OR/WA Brew Day v2.0??

Honestly, now that it's just down to you and Evil coming I didn't have a plan. I'm a little lost on what your saying about "earlier the better, after about noon". To me early is before noon. Does before noon work for you better? or is it after noon? I'm totally flexible. Evil, when are you available?

Oh, sorry for the confusion. I'll probably be down by 11am or noon. There's a chance that I'll be heading up to Chehalis Saturday night so if we can take care of the barrel earlier in the day and still have some time for trying a few watering holes, that would be best for me. Really, any time between noon and 7pm should work for me.

gonna need some pics of the filling ceremony!

Don't know that there will really be anything photo worthy, but I'll snap a few.

I get off work at 7:15 AM on Saturday, so I gotta get *some* sleep. But, I'm willing to go through some sleep deprivation for the good of the barrel so noon's fine with me.

Why don't we give everyone a little cushion and call it 2:00? Does that work?

2 o'clock is good for me.

Two o'clock sounds good to me. Just let me know where to go and I'll be there.

I was beginning to wonder if we'd here from you today explosive. Watched you get your drink on for near 7 hours last night. I'll PM you the address.

I'm glad I could be a source of amusement for everyone watching online. That was very cool that they set that up. And since I had a ride home, I was glad to support Don as much as I could.

Just a little tease. I've been working on getting the barrel ready and moved all morning I couldn't help myself so I started transferring. Just a note, we almost didn't have a home for the barrel. Got it in the back door OK, but had some issues getting it into the basement. Hopefully SWMBO won't notice...Oh, and sorry for the crappy quality. SWMBO took her camera with her so I had to use my phone.

Anywho, Here is the stand, but no barrel:


Getting ready to transfer blacklab's:


Transferring blacklab's:


My first batch going in:

My second batch:


Airlocked and waiting for Evil and explosive to arrive:


I ended up getting the only 6 cans of Tart Cherries on the shelf at New Season.

Tow more pics...

explosivebrew adding some cherries:


EvilTOJ adding some cherries:


The bugs arrived in the mail just before explosive arrived so they are still chilled. I'm letting them warm up to room temp and will dump them in at that point.

This is exciting!

Thanks for the pictures Brian. It was great meeting you guys yesterday. And thanks for the taste of Dissident and your riesling wheat.

I showed SWMBO this thread.
She now is convinced we need to move North.


Think happy thoughts yo!

Here's a high-quality camera phone picture of Kilted_Brewer adding some cherries and EvilTOJ getting ready to do the same:

Hey, you can't see my face in any of those! Then again, would one really want to look into the face of evil?

Cool pics, even though I don't see my beer going in. Look forward to next year. BTW, who has my keg?

Hey McKBrew, I brought it back with me. Let me know when you're in the area and we can get together. Or if you have any plans to head to Naked City, we might be able to rendezvous there.

Keg, I don't recall a keg with your name on it McKBrew!

Kidding of course, explosive has it. Totally forgot about taking pics until we were putting the cherries in. Sorry my friend.

explosivebeer said:

Here's a high-quality camera phone picture of Kilted_Brewer adding some cherries and EvilTOJ getting ready to do the same:

Click to expand...

This picture speaks of the early days of homebrewing.

I forgot to mention I'd brought 3.5 lbs of tart cherries, and 4 lbs of dark sweet cherries for the barrel. I'm all for buying some more this spring when the cherry crop comes out and adding some more.

Hey crew, I'm gonna brew up another 10 gallons of this on Saturday or Sunday. It's gonna be a weekend of brewing as it may be my last for a month or more (holiday's, trips, etc). That should get us close to the 55 gallon mark. I'll also see if I can grab some more cherries and through them in. I think we're only at about 13-14lbs of those.

This looks awesome. KB - let me know what you're spending on fruit and I'll reimburse you.

I also dig the new label!

Nice work on your new brewery label Kilted Brewer. It's very appropriate.

Blacklab or anyone else, do you want to go in on an order of tart cherries from here: Montmorency Tart Cherry Juice from King Orchards (halfway down the page)?

We could just have them shipped straight to KB so he's not running around looking for more.

