THIS is why you can't have too many cornies...

This is what happens when you spend more time serving your beer at parties than actually brewing.

Six weeks ago, these guys were all filled. Three major parties and some normal consumption later...I have work to do.

No worries though...I still have 9 other (partially) filled kegs still in service and 6 fermenters chugging away.

You. Are. A. Machine.

I wish I lived closer to you! You must party like a College Freshman from a baptist background!

20 cornies - Check
4 fermenters - Check

Enough time to brew as often as I'd like during hours while I am still concious - Fail

BigKahuna said:

You must party like a College Freshman from a baptist background!

Click to expand...

Ha ha that’s great. "That’s not a beer gut, that’s my liver."

I know what you mean about never having enough. I’m recovering from a dry spell and now I have 2 batches keged and two conditioning

I know what you mean brother...I'm glad this is just a hobby and not a REAL job!!!

Current inventory goes something like this:

23 cornies...18 full (2 on tap, 7 in the keezer, the rest waiting in line)...check...

23 cases of German 1/2 liters...4 full...check...

100+ wine bottles...about 80 full of meads and assorted Apfelweins...check...

22 carboys...3 full...check...

5 primary buckets...3 full, check...

i know what you mean, man. i always think i have a TON of beer lying around, then i tap a few of them and invite some friends over and next thing i know...I'm out of prepared beer! crazy how fast they go, especially the light beers.

You guys are animals. :rockin:

Rick500 said:

You guys are animals. :rockin:

Click to expand...

Better believe it. I thought I was doing good with 7 or 8 full corneys and about 20 or so dozen bottles full. I bow to the masters....

Ooops.

Make that 7 fermenters chuggin along.

Gotta empty out that carboy for my 999-barleywine this weekend.

I'm still trying to get the pipeline full. I hate waiting on beer to get ready. At least I'm stocking up on more bottles while I want for my latest batch to get ready. Got 2 cases of 12 oz bottles full, 2 party pigs, 2 mini kegs and a case of 22 oz bottles. Also have 3 carboys full. Got the ingredients to make another batch in the next day or 2. Hopefully soon I wont have to wait on beer anymore.

I gotta get me a basement. Wonder if my landlord would mind if I did a little excavation?

Nice pipeline there, BierMuncher!

I have six going right now.. one of those for SWMBO. After running completely dry, I vowed to never be without homebrew again!!

I'm jealous. I still haven't saved up the dough to buy my other 12 cornies I want. The 10 I have right now just aren't cutting it. It feels like I'm always waiting for a keg to kick so I can wash it, sanitize it, and fill it. :/

sounds to me like you need more kegs.

I think that BM should now stand for BrewingMachine, not BierMuncher

I have no cornies

That changes tomorrow

I have no beers in progress

Because I'm neck deep in full bottles of my best beers ever and waiting for my in-process keezer project to finish before brewing again

I always thought my dad was my hero. You want to be my dad?

I would think 20 cornies filled twice a year would be..........mmm....like 200 gal

While I bow to y'alls superior breweries, it makes me reflect on this one simple truty. "My biggest brewing problem is lack of cash flow!" I owe $11,000 to the hospital and another $5,000 to doctors, CT scan, and other little ticky tack on bills related to SWMBO's surgery! Come on you gotta be kidding me, they charged $84 for a pregnancy test! Lunatics!!! It's enough to drive a conservative independent toward supporting state sponsored health care.... well maybe it's not pushing me that far... YET! I told SWMBO it'd be cheaper to have her buried.... well not by much these days! Anyway I've got to wait 2 weeks to order $25 bucks worth of stuff for my next batch! Thanks for letting me vent...

Schlante,
Phillip

This begs 2 questions BM:

1. How often do you brew? Any on weekdays/nights?
2. How long start to finish for a 10gal batch?

tgrier said:

This begs 2 questions BM:

Click to expand...

Naa....ONLY 1.

WHAT THE HELL DO YOU DO FOR A LIVING TO AFFORD ALL THAT COOL SHTUFF AN STILL HAVE TIME TO BREW?

