What I did for beer today

Wrapping up my notes for a presentation on brewing water I'm giving at my club meeting next week.

Finished putting thermometer and valve in 15.5 gal keggle I started on. Filled with water and 1/2 gal of vinegar to boil on propane camp cooker. While it was heating up I coiled 50' of 3/8" copper tubing on a 8" piece of pipe and put ends on copper tubing for wort cooler.
Pitched the copper tubing in after keggle come to a boil and cooked it a while .

Now to pick up a ice chest to make a tun .

Picked up my recipe for brewing a Gingerbread Ale on Sunday.

Received a couple pounds of hops today. Going to make a Gandhi-bot clone with the Simcoe and just got the Centennial to take greater advantage of the $5 flat rate shipping. Also just bottled my imperial pumpkin ale, the Drunken Punkin.

I ordered 2lbs of PBW & a PM Traditional Stout the other day from midwest. Got some 4ozs of American oak chips & a new Italian spigot for the Ale Pail yesterday at my lhbs. That barrel tap is getting kinda stiff around the knob. Gunna brew the stout & start soaking 2oz of the chips in bourbon next Saturday for another,improved batch of my Whiskely Ale. This one'll be for Christmas. Maybe re-brew my Burton Ale as well?...

started brewing a tweaked scottish 80 to turn into a cranberry scottish

Hmmm...earthy,smoky cranberry sounds like it might be good with pit bbq'd turkey!

Took a little taste of the Scottish 70/- I brewed last weekend. It was my first time building water from RO and was a little worried that I'd wind up with salty beer. Fears are allayed. Beer tastes great.

Gave BeerSmith another $18... upgraded my account to a Gold membership (allows 125 cloud recipes) and downloaded their new mobile app.

Picked up ingredients to brew a Belgian dark strong ale next weekend.

Bottled my latest batch of BierMuncher's Centennial Blonde and brewed up a new batch of the German Wheat beer I entered in the homebrew competition at the OC Fest of Ales -- both in preparation for Thanksgiving.

Picked up a couple bags of grain, 100 lbs total. Should be set for the next 4-6 months as far as base grain is concerned. Only thing to worry about until the grain is gone is specialty grains and yeast.

Shred said:

Gave BeerSmith another $18... upgraded my account to a Gold membership (allows 125 cloud recipes) and downloaded their new mobile app.

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Yeah, that gold membership is a great deal. I am ecstatic that I did it because I recently had my laptop transform into a paper weight only a week or so after I upgraded. Thanks to the cloud I didn't lose any of my recipes.

Drank more than my share!

Cleaned the inside of my kegerator, cleaned and rinsed all 4 taps, rinsed some empty kegs, ran to the brew store and stocked up on base grains and specialty grains(100+lbs), picked up adjuncts, a bottle rinser and more. Finally sitting down and going to have my first beer of the evening! HAPPY TIMES!

tried my iipa with galaxy and centennial after 2 weeks in primary. almost tastes woody, delicious nonetheless.

Bottled a prehopped muntons ipa extract that was in the fermentor a bit too long (3-4 months). Smelled a little sweet. Tasted bland. Should have dry hopped. Oh well, I wasn't expecting much with a cheap kit. Probably won't be using either kit or the BRY 97 again. Needed to up the pipeline and life got in the way so it sat.

Tossed in an oz of Citra to my APA...will bottle next weekend!

Four miles into my long run this morning, I saw a box on the side of the road that said "free beer kit." Needless to say, the run was paused while I schlepped that sucker back to my house. Hmm, what kind of experimental small batches can I make with my new (and free!) mr. Beer?

Ordered ingredients for Andes Mint Chocolate stout.

Yellowirenut said:

Ordered ingredients for Andes Mint Chocolate stout.

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Nice, I brewed one of those a couple weeks ago. Have you brewed this before? If so how did you get the mint character in there? I'm having trouble getting much (if any) peppermint aroma in the gravity samples. I aroma steeped about .7 oz and now I am thinking I may dry mint with another .5 oz.

My payment for cutting up a tree for my mom

Wow, you're taking advantage of her pretty good, that's a nice haul.

Yellowirenut said:

Ordered ingredients for Andes Mint Chocolate stout.

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Oh man... I just did 11 gallons of milk stout last night (my winter/Holliday haul). I was planning on experimenting with some of it. One is to do an orange cream stout adding vanilla and orange tincture additions.

I've been wanting to do an Andes mint chocolate stout. I'm going to experiment with mint too.

nukebrewer said:

Nice, I brewed one of those a couple weeks ago. Have you brewed this before? If so how did you get the mint character in there? I'm having trouble getting much (if any) peppermint aroma in the gravity samples. I aroma steeped about .7 oz and now I am thinking I may dry mint with another .5 oz.

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I don't brew beer, but I've done mint stuff a couple of times. If you're still having trouble when you're getting ready to bottle add a couple drops of mint oil.

Leadgolem said:

I don't brew beer, but I've done mint stuff a couple of times. If you're still having trouble when you're getting ready to bottle add a couple drops of mint oil.

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Will do. Thanks for the tip. Is that something commonly found in the grocery store or do I need to go someplace else?

nukebrewer said:

Will do. Thanks for the tip. Is that something commonly found in the grocery store or do I need to go someplace else?

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Baking isle or natural foods isle.

Channel66 said:

Baking isle or natural foods isle.

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Cool, thanks.

Going to make 2 starters, 1 ale 1 lager right after this Saints game...

nukebrewer said:

Cool, thanks.

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No problem know that oil will destroy the head retention and you are better off with mint extract though. Also in the baking isle

nukebrewer said:

Nice, I brewed one of those a couple weeks ago. Have you brewed this before? If so how did you get the mint character in there? I'm having trouble getting much (if any) peppermint aroma in the gravity samples. I aroma steeped about .7 oz and now I am thinking I may dry mint with another .5 oz.

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First time brewing this recipe for me.... I read in the VERY long andy mint thread that some had good luck with mint in the boil and then dry mint in the fermenter.

Brewed a batch of Gingerbread Ale for my club's 12 Beers of Christmas

Channel66 said:

No problem know that oil will destroy the head retention and you are better off with mint extract though. Also in the baking isle

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Really? I did not know that. Then again, I didn't use it in beer.

Transferred my imperial stout to secondary. It's pretty intense right now. Hopefully a few months of me forgetting about it will mellow it out a little. Errr, a ton...

Bottled. Got another batch to bottle too. Ran out of steam today.

Brewed a Light Amber on friday and just on a whim tossed in a handful of Cheyenne peppers into the primary on Sunday. Yep I'm a Pepperhead and been wanting to infuse some heat into my beer..

Got on live chat with Midwest to see what happened to my order of last friday. Should be going out tonight finally. I'll bottle one of my two IPA's friday & get everything cleaned up to brew their PM Traditional Stout for another,improved batch of my Whiskely on Saturday.

Brewed a new porter recipe. Used four new to me specialty grains. Tossed my english mild into a keg. That used the same new to me specialty grains. The sample was smooth and tasty. I'm looking forward to trying it after it's carbed up. I'll get some objective feedback on these beers at beer for boobs.

1) bought supplies for my next brew, (and probably final one of the calendar year), another attempt at the cream of three crops ale.

2) bottled my scotch ale

3) drank a blond and a summer ale from Waterfront ...

Washed a case of bottles.