I'd be up for it - let me know how you want to coordinate.

Oh also, if we're still a little short on volume after the new addition, let me know. I was thinking I could brew up another big batch of this, send half down to top off the barrel as necessary, and experiment with the other half. Just let me know. I still have about 1.5 or 2 gallons left from my previous batch if that would help too.

blacklab said:

I'd be up for it - let me know how you want to coordinate.

Click to expand...

Cool. Let's see if anyone else wants in and we can decide between a case of 12 or a case of 24. As it is now, I have 10 gallons in the barrel and you have 5, so we can just split the cost accordingly. I can buy it if you want to send me a check or vice versa.

I'm game for ordering the cherries. That'll be easier for me not having to run around and clear out New Seasons every few days.

Another question, and maybe I need to take this one to our Brett pros...but this new batch, should I send it straight to the barrel, unfermented or do I ferment out for two weeks then blend? Would the brett mix benefit from having some sugars added?

Thanks for the kind word on the logo. It's actually still a work in progress and has had some big changes in the last 24 hours. Waiting to get to that final version and I'll update the avatar. Bro-in-law is the artist, marketing director and graphic artist at work are the consultants.

So do you guys want to go for the 12 cans or the 24 cans? How many pounds of cherries are appropriate? I'm up for whatever.

And sorry I can't help with the Brett question. Hopefully Brewtopia finds a little time to stop by and offer some advice. Otherwise I'll ask him the next time I'm at Naked City.

Explosive...sorry man, this wasn't coming up in my new posts and hadn't realized you responded back. I say let's go for 24. We're still well under the "recommend" fruit amounts for the size.

I brewed up another 10 gallon batch (actually, I think it ended up closer to 11) this weekend, so that should get us pretty filled if our math was right a few weeks ago. I'm going to let this one go for two weeks, then transfer it over. I don't know if it's the Pilsner or what, but I keep getting great efficiency on this beer. 84% this time around. I did a second batch right after and got 75%.

No worries Brian. Glad to hear you got that batch brewed up. Let us know how it looks once it gets in the barrel and if you want someone to do another batch to top it off and/or have on standby for topping off as it evaporates.

As for the cherries, I'll get them ordered this week. Do you want me to bump the order up to 36 or 48? How many pounds of cherries do we have in there already? And what are we shooting for? About a pound per gallon?

I think we're at about 13lbs or so right now. The 24 should be fine, still less then the recommended amount, but probably still enough to do something.

No one else appears to be chiming in, so I guess it's up to you and I sir.

As the keeper of the keg, I'll defer to your judgment.

This thread is like the world's slowest chat program ever. I say add 24 more lbs of cherries.

Go 2 lbs per gallon IMHO.

Brewtopia said:

Go 2 lbs per gallon IMHO.

Click to expand...

S-H-I-T!! 110lbs of cherries?!?!?!? Will there be any beer left after that.

Yeah I stopped by Naked City last night and did my best to distract Don while he was busy working in the kitchen. Sorry Don. But yeah, he said 1-2 lbs a gallon is a general rule of thumb. Obviously he'd err high if he was doing it himself. He also said that he leaves them in a month or two, but Belgian brewers leave them in for long-term aging like we'd be doing.

I think we need to at least get to 1 lbs per gallon and taste it after a few months, then maybe add another half pound or pound per gallon if we want more, understanding that the cherry is going to fade a little with time. What do you guys think?

I'm down, this beer better be damn good though! This is getting expensive. Let's do 2 24 packs I guess. I will cover one of those, since I will have 20 gallons in the barrel.

Explosive, if you won't to work it out amongst the others for the other 24 that's cool. I'll order mine in the next day or two and it should be here in time for me to add the latest 10 gallons. Sound good? Any major flaws?

Getting two 24 packs sounds good to me. Do you just want to order them both so we're not paying double for shipping? If so, I'll pay for a quarter of the total since I have 10 gallons in and may bring down the other 2 gallons I have sitting around.

Speaking of which, I think I'm coming down next weekend for the Abyss release at Deschutes on the 14th and the Hair of the Dog release on the 15th. Let me know if you're around and want to meet up either to drop off the two gallons or grab a beer.