What I did for beer today

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Oh what I did for Beer today well I got to hang with one of my best friends and drink great craft beer. Sucks when a brew buddy and best friend moves then has a kid. Don't mean to bring it down but call your people if you can. Cause missing them sucks.
 
Thanksgiving is done, guests have departed with full tummies, the kitchen and smoker are all cleaned up and put away, SWMBO is in a KTFO food coma so, of course, now that everything is done, I set up the brewing rig for my brew first thing tomorrow morning. Doing and ESB. Can hardly wait!
 
Picked up 6 mr.beer refill kits at sears. Thats 24 gallons of beer for me

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Got a Colonna capper corker ordered with two books, farmhouse ales and barleywine. Just in time too, brewing a westy 8 clone in a couple weeks
 
I researched yeast choices for my mild, further contemplated a switch to RO water, and took a loom at my calendar to figure out when I can brew next month. It turns out that, with a 4 month old, I can only brew on weekends when neither my wife or I work and we have no other plans, leaving me with a day to brew and a day to be productive. Those weekends are few and far between.
 
I helped a new brewer with his first beer and "walked" him through his first extract ipa. I also eased another new brewers fears of the dreaded airlock is not bubbling after three days does that mean its not fermenting deal. Finally I measured out all my grain for tommorows brew day a winter warmer.
 
Yeast Starter today. First all-grain brew tomorrow w my fiancé assisting for the first time. Making a beer she can drink as a compromise. Apricot Blonde coming up :)
 
Cold crashed my yeast starter for tomorrow's brew session--the WH Honey Ale.

Racked my spiced Christmas Ale to secondary--the spices were quite a bit stronger than I was expecting, I might be forced to brew another dark ale and blend it...
 
Rearranged the brewery area in the basement cuz I needed more room :D... Bottled my first all grain Porter... Tested the new bottle rack (DIY thread to come in a few weeks...)
 
Read my Auber PID controller manual so I hopefully don't fry two in a row. Electricity is dumb. Couldn't have been me.
 
Bought a blichmann floor burner with leg extensions, some dme for starters, a few blichmann quick connectors for my therminator, a barb fitting today, and ordered a 20 gallon blichmann boilermaker kettle last night
 
Bottled my Back to School Porter. It is a robust porter, dry-hopped with UK Kent Goldings. I came up with the recipe on my first day of classes as a grad student. The gravity sample tasted great. I'm looking forward to cracking open a few after I'm done with finals.
 
Passed out yesterday without posting, so here's what my day was yesterday. Bottled the farmhouse cider, and while waiting for it to carb up in the bottles I threw on the 'second thanksgiving' turkey on the smoker. Then hit the LHBS to enter their Black Friday giveaways drawings. Popped the cider into the dishwasher to pasteurize and we ate like kings while drinking stellar brews. Then I brewed an American IPA with my dad and brother in law (special moment, first time to brew with my pops). Cleaned up, drank another beer and passed the heck out.
 
Continued coldcrashing a CDA by adding more ice to the BK being used to hold the carboy. Large kettles are versatile. Boil the wort, set the FV in them for overflow, coldcrash with ice. If they are gonna sit on a shelf, may as well be useful.
 
Lot's of free time in the fall/winter, so most of my days revolve around what I'll do for beer. Today has been and will continue to be pretty productive day though. Bottled my Spiced Christmas Ale, cleaned up it's bucket and the bottling bucket really well. Then I organized my bottles and brew gear, probably the best I have yet. Then I cleaned up the laundry room without prompting, hoping to build up some good will equity with SWMBO so I can do more beer things. After supper I will bottle a Cooper's IPA that I hopped up with some EKG and Fuggles. Then I'm going to put on a Cooper's Bitter and maybe another Cooper's IPA. Building up my pipeline for the holidays! My other "what I did for beer today" task is going to be emptying some bottles!!:rockin:
 
Bottled my final pipeline batch this morning. It was a Cream Ale and the whole time I was bottling the awesome smell was making me crave a bottle immediately! So now I have 6 cases of homebrew bottle conditioning which will be ready to drink in 2-3 weeks. Also, an acquaintance at work knew I've just gotten into brewing and dropped a once used wine making kit on my doorstep today. It came with a 6.5 gal fermenting bucket and a 5 gal glass carboy along with another hydrometer, bottling wand, airlock, and siphon. Now with 3 primaries and 2 secondaries, I can really stoke my pipeline!
 
Bought Mrs. a Dunkleweizen kit and myself another fermenting bucket, airlocks and dried elderberries for wine.
PS - Took a gallon of WPGA to Daytona Beach to enjoy while checking out all the cool cars at the annual Turkey Run (hot rod car show).
Both very good events :)
 
Bottled a Mild, bottled an APA, put a Scotch Ale onto oak in secondary, put a Cal Common into secondary, and washing out yeast from the APA for tomorrow's Black IPA.
 
Installed Bobby M's weldless sight glass kits into my HLT and BK and I'll be calibrating them tomorrow. If I'm lucky, I'll even have some time to brew.
 
Just took a gravity reading of my IIPA. Damn, its hoppy. I'm loving it and can't wait for it to finish
 
Yesterday I de-labeled about a dozen bombers, moved primary to another room, uping the temp a couple of degrees and took a california common to a party. Also, rode my bicycle 30 miles so i could drink the home-brew with less guilt.
 
thisoneguy said:
Installed Bobby M's weldless sight glass kits into my HLT and BK and I'll be calibrating them tomorrow. If I'm lucky, I'll even have some time to brew.

Changed my plan... I didn't calibrate the sight glasses. I ended up building a collar and a rolling platform/dolly for my new chest freezer ferm chamber. This week I'll hook up my 2 stage Ranco, set up a lamp as a heat source, and calibrate the sight glasses so I can plan a brew day for NEXT weekend. : rockin:
 
Fired up my blichmann burner for the first time...3ft orange flames before i changed the vent and got it to a gorgeous steady blue flame
 
Brewed my White House Honey Ale AG along with my 82 yr.-old grandma, who's out visiting from CA. She was telling me about how her and my grandpa would brew back in the 50's and invite the whole neighborhood over for block parties. Sounds like my kind of folks!

Checked my cider, still has about 35 gravity points to go before bottling.

Getting ready to bottle my spiced Christmas ale.
 
I ordered a new 44 qrt stock pot. I plan to add a valve and thermometer. I also added a Bayou burner with my stock pot. Getting things together to move to all grain batches.
 
Cleaned up a bunch of bottles from holiday drinking sessions. Planning another pm pale for this weekend. Gotta make a list of grains with prices from midwest (who I usually buy from) for when I got to JW Dver to compare prices. I'd love to save the $11.41 shipping on the next batch. Then maybe I can brew up a spicy English bitter a the same time. Haven't done a double brew in a while...:tank:
 
Wrapped up my Saison in a blanket to keep her above 70 as the temps drop. Is that what the pros mean by "jacketed fermenter"?

Checked on the Patersbier in my fermenting fridge to find a nice thick krausen. Life is good!
 
Checked on the two batches I've got happily fermenting away in the man-cave closet. Both doing well at 64*
 
deseeded a lot of pomegranates. now i'm trying to figure out the best way of using them...
 
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