I'm disappointed at how cloudy it is because I thought I did everything right in that department (Whirlflock, cold crash, Biofine Clear). I'm hoping it'll clear up in a few days.

This beer is VERY young, after all...14 days grain to glass.
 
Yesterday evening had to rig up a blowoff tube for my saison. The most violent fermentation I have ever had... Things have calmed down. I will take the blowoff tube off later today.
 
Brewed a Dubbel, got ingredients for next weekend's ESB, and I'm pressure canning some starter wort.
 
Boiling away on a IPA- Pilsner, wheat,Vienna and oats. I used 2 oz of fresh homegrown nuggets in the mash and I am going to use homegrown nuggets to bitter at 60 then a mix of homegrown cascade, Columbus and centennial at 10, 5 mins and a huge whirlpool addition of homegrown nuggets cascades Columbus and centennial. This years hop harvest was great and the aroma from all these guys is outstanding
 
Bottled my barrel aged barleywine. It had been in 3.5 gallon bourbon barrel for 7.5 months, and then kegged for 3 weeks to carbonate. Got 6 bombers and 20 12oz bottles. It is great now, and should age very well. Also kegged a Vienna / Tettnanger SMaSH. Pseudo Octoberfest.
 
Cleaned bottles I may never need, now that my kegs have arrived. and Recleaned my primary bucket cause it still smells like the bock I just made.
 
Well, I bottled a hard cider that I'm afraid is going to be way too sweet. My wife likes sweet cider with a heavy apple flavor, so I made a 4 gallon batch using a 5 gallon recipe, and I've primed it with one gallon of apple juice. I'll be pasteurizing this batch once my plastic test bottles show that the batch is primed. Given the large amount of sugar I added via the apple juice, that could happen very quickly.
 
Poured a nice cool glass of draft brown and then watched it slowly get warm from across the room while I bottle fed our 2-week old.
 

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