My Contribution to Big Brew Day - 35 Gallons

[culaslucas]

For Big Brew Day, SWMBO & I decided to get a little crazy. We did our first back to back to back brew day and ended up with 35 Gallons of potentially deliciousness.

Finishing Boil for SS Minnow (Mild) & just about to sparge Du Mont Saison


SWMBO making the big Apfelwein batch...


Lotta bottles...when this ferments out, we'll transfer 5G to 3 different carboys and rack them onto some fruit - I'm thinking Peaches in one, Cherries in another and maybe some sort of spices for the third.


I'm running out of room in my closet:

 

[spitfire]

Dang that is one big batch of Apfelwein! How long will you let it sit on the fruit? Once it is done with the fruit is there anything you will do to it at that point or will you just rack it into cornies?

 

[culaslucas]

I'm not sure how long we'll leave it on the fruit - until it tastes good I guess. After that we'll rack it to the cornies and let it age for a while. There's a big cider competition in September that I'm looking to enter all of these into.

 

[OMJ]

To ferment in that sanke did you just remove the top of the sanke and stick a stopper in there? If so what size stopper is that. I have an extra sanke sitting around and no need for another keggle but I could always use a 15 gallon fermenter

 

[springer]

To ferment in that sanke did you just remove the top of the sanke and stick a stopper in there? If so what size stopper is that. I have an extra sanke sitting around and no need for another keggle but I could always use a 15 gallon fermenter

I used a #10 stopper with the Sanke keg but I will go up to a larger one as it can sit real low in the opening

 

[SeamusMac]

Might I ask what your cleaning procedure for the sanke is?

 

[culaslucas]

Oh sorry, I didn't see this until now. So for cleaning that bad boy, I soaked it in HOT PBW overnight, drained then shook the hell out of it 1/4 full with PBW, drained, sprayed the interior with a garden hose as much as I could a few times. Then filled 1/4 with StarSan, shook the hell out of it and drained.

Cleaning is the worst part of cleaning a Sanke - there's just no way to look inside to make sure you got everything. I'm confident that the cleaning procedure above got everything. Time will tell after I rack off this Apfelwein soon....

 

[springer]

what I do to clean the sanke is oxiclean with 2-3 gallons of hot water. Slosh it around let it sit for a few hours then put the spear back in and turn upside down and let it sit again.rinse a few times than boil 2 gallons of water in it for 30 minutes with a lid the whole keg gets real hot . Rinse again then starsan prior to filling for fementation.


I also have a borescope not Ridget brand but similar very handy to have the are under 200 now I paid 300 for mine from Matco

 

[Beau815]

I see the cornies in closet. can you use them to primary? I have 2 sitting here and dont know what ill do with em for at least a year or so until i have money to keg... like a co2 tank and a cooler to keep it cold.

 

[culaslucas]

UPDATE Okay so I FINALLY got my peaches in - how much fresh peach should I put in my 5G batch of apfelwein? Should I use the skin? Puree or sliced? If I do sliced, I'm going to freeze them before adding to pop open those cells.

How long should I leave it on the fruit?

Thanks!

EDIT: oops - forgot I asked this question a while ago: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/how-much-fresh-peach-apfelwein-118679/

 

[mew]

Nice SWMBO, BTW.