BigKahuna said:

Naa....ONLY 1.

WHAT THE HELL DO YOU DO FOR A LIVING TO AFFORD ALL THAT COOL SHTUFF AN STILL HAVE TIME TO BREW?

Click to expand...

+11111111!!!!

BM - I'm not quite up to your level, I have an apartment and am limited on my space.
In two weekends I have blown through 4 kegs going to parties where "no one" would be drinking homebrew. Last Saturday I went to a wedding, full bar with two "HOT" bar tenders. I set up my homebrew on the other side of the lawn and my IPA and the cider floated so quick I was shocked. Well time to start up the brewing machine again.

I think my pipe line has a major leak!!!!!!!!

BigKahuna said:

...WHAT THE HELL DO YOU DO FOR A LIVING TO AFFORD ALL THAT COOL SHTUFF AN STILL HAVE TIME TO BREW?

Click to expand...

Don't kid yourself.

Three kids in college means I'm pinching pennies...packing my lunch to work and harvesting dry yeast to stretch it out.

I just like to pick up a bucket or carboy, or a couple cornies here and there as I can.

My normal (weekly) routine is to:

• Finalize my recipe during lunch on Wednesday.
• Crush my grains on Wednesday night and set up the gear.
• Start brewing on Thursday night the minute I step in the door.

Depending on the recipe it's between 4 hours and 5 1/2 hours.

This leaves my weekends free to help the SWMBO out around the house and do my fatherly duties...as well as transfer beers, clean kegs, rinse bottles, sample my dry hopping fermenters...etc...

I just wish I had the money to keep, well, the bucket and carboy I have now going. Been wanting to start another batch for months and haven't been able to scrape together the $40 for ingredients, let alone buy any new equipment. Only thing I've been able to keep on tap is soda and apfelwein. Soda is all of about $7 to fill a keg, and the apfelwein runs a hair over $20 as long as I keep a batch going constantly so I don't have to buy more yeast.

Should get better now... Finances will be straightened out in the next couple of weeks and my new job is going well. Hopefully be able to pick up some side work here and there to finance some new equipment. SWMBO is still complaining about what I spent for the little bit of kegging equipment I didn't get for free back at the beginning of the year.

BierMuncher said:

Don't kid yourself.

Three kids in college means I'm pinching pennies...packing my lunch to work and harvesting dry yeast to stretch it out.

I just like to pick up a bucket or carboy, or a couple cornies here and there as I can.

My normal (weekly) routine is to:

• Finalize my recipe during lunch on Wednesday.
• Crush my grains on Wednesday night and set up the gear.
• Start brewing on Thursday night the minute I step in the door.

Depending on the recipe it's between 4 hours and 5 1/2 hours.

This leaves my weekends free to help the SWMBO out around the house and do my fatherly duties...as well as transfer beers, clean kegs, rinse bottles, sample my dry hopping fermenters...etc...

Click to expand...

Very good point BM.
If you spread your upgrades out over a few years even a sweet setup is not that expensive. Especially compared to some other hobbies.
And at about 5 hours per brew it takes less time than an average game of golf.
I'm only 18months into my brewing career so I've got a long way to go but I have my realistic plans and my dreams

Craig

CBBaron said:

If you spread your upgrades out over a few years even a sweet setup is not that expensive. Especially compared to some other hobbies.

Click to expand...

SWMBO is happy to have me brewing instead of buying expensive photo gear. My whole setup, kegerator and all, costs less than a single pro zoom lens.

BierMuncher said:

Three kids in college means I'm pinching pennies...packing my lunch to work and harvesting dry yeast to stretch it out.

Click to expand...

And yet you still can "pump out" all sorts of world-class recipes that brewers across the land are dying to replicate. +1 to ya, man. I hold lots of respect for ya!

Commitment.............

Good to see.

man... you guys suck.

