What I did for beer today

Just washed many jars of yeast down the drain, vintage and style unknown. Got a lot more room in the fridge now.

EDIT: If you have a septic tank, this will do wonders for it!

I just checked the specific gravity of a cider that has been fermenting for three weeks. The air lock has been bubbling the whole time. I expected it to be contaminated. Th sp was 1.004, and the sample taken tasted great.

Heading to breakfast soon with some friends, one of whom is moving permanently to Vegas. Then it's off to Everett for the GEBL IPA Bracket Challenge that I entered my Bodhi clone in. Been a long week waiting to find out my scores, a real nail-biter; beer was one of the best IPA's I've ever done. They do the judging in the morning, awards ceremony in the afternoon, so nobody knows who won until they get there. Only the 4th competition I've entered; hoping for good scores but not aspiring to win.

Cleaned some kegs, shortened a couple gas in dip tubes (I think they were the last 2 long ones), kegged a California Common.

Shameless pat-on-the-back post; took first place in American IPA bracket, and 2nd place overall Best In Show, with 131 entries in 5 classes. I am truly gobsmacked. Got some nice prizes too, a $50 gift card to an LHBS that's a bit of a drive but will be used, a Blichmann t-shirt, and a Blichmann BrewVision gadget. Also talked to a couple of guys I met at a competition last year, who asked me again to join their homebrew club; have to wait until bowling is done in April but I'm finally going to take the plunge and do it. Happy girl this evening.

Bought the ingredients for an all grain 5 gal Hellas/Maibock; couple of pounds of a grain I never heard of, Red X, to compliment my Northern Brewer kit of Irish Red. Ordered a corny keg carbonation lid with carb stone.

seatazzz said:

Shameless pat-on-the-back post; took first place in American IPA bracket, and 2nd place overall Best In Show, with 131 entries in 5 classes. I am truly gobsmacked. Got some nice prizes too, a $50 gift card to an LHBS that's a bit of a drive but will be used, a Blichmann t-shirt, and a Blichmann BrewVision gadget. Also talked to a couple of guys I met at a competition last year, who asked me again to join their homebrew club; have to wait until bowling is done in April but I'm finally going to take the plunge and do it. Happy girl this evening.

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Congratulations, so you don't need to strain your arm.

I seen your earlier post and thought how nice that be to get results in a week. Most of the contest around here there is a good month to see if you placed then a couple weeks to see the actual score sheets.

Starting a starter. WY3787 Trappist high grav for a tripel I'll start brewing Tuesday or Wednesday.

EDIT: so while I was at it, got the last few drops from the smack pack, and streaked 2 plates. Always a big believer in growing your own!

50th birthday wish? Leave me alone with my mistress today (Her words, not mine)!

501irishred said:

50th birthday wish? Leave me alone with my mistress today (Her words, not mine)!

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You have a fine looking mistress!

seatazzz said:

Shameless pat-on-the-back post; took first place in American IPA bracket, and 2nd place overall Best In Show, with 131 entries in 5 classes. I am truly gobsmacked. Got some nice prizes too, a $50 gift card to an LHBS that's a bit of a drive but will be used, a Blichmann t-shirt, and a Blichmann BrewVision gadget. Also talked to a couple of guys I met at a competition last year, who asked me again to join their homebrew club; have to wait until bowling is done in April but I'm finally going to take the plunge and do it. Happy girl this evening.

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Only took me ten seconds to get your results (just reading this today). Congratulations!

I am brewing a porter, first one in a really long time! Sparging at the moment.

Sampled my stout made with Voss at cooler temps. Outstanding flavor and body, ready to bottle after a week. It's amazing how just some Maris Otter, flaked barley and roasted barley and the right yeast can create something so damn good! Gonna add a little espresso infusion to half when I bottle tomorrow

Cleaned a keg so that my DIPA can get out of the fermenter and into some dry hops (2oz. Citra & 2oz. Mosaic) and CO2. Tasted all of the aging beers: Flanders Red Sour, Pale Sour, Imperial Stout Parti-Gyle (Amber-ish), Winter Spice, and Buckwheat-Chile. The Parti-Gyle got 1/2 gallon of the DIPA that didn't fit in the keg and 2oz. of Cascade dry hop to make it more beer-like. Went to the LHBS and picked up the goods for an APA and an Italian-style Lager.

