Awesome!
Ok, so some boring news. Today I cleaned 4x3 gallon kegs that I have had sitting - 3 for at least a month since I bottled, and 1 that kicked sometime in the fall. The Scrubmaster made quick work of them - then the real effort began.
I purchased 4 of these 3 gallon pin-locks when I got back into brewing, specifically to accommodate the Zymatic batch sizes. They were ~$40 each and then I had to convert them to Ball Lock. Then I got another 6 when AIH were selling "loose handle kegs" - this time, they were $30/each, still requiring the conversions. For the first round of kegs, I had purchased the 19/32" posts that AIH sells for $10 based on their advice. They kinda worked. When I got the follow on kegs, I purchased 6 sets of the same posts, but ended up exchanging 3 sets for 9/16" posts - still couldn't get all of my kegs to cooperate (hold pressure, not leak, etc) but they were mixed and matched an I was frustrated so I kind of let it go. Some are Cornelius, some are Firestone, some unlabeled...
So today when I had 8 out of the 10 kegs clean (4 without fittings), and knew that some 2 out of 3 I knew were fitted with the 9/16", I decided to figure it out. I went through a process of elimination to figure out which of the 1 out of the 3 didn't have 9/16", then fitted the other kegs.
Those of you who are smarter than me probably know this already: Firestone are 9/16"-18, Cornelius are 19/32"-18. Unlabeled kegs? Well the Firestone style have a dip-tube that is straight down, and the Corny style have the curved dip-tube - this yields bottoms that look different!
Left (Firestone), Right (Cornelius)
Mystery solved, just need to order 3 more 9/16" fittings. And I have enough clean kegs on hand to keg my Belgian Dubbel, Grapefruit IPA, and APA!
Next - late in the season but I need a stout in my life - so I decided to hit the LHBS. To be completely honest, I'm not very good at supporting my LHBS - I'm cheap and prefer to buy bulk base malts and hops, plus its a half an hour away from home in the wrong direction from work and frankly, the owner is a bit of a *****enozzle.
Anyway, I'm making this:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=100740 since I can pull some Nottingham from underneath the APA I made last weekend, so I picked up some Malted Barley and Roasted Barley and EKG hops.
I did take advantage of my trip up there to get a deal on yeast - my favorite thing about this shop is that they mark the expired yeast down to $1-2/vial for White Labs. Everywhere else I know only cut the price in half. Last time I was there I got 2xWLP 545 (Belgian Strong Ale) and 2xWLP 570 for $2/each, some over a year old, and I was able to do stepped up starters and get them working great.
So this time, at $1/ea, I grabbed:
- 2x WLP 570 Golden Strong Ale (again, since I wasn't able to recover as much as I wanted)
- 3X WLP 530 Abbey Ale Yeast
- 2x WLP 500 Monestary Ale Yeast
- 1x WLP 013 London Ale Yeast
Oldest one expired in March last year, but the rest are 7 months or less out - so I should be in good shape!
All in all, I left there very happy. Planning on brewing tomorrow when we're hunkered down in the cold!