As you can see by my signature I've freakin OUT of EVERYTHING. My AG rig is taking me wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy longer to put together than I thought and I've got a week pipeline to say the least. It's been a steady stream of nice craft beers and micorbrews for a couple of weeks now. Which sucks because big bottles of Duval, six packs of Hop Devil and Golden Monkey aren't freakin' cheap!

Luckily I have at least SOMETHING coming out soon with a weizen I just did. My doppel won't be done for a while (bottling it this weekend) and my tripel... that just went into the secondary so that'll be a while.

Damn... I gotta get going.

Sorry for the babbling, you guys just have me depressed!!

You're an inspiration, BierMuncher.

I thought I had a nice stock of beer bottled up and ready to drink until I did inventory last night. Turns out I don't have as much as I thought I did! Time to get brewing again soon.

2 kegs ....2 fermenters going....i am a novice compared to yall

Cape Brewing said:

As you can see by my signature I've freakin OUT of EVERYTHING. My AG rig is taking me wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy longer to put together than I thought... you guys just have me depressed!!

Click to expand...

Three words: PARTIAL .. MASH .. ACTION. :rockin:

Get some beer going!

srsly...partial mashes are so easy. check out my sig.

BigKahuna said:

...WHAT THE HELL DO YOU DO FOR A LIVING TO AFFORD ALL THAT COOL SHTUFF AN STILL HAVE TIME TO BREW?...

Click to expand...

Funny shiite there...

Me, I'm a Gob'ment worker...I travel a lot for my Uncle Sam...when I do, I drive. I get per diem and mileage. After paying all the gas and tolls on the road I'll make about $300-600 profit...PER TRIP. Some trips more. Last year I was on the road 18 weeks...23 the year before, 20 the year before that, 18 the year before that...to include a trip to Germany and 2 to Korea...and many of the States...

Plus, I lived in Germany from 1999-2004 on Uncle's (and your dimes). I had 4 big vacations a year and still put away a substantial amount of cash. I also deployed twice (Kosovo) and made a bit on dough there too.

If I stayed at the last job I would probably be on my 5th rotation to the sand box and earning about $200k a year.

When I came back to the States I put over half down on my house and paid the rest off in 2 years 2 months.

I'm a GS12. I earn a little over $80k/yr. (I'm not afraid to tell you that because as a Civil Servant and my pay scale is posted on the net...go figure!)

What I don't have to tell you is that for over 2 years I've been socking away $XXXX.XX a month rebuilding my nest egg. Plus my pension will bring in over 50k/yr which will only grow. Then there's my Thrift Savings Plan...

I haven't had a bill in over 2 years, but we recently purchased a new car. I put 15k down and will pay it off come next July...then retire at age 55.

I buy what I want when I want.
Life's grand now, but I worked hard to get where I am. :rockin:

I brew on the weekends mostly, but I also do my own home improvements...saves lots of $$$ right there...and take leftovers in for lunch...that's one secret to keeping your money...leftovers...and no snack machines!!! Oh, yeah...no smoking either...saves tons!!
...and as always, the first round's on me!!!

If only ALL my cornies were full...

150+ gallons of beer.... Oh the things I could do.... :cross:

homebrewer_99 said:

Oh, yeah...no smoking either...saves tons!!

Click to expand...

+1 to that. I've smoked for 8 years, and am quitting/just quit. It's already baffling how much "extra" money just keeps sticking around in my bank account. I never noticed it before, but I was probably spending $20-25 a week on smokes before I quit. Especially since all of my friends are notoriously bad for bumming off of me - smokes, beer, what have you.... In terms of PURCHASE, I was getting close to 7 packs a week. In terms of CONSUMPTION, I was probably closer to 3-4 packs a week. (Used to be 1 1/2 pack a day when I was on 3rd shift, but that was 3 years ago... I had been slowly reducing my smoking habit over a long period of time, so that when I finally quit I would have less trouble. So far, it hasn't proven to make a difference. But I'm sticking with it, dammit.)

So in other words, quitting smoking can earn you a corny keg a week!

That's a beautiful sight, BM. I feel so inadequate, I only have 6 beers going right now.