What I did for beer today

Just finished a batch of a Three Floyds "Gumballhead" clone. I was targeting an OG of 1.057 and got 1.055. That's the closest I've ever been to hitting my target so it's already making me happy. It's also the first time I used a wort chiller instead of an ice bath and I can't believe I lived without one before today.

I peed a bunch of beer out today

Last night I de-labeled and rinsed 30 bottles.

Today I'm putting some IPA in those bottles.

This weekend I'll brew 10 gallons of Wit beer (2 5 gal batches), and keg one finished batch. I also finished up 5 lbs of glutinous rice, to make rice wine, and made some yogurt! Yogurt isn't beer, but you still have to cook the ingredients and pitch the "yeast"

Did this yesterday:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/my-4-no-mess-temporary-swamp-cooler-415529/

Kegged my first Lager. Tasted my LePetite Orange, it has very citrus after taste, hope it settles a little with age. Ordered my burner and grains for my next batch. Easy AK 47 Ale. This will be my first all grain.

Poured a 16 oz bottle each of American wheat and copper ale (my first two batches) into an Oktoberfest mug and headed to the garden. Both batches have slight issues and combined does not help.

But wile weeding the garden and sweating it has been a good refresher.
Time to make a tasty radish sandwich and finish the mug.

Actually, it was yesterday. Brewed up 5.5 gallons of my APA recipe and 6 gallons of chocolate milk stout. Also bottled 2 cases of my Steroid #8 APA and 2 cases of Janet's Brown ale.

We're so sorry,uncle Albert,but we haven't done a bloody thing all day. We're so sorry,uncle Albert...but we're so easily drawn away...
Have to wash a bunch of bottles & take a gravity sample of the Berlin wheat later.

Just finished sparging and waiting for the boil on a Petite Saison. Didn't bother with pre-boil reading so not sure yet, but aiming for 1.032 OG

Cleaned a couple carboys that have sitting with yeast/trub in them for the last couple months. Behold the power of chemicals... soaked overnight with PBW and they were a breeze to clean!!

Bought some Ghirardelli chocolate, cacao baking nibs, Sumatra coffee, and some Kona coffee for a breakfast stout brewing next week.

billpaustin said:

This weekend I'll brew 10 gallons of Wit beer (2 5 gal batches), and keg one finished batch. I also finished up 5 lbs of glutinous rice, to make rice wine, and made some yogurt! Yogurt isn't beer, but you still have to cook the ingredients and pitch the "yeast"

Click to expand...

Did this, and added 2 gal of apple juice and 16oz of honey to the yeast cake of the kegged Wit beer. So, yogurt, beer, rice wine, and apple wine, life is good :rockin:

I continued my quest to become the best brewer of British beer that I can. I made a commitment to myself a few weeks ago (my birthday in fact) that I was going to focus almost exclusively on dialing in my bitter, mild and brown ale recipes for sure. Possibly a return to my oatmeal stout. And maybe even try my hand at a brown porter and an English barley wine. I want to fine tune my recipes, identify the British yeast strains that work best in my brewery, and learn as much as I possibly can about brewing classic British styles.

The journey officially got underway 3 weeks ago with a premium bitter, brewed to compare WLP002 and 005 side by side.

Today, I tasted samples from both. So far, 002 gets my early vote. I love the flavor profile of that yeast.

Going with 100% British malt and hops (and paying attention to my water profile) didnt hurt either.

Today is a good day to be a brewer. Well, yesterday didn't suck either. And I have pretty high hopes for tomorrow.

Took the labels off a case of bottles.

Bottled a batch of summer shandy.

Bottled a batch of IPA.

Ran a 10# pale ale malt through a test mash on my new brew rig. Hit 81% efficiency and learned a lot about the rig's "personality". Had a blast. Then, a friend, who I keep in good beer, gave me a complete kegerator setup including a high end CO2 regulator way better than mine! Outstanding day!

Harvested 2 gallons of red rice wine.

Made a beer gun and bottled 5 gallons of my belgian strong.

Kegged 5 gallons and aged 5 gallons on hard maple of a local brew pubs blonde recipe. Homebrew club competition thursday to try and replicate the local places blonde. I cheated and scooped some of their yeast for my fermentation haha. 3.5% blonde. Easy drinker for sure.

