Been brewing for around 10 years now. Started with one extract batch of Paulaner hefeweizen clone and was hooked after watching an episode of Good Eats where he brewed beer.
Didn't really stop brewing just been on a hiatus. Busy really. Brewed up an oaked whiskey imperial stout after visiting Asheville, NC and brew pub hopping and getting reinspired to brew. That was a couple months ago. The wife and I have taken on a liking for the darker beers now and are chasing down some specific flavors. I decided I had to up my game a notch or two.
Bought a pressure canner to do wort starters. If you have never done this, do it. OMG. Don't even think about it. Just do it. Makes yeast growing a pleasure. I HATE boiling DME and cooling it. It sucks. We all know it.
If you are doing stouts, you gotta have nitro, right? I was thinking the same thing too. Bought a tank, regulator and all the doo dads to make it happen. Installed the bulkheads to locate the tanks outside. That made room for one more keg in the fridge, meaning one more tap, right? Nitro? Well, I am sticking with three external taps for now and then a picnic faucet in the keg for the fourth until Christmas. That will be my Christmas present is a nice new faucet, SS shank and the associated pieces. Speaking of shanks, swapped the cruddy plated ones with stainless and upgraded to MFL's and bought more beer line and properly sized the lines to match the pressure. Speaking of pressure, took another CO2 gauge I had here and attached it to the body of the other one with a fitting and now can have two different CO2 pressures at the same time from one tank instead of two. Very nice.
Then I decided to make my immersion chiller into a counterflow chiller. Did it for right at $50 total for a 35ft counterflow chiller. Not bad considering I already had copper lines.
All that on top of brewing five batches of beer since March, two in the last three weeks. To make room for that kind of brew, I had to make a cabinet fermentation chamber. It can hold up to 5 corny's or three full size carboys. Neighbor gave me an old freezer, I making myself a workbench already so I had the wood on hand from the old workbench that I used. Put it all together using the foam insulation from the fermentation chamber I made that used ice blocks to keep it cool. It cost me nothing really, a $30 temp controller from Amazon and $12 small personal heater for winter. Had the fans and all that already. Put that together and it has been awesome. Gave me more workbench space too!
Oh yeah, I started banking my yeast too. Had most of what I needed on hand, just picked up some tubes from eBay and using the new pressure canner, had a way to sterilize them. Sweet!
It's good to be back!
Didn't really stop brewing just been on a hiatus. Busy really. Brewed up an oaked whiskey imperial stout after visiting Asheville, NC and brew pub hopping and getting reinspired to brew. That was a couple months ago. The wife and I have taken on a liking for the darker beers now and are chasing down some specific flavors. I decided I had to up my game a notch or two.
Bought a pressure canner to do wort starters. If you have never done this, do it. OMG. Don't even think about it. Just do it. Makes yeast growing a pleasure. I HATE boiling DME and cooling it. It sucks. We all know it.
If you are doing stouts, you gotta have nitro, right? I was thinking the same thing too. Bought a tank, regulator and all the doo dads to make it happen. Installed the bulkheads to locate the tanks outside. That made room for one more keg in the fridge, meaning one more tap, right? Nitro? Well, I am sticking with three external taps for now and then a picnic faucet in the keg for the fourth until Christmas. That will be my Christmas present is a nice new faucet, SS shank and the associated pieces. Speaking of shanks, swapped the cruddy plated ones with stainless and upgraded to MFL's and bought more beer line and properly sized the lines to match the pressure. Speaking of pressure, took another CO2 gauge I had here and attached it to the body of the other one with a fitting and now can have two different CO2 pressures at the same time from one tank instead of two. Very nice.
Then I decided to make my immersion chiller into a counterflow chiller. Did it for right at $50 total for a 35ft counterflow chiller. Not bad considering I already had copper lines.
All that on top of brewing five batches of beer since March, two in the last three weeks. To make room for that kind of brew, I had to make a cabinet fermentation chamber. It can hold up to 5 corny's or three full size carboys. Neighbor gave me an old freezer, I making myself a workbench already so I had the wood on hand from the old workbench that I used. Put it all together using the foam insulation from the fermentation chamber I made that used ice blocks to keep it cool. It cost me nothing really, a $30 temp controller from Amazon and $12 small personal heater for winter. Had the fans and all that already. Put that together and it has been awesome. Gave me more workbench space too!
Oh yeah, I started banking my yeast too. Had most of what I needed on hand, just picked up some tubes from eBay and using the new pressure canner, had a way to sterilize them. Sweet!
It's good to be back!
