What I did for beer today

Did some routine cleaning around the treehouse today.

Ordered a pH meter off amazon. Someone on another forum (might be here, too, but I haevn't checked) posted a deal. Originally $50, but on sale for $8.18 with free shipping.

Spent a crap load of money on fittings and improved (I hope) my immersion chiller set up (including a separate copper coil and pump for an ice bath) Made 4 tap handles. Bought my 4th keg.

And had fun!

I think part of the fun of home brewing is just dialing in the set up and tinkering around on non brew days. It's funny how making beer has kept me out of bars!

It's interesting how, when the fermenters are full, that you look around the brewery & start thinking. I've rearranged things in here several times as things get added or subtracted. So you're not alone...

Cold crashed a BCS Amber to 50F in preparation for harvesting the yeast one last time before the deep cold crash.

Unplugged the drain line in the kegerator. Drain pan was all iced up and backed up and water all over the place. Had to remove the seven kegs I had in there and do a mop-up operation and then thaw the whole thing out. Seems to be draining fine now so hopefully that problem shouldn't happen again. PITA kegerator. Bought it used and it needed a LOT of f'ing work. If I had that to do over again I would have just bought new.

Completely disassembled the valves in my brewery for a super clean. Everything looked good with my normal process but I just wanted to play with my toys.

Dry hopped my First all grain brew. Mmmm hops!

Cleaned up some more in the brewery/man cave. Finally found a place to get a food-safe 2 gallon bucket for vinegar making. Can't wait to get that going.

Made a yeast starter for brew day tomorrow.

Racked my True Believer Double Red clone to secondary. Cleaned my primary carboys & transfer equipment.

Tidied up a bit around the brewery today. Saw my IIPA get past initial fermentation already. Modded a recipe for Paulaner hefeweizen clone a bit to add some motueka hops & devil's tongue peppers for my son. He's finally getting some peppers ripening. Ghostpepperstore.com has a sale on fresh carolina Reapers atm.

Cleaned a keg and put my Oktoberfest on tap

Brewed My Pumpkin today!

every night this week prepping to brew this weekend (I hope):
Monday night--Added DC pump control to panel, and sparge/RIMS recirc port to MLT
Tuesday night--Drilled BK (PITA) and added recirc port
Wednesday--get a Connector to finish DC pump control
Thursday night--Install connector to panel and wire up DC pump
Friday night--Prep for Sat. brew day
Saturday--Brew Day!
Sunday--Maybe another brew day! (obviously SWMBO is out of town this weekend)

Well, dang. I didn't notice the fact that none of the local Lowe's had the 2 gallon bucket & paint strainer bag I need for the malt vinegar. Had to order it just now. Won't be till Thursday-Monday now. Beer will be around three weeks in primary...

I printed out a grain bill for a Wee Heavy recipe to brew this weekend, and bought a few local microbrews to try.

Managed to repair the March pump I stupidly dropped...

I was watching fox8 news this morning, & they showed a new craft beer place built in the east bank of the flats in Cleveland. It'll open at 11AM & is called Beerhead bar & eatery. 400 bottled craft beers, 50 on tap! Looked interesting to check out...the flats is being totally revamped these days.

Kegged up my India Red Ale. If you dry hop, I highly recommend getting a "hop sock" from wilserbrewer to put over your siphon intake. I don't have to worry about chunks of hop material getting in the keg.

Got my 2 gallon bucket & 5 gallon fine-mesh strainer bags in. Now I can make sure the English bitter's stable & make some malt vinegar outta one gallon & bottle the remaining 5.

Had a few of my local guys over to the basement tap room outside the brewery. One friend is a distiller and walks in with a one gallon oak barrel with bourbon that had been aging for four months. So we tasted the five brews I had on tap and sampled his bourbon. At cask strength. Pretty damned tasty and wicked hot. Stevie Ray Vaughn on the box. Great little evening.

I'd have loved that! Sounds like a good evening. Checked my English bitter & got a 1.012. Should be done, but I'll check it tomorrow or Monday to see if it is. Can't wait to get the malt vinegar going.

Harvested the yeast from this 750ml bottle of La Fin Du Monde. A week from today, I'll be doing a tripel of my own.

BTW...If I can fit 750ml of Belgian tripel into ONE glass, it still only counts as ONE beer right?

I finally assembled my fermentation controller and got it running. I'm doing a burn in now and things seem to be working ok.

I included humidity control so I can use the chamber for cheese and curing meats.

replace my old ssrs, 5 years old in my control panel, then decided to rewire the box NEATLY this time, taking longer than I hoped lol

Tore my first keg apart to clean. Soaking in PBW now. Hope it gets rid of the pepsi smell

Rhumbline said:

I finally assembled my fermentation controller and got it running. I'm doing a burn in now and things seem to be working ok.

I included humidity control so I can use the chamber for cheese and curing meats.

Click to expand...

Can you provide details on humidity control?

MattyIce said:

Can you provide details on humidity control?

Click to expand...

Sure, I used a WH8040 Humidity Controller. It's the humidity version of the STC1000. Got mine on EBAY for not too much money.

It has a humidity sensor and temp sensor for correction. You can set it up to either control a humidifier or dehumidifier.

Wiring and programming are just as simple as the STC1000. You set a target humidity % and it will either trigger the dehumidifier when that threshold is exceeded, or the humidifier when it is not met, based on what mode you have it in. You cannot control both humidifier and dehumidifier simultaneously.

I have mine wired to a standard electrical outlet mounted in an enclosure. I've also got the STC1000 in there as well.

It was all very simple and I've probably got $65 or so in it.

Finally brewed after not brewing for a year.

Almost time to drop the IC into 5 gallons of Yoopers DFH 60 clone.

Brewed another URCA Vanilla Porter tonight after putting the carpet-munchers to bed. Gonna double the vanilla beans this time. Loved the stuff last go-round. Hit 1.057 of the recipe's stated 1.061. Close enough for me on my eBIAB single vessel system. Chill overnight and pitch the 1056 starter tomorrow AM while I sip coffee from my environment-killing landfill-fillin' Keurig.

Cooked a batch of raspberry harvest ale, then cleaned the labels off of a dozen or so empties. Getting ready for bottling day next weekend.

I opened at least ten bottles. If I could feel it, my wrist might hurt.

Brewing my annual turbid-mashed Lamebic.

Cleaned a keg that kicked & the line in my kegerator before tapping another keg.

Went to the lhbs to pick up some dme and yeast for an upcoming mexican lager im brewing for my pops. Needed three vials of wlp 940 they only had 2 so guy at the lhbs told me to make up for it with wlp 830 well see how it goes.

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Bottled 5 gallons of Strong Scotch Ale.

Had a friend over for a sour tasting. He normally drinks nothing but Bud Light and helped me move last month. When we were taking a break, I got out the Bud Light I'd bought as a thank you, and he asked to try the homebrew sour (Flanders Red) I had cracked. He loved it and called me the next day to say he couldn't stop thinking about it and wanted to know where he could get something like that, so I set up a tasting of several different attainable sours. He liked pretty much everything but especially the more sour/funky sour reds and browns.

Made it to cellar 3 yesterday for the first time, green flash's barrel aging and sour facility, that is just a few miles from my house... Tons of fun, SWMBO had a bit too much. Today is cleaning out a keg I got on Craig's list and kegging up my hoppy Belgian ale.

Brewed a 12g AG batch of PumKing clone w/ a brew buddy. Just put my carboys in my ale ferm chamber