Bottled strawberry blond and dry hopped my Smoking hot blond with dried peppers.

Kegged 5 gallons of Yooper's Ruination clone. Now it is time to clean.

Punched a hole in the side of my stainless boil kettle.

Feeling much better now that it went well and I now have a 1/2" inlet valve for recirc/ whirlpooling. :rockin:

I filled up a keg to soak in PBW solution before I left for work today

Cooked up a starter for a batch of NB's The Innkeeper that I'll be brewing this weekend.

Waiting for it to chill before I pitch the oldest yeast I've ever tried before. It is a jar of Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire Ale that was washed from a previous batch about 8 months ago. I used one other jar of it about 6 months ago, but I haven't brewed a style that called for an English yeast in quite a while. Fingers crossed and hoping it gets active. I don't care too much about getting a ton of growth, because The Innkeeper is relatively low gravity. Just want to make sure it is still working, before pitching in the beer this weekend. That way I can pick up a replacement pack of yeast before brew day.

Talked with my friend in NE Ohio to line up some Thirsty Dog BA Siberian Night and Hoppin' Frog Irish Whiskey BA BORIS! Hopefully he'll be able to score those tomorrow!

Checked on my NB order, apparently even though I ordered it on Sunday it won't arrive until next Monday because they waited until yesterday to ship (not the same day or day later they advertised). Pretty disappointing since I planned to brew this weekend and now won't be able to for at least a month.

mcbaumannerb said:

Talked with my friend in NE Ohio to line up some Thirsty Dog BA Siberian Night and Hoppin' Frog Irish Whiskey BA BORIS! Hopefully he'll be able to score those tomorrow!

Click to expand...

You should also try Thirsty Dog's Cerberus, a Belgian trippel style ale. Hoppin Frog's Turbo Shandy is def good on a hot day. kinda crisp & tingley.
I cleaned up 3 shy of a case of bottles,& finally got to cleanin up the Better Bottle I traded for. Nice & clean with no more mildew spots. Wanna finally brew up that other PM Berlin Wheat kit come Father's day. Hopin to pit bbq somethin too.

Racked an el dorado pale to secondary and started a cider.

Attempted to decide what, besides 7 experimental batches of rice wine, I'm going to make this weekend. Failure....

Bottled 2gallons of Country Cider with my new Counter Pressure Bottle filler that arrived today from MoreBeer.

Awesome tool!

Awesome cider. 8%ABV. Tasty and heady!

Made 2 liter starter that will be split into a 5 gal. batch of honey ale and the rest for the fridge. Also made caramelized beet sugar for a gluten free beer. Sitting happily with the wild yeast hard cider in a glass and enjoying the cool June night air.

Gave someone looking to get into brewing my copy of The Complete Joy....passing on the good book.

Looked at my washed yeast in the fridge and was like "I need to use that stuff". Went to the pantry to see what I could ferment. Any ideas? Not cider please.

Jbird said:

Looked at my washed yeast in the fridge and was like "I need to use that stuff". Went to the pantry to see what I could ferment. Any ideas? Not cider please.

Click to expand...

Crazy idea, make... beer.

Bought a keg off Craigslist and ordered parts for it, bought supplies for another batch of my "garage hootch", and finished putting together my bottling wand for my keg setup. This weekend, brewing.

Went to Charleston and bought some grain for my next batch: A Rye PA. I still need some flaked rye and some 1060 though. 1060 is hard to come by 'round these parts.

Did a remote purchase (thru a good friend) of some limited edition/availability Hoppin' Frog! Now I just have to wait until August to get it.

Jbird said:

Looked at my washed yeast in the fridge and was like "I need to use that stuff". Went to the pantry to see what I could ferment. Any ideas? Not cider please.

Click to expand...

How about a banana or strawberry wine?

Channel66 said:

Crazy idea, make... beer.

Click to expand...

You see I would but I'm looking for something crazy to make. Maybe tea. I guess I wasn't clear.

Leadgolem said:

How about a banana or strawberry wine?

Click to expand...

How would I do that?