Odd Situation

I have no kitchen right now. My sweet stout is ready for bottling, and I want to have it ready for the end of October.

I have no stove to boil water for my priming sugar. Options that I do have are my gas BBQ grill and my outdoor burner. Which route would you take?

To add to the situation, I don't have a kitchen sink to do my typical bottling process. I'd need to rinse either in the tub or in a Rubbermaid tub.

Ugh.

Boiling on the outdoor burner is fine. Use the Rubbermaid tub and sanitize it.

OOOH rustic brewing.....

If your BBQ is gas then I would use that to bring a saucepan of priming sugar to a boil.

SO what's the situation that has you kitchen and sink less????

Revvy said:

OOOH rustic brewing.....

If your BBQ is gas then I would use that to bring a saucepan of priming sugar to a boil.

SO what's the situation that has you kitchen and sink less????

Click to expand...

I'm hoping its a Thoreau return to nature Waldon pond situation!

Is there a microwave available? Would that work?

We're in the midst of a complete rehab of our kitchen/dining room. We've torn down all of the plaster off of the walls and ceilings. We've knocked out the wall between the two rooms. Our house only had one bathroom and it was on the second floor. So we've built a pantry and (very) small 1/2 bath as well.

Being a social worker, I don't have much A. Money and B. Technical Skills. So we did all of the demo ourselves. We saved a lot by doing so, and you don't need much skill to do demo other than to recognize what not to knock down or rip out.

Now, we have a pair of carpenters and a plumber who enjoy my beer (pretty sure that alone has saved us some cash and headaches). We also have two older short Italian electricians who I've named Mario and Luigi.

This past week, the elctricians did their thing, basically rewiring a good majority of the house while we have the walls open (the electric here is original to the house in 1930). The guys are fair, and allow us to do a payment plan of $100 a month.

This coming week, the carpenters come in to finish the walls, so we can begin painting and installing the cabinetry that I've had in my living room for the past 5 months. We're both ready to pop.

I'll be bottling tomorrow. It has to get done. I think I need to sanitize a pretty large area in the basement because there is settled dust from the renovation EVERYWHERE.

+1 on the microwave... that's what I use to dissolve sugar for priming. About a quart works well.

Good luck with the remodel; I just finished re-doing my kitchen last weekend. It's the primary reason I haven't been able to brew in months, I can't wait to get back on the horse.

So I decided to take on the bottling process this evening. It may be one of the most arduous bottling days in modern history. I had to do it without the use of a kitchen sink or a stove. I had to boil my priming sugar in the microwave and sanitize my bottles in a rubbermaid bin in the 2nd floor bathroom.

Because I don't have access to a kitchen, the bottling process had to take place in the basement. So while I usually have to just sanitize the surfaces and area in the kitchen, today was much more involved. I cleaned the bathroom from top to bottom first. I next cleaned up a lot of dust and debris in the basement from the recent work being done. I also cleaned and sanitized two rubbermaid bins in addition to all of my bottling equipment.

I had made a six gallon batch, and only had 52 delabeled bottles to work with. So I'm currently soaking 15 more bottles in an OxyClean solution to delabel them. I am going to finish up the bottling in about an hour.

I'm whooped!!

And of course you never thought of chronicalling this endeavor photographically did you?

Good luck buddy!

You know, Rev, I did think about it. Unfortunately, my third arm hasn't fully developed yet lol!! Besides, I think that some might poo poo the conditions I'm working with. For example, directly over my bottling bucket are huge holes (probably 5-6 inches in diameter) leading up to the first floor where some old pipes had gone up (before we removed them). At one point, I looked up and saw my cat, Guinness, peering down at me.

Well, I hope those bottles' labels are removable because I have to put an end to this...

Done. 678910

That's determination. Gutting your house, paying contractors with homebrew, and brewing without a kitchen. I think that's how the Belgian monks got started.

haha, all above is true except for "paying" in homebrew. We're definitely forking over the cash for the job. The homebrew just greases the wheels, and hopefully keeps the price low.

You should post back to this thread when the brew is done. Imagine it being amazing and wanting to do it again and having to duplicate the process! Hope that happens.

tough yes, out of the ordinary yes...but making beer come to fruition...YES!!!