Kegged 10 gallons of a Timothy Taylor Landlord Bitter. Also kegged a mead made with honey from my neighbor's bee hives. My oldest son came over for dinner with his wife and my granddaughter. Today is his 32nd birthday and my wife made a nice dinner. We also enjoyed a few Belgian Pale Ales that I had on tap. Great day!

John

Besides brewing, got around to an overdue mod to my O2 rig. I used to have the flow meter temporarily zip tied to the bottle, which kept everything tidy and functional, but made it a pain to disconnect the regulator between uses (and we all know those things will slowly leak if left connected.) Simple job to mount the whole thing to the rack. Like I say, little things make me happy.

501irishred said:

50th birthday wish? Leave me alone with my mistress today (Her words, not mine)!

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Happy f#+king birthday, you are loved.

Kegged a Brown Ale.

Ordered an old army buddy of mine, who loves beer and has been expressing an interest in homebrew for years but never took the plunge, his first 2.5 gallon extract Mrbeer kit which is where I began so many many moons ago. Hopefully it begins his long journey down the joyous road of attaining All grain with stainless steel appliances enlightenment!

If he likes brewing, it will be the gift that keeps on taking! (All that money spent on shiny things)

Hoppy2bmerry said:

If he likes brewing, it will be the gift that keeps on taking! (All that money spent on shiny things)

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[emoji23] my wife is of a like mind on my shiny new toys! It's money well spent!

I milled grain for a quad today, decided against a tripel. But then it started raining, and supposed to rain tomorrow too. Oh well, my starter is not ready yet anyway.

Yesterday did a 5 gallon floor malted pilsner, and a English Mild recipe 1/2 batch test (into the Mr beer container), and then combined the spent grains to do a 2nd running low gravity (not sure how low since I dropped another glass hydrometer).

Had made big starters of 34/70 for the pilsner; plus combined WLP017 & S-04 for a Whitbread Wet and Dry test for the mild. Not only pitched pretty big, filled up a few autoclaves of each for future brews.

Regarding the 2nd running. Decided it's time to test Belle Saison, and why not dry out the table beer with a pound or so of honey? Hydrated the Belle, and pitched a 1/4 pack into about 2 gallons just because. Will see how that turns out.

Next on the list is to try cold steeping a serious session beer. Then remash the grains with a pound or two of 6-row for something else.

Ahhhh, never a dull moment.

Poured this into a fermenting berliner weisse

Organized the brewery and mopped the floor. Then sat down with a HB and cigar and watched an episode of Better Call Saul.

Switched up my recipe for Saturday; YVH came through early with my hop order (got in on the Sabro flash sale) so I'm going to try an IPA with them instead. Haven't decided yet if I'm going to bitter with Cascade or Mosaic, but late additions will be equal parts Citra and Sabro, with dry hop TBD after a few days into fermentation. From what I've been reading, it's going to be a pina-colada-ish kinda thing but there's nothing wrong with that.

Washing bottles to package my Grodziskie tomorrow.

Went to Air Gas and got in an exchange program for their beer gas tanks. Got a tank with beer gas and I have a spare regulator and set it up with a stout faucet. Now I am ready to enter the world of Nitro Beers, for my stouts, porters, English bitters, Scottish Ales, Irish Reds, and whatever else I want to try on nitro. I am stoked! Pretty cool!

John

I discovered my InstantPot can hold a perfect 150-151°F on the Keep Warm/normal setting so I ground up a handful of 2-row and threw it in a filter bag with some treated tap water to make a starter for literally pennies. So much fun!

Kicked the imperial stout, so I cleaned the keg/line and tapped the schwarzbier.

Relaxed and drank a couple of home brews. First brews (sweet stout and pale ale) in over a year due to move and new home build.
It's awesome to be be back in the game - with a newly designed brewery.

Maintenance and panic recovery.

Draught line cleaning today, on biweekly schedule.

And recovered from panic that, when I spunded yesterday, I might have nearly missed the spunding window, aggravated several hours later by the discovery of a leak in the non-CMB QD I'd thrown on the spunding valve. Pressure checked today, spund good, QD in trash, all happy.

Just got the grain milled for today's group brewday at my buddy's house; still need to get devilled eggs done, and the car loaded up. Aggravated that I don't have any gypsum to add to the strike, but no time to run to LHBS so I'll just run with what I've got. Someone there might have some I can borrow but if not I'm not going to stress over it. His water is cr*p so I have to bring bottled; went with purified drinking water from Wallyworld so hopefully still has some minerals in it. I do have epsom salts but I'm leery of using them for the sulfate addition. Any suggestions, guys?

seatazzz said:

Just got the grain milled for today's group brewday at my buddy's house; still need to get devilled eggs done, and the car loaded up. Aggravated that I don't have any gypsum to add to the strike, but no time to run to LHBS so I'll just run with what I've got. Someone there might have some I can borrow but if not I'm not going to stress over it. His water is cr*p so I have to bring bottled; went with purified drinking water from Wallyworld so hopefully still has some minerals in it. I do have epsom salts but I'm leery of using them for the sulfate addition. Any suggestions, guys?

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I don't know about the Wallyworld water, but when I see "purified" at Walgreens etc. it's usually distilled or some other deionizing process. They just don't say exactly what so they can switch sources at their convenience. If there's gypsum around I'd toss it in, if not at least it sounds like you're better off than the crap water.

seatazzz said:

Just got the grain milled for today's group brewday at my buddy's house; still need to get devilled eggs done, and the car loaded up. Aggravated that I don't have any gypsum to add to the strike, but no time to run to LHBS so I'll just run with what I've got. Someone there might have some I can borrow but if not I'm not going to stress over it. His water is cr*p so I have to bring bottled; went with purified drinking water from Wallyworld so hopefully still has some minerals in it. I do have epsom salts but I'm leery of using them for the sulfate addition. Any suggestions, guys?

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I've made good beer with with Walmart spring water and no added salts. Their drinking water is probably pretty similar.

Maybe cut in a little crap(tap) for the calcium.

Robert65 said:

Besides brewing, got around to an overdue mod to my O2 rig. I used to have the flow meter temporarily zip tied to the bottle, which kept everything tidy and functional, but made it a pain to disconnect the regulator between uses (and we all know those things will slowly leak if left connected.) Simple job to mount the whole thing to the rack. Like I say, little things make me happy. View attachment 665918

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What flow meter do you use? I have the same O2 setup but sans any type of meter. Would be nice to be more precise because I'm never sure if I'm using too little or too much and wasting oxygen.

(Yesterday) bought ingredients to make a brown ale...today, not sure if I want to start to brew until tomorrow, or Monday. So as it stands, I've thought about brewing today.

VirginiaHops1 said:

What flow meter do you use? I have the same O2 setup but sans any type of meter. Would be nice to be more precise because I'm never sure if I'm using too little or too much and wasting oxygen.

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I have this one, 0-1.5 liters per minute. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N0UWZ2T?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
But looking around on Amazon I've noticed they also have one that is 0-1 LPM, which might be even better, you'll never go over that range. Anyway it is great for both not wasting O2 and for being consistent.

Robert65 said:

I have this one, 0-1.5 liters per minute. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N0UWZ2T?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
But looking around on Amazon I've noticed they also have one that is 0-1 LPM, which might be even better, you'll never go over that range. Anyway it is great for both not wasting O2 and for being consistent.

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Thanks man. I feel like I go through those home depot canisters too quickly sometimes so this could be awesome.