No brewing for about 3 weeks :-(

[Sparkncode]

Due to my trashed knee starting to get quite bad as the cortisone wares off I need to go easy on it as it barely copes with a weeks work at the moment :-(.
I'm not getting more cortisone until 22 June. Winter starting doesn't seem to agree with my knee either.

After last week at work my knee took till late sunday to start setting down with my doing very little. Luckilly monday is a public holiday here so i get an extra day to rest.

At least I got a brew in last weekend despite my knee. The porter. I tested a sample today and its at 10.012 so looking good and tastes ok. Its maybe a little low on bitterness but im sure the carbonic bite will balance it out.
Its at 7 days in the fermenter but i think its good enough to keg and I want it carbed in a week. It is only 4.5% so my lowest ABV all grain brew ever. Im slowly tuning in my beersmith profile and are getting pretty confident with it now. The tripel needed some extra dextrose adding which was ok for the style but I sorted out that issue. I had somehow changed from 85% power boils to 80% ao my boiloff rate was now wrong. Insufficient notes and a significant time off brewing due to town water issues didnt help.

Oh well I think I have sufficient beer in the pipeline...
19L if porter to keg tomorrow
5L of nelson sauvimn smash
10L of MJ Luckey Goat (extract)
3L milk chocolate stout.
About 60 x 330ml bottles of my Buggered knee tripel @9.5%

Problem is when i arn't up for brewing i start reading about new styles to try.

A wee heavy is on the cards as I have some liquid yeast ordered for that and now I have been reading about kettle souring so a berliner weisse is on the todo list as well although that might be a we way out.
Also looking at doing a barley wine of some sort. I should do another stout as we are in winter now although i should have done it sooner so it could age a little.

The berliner might get brewed in spring I guess.

My knee is annoying so i get about 2 months of brewing like crazy then a month of very little before more cortisone. My knee isnt bad enough for them to replace yet but it sure does piss me off some times.

I'm slowly adding to my all grain styles brewed
Pale ale
Milk stout
Porter
Belgian tripel

 

[Kent88]

Sorry to hear about your knee. I hope you and your doctors find some way of improving your situation.

Due to moving and looking for a new house I am not brewing as much as I would like to right now.

Part of it is I don't want to start a lambic that ages 2 years when I know that I want to buy a house this summer. Having to move a full carboy doesn't appeal to me. The other issue is I don't don't have many friends in the area yet, so I don't have many people to share with, so I have lots of beer in the pipeline as well.

 

[chawn]

I've only brewed twice in the past year. A new job gives me very little free time. God, I miss good beer.

 

[Sparkncode]

I've only brewed twice in the past year. A new job gives me very little free time. God, I miss good beer.

That sucks free time is neccessary.
I enjoy spending a saturday doing an all grain batch when my knee cooperates. Really good to switch my mind off the software I write at work during the week. Something completely unrelated to what i do at work that gives me good beer.

Hopefully you can find some time to brew again soon

 

[Sparkncode]

Got the cortisone injected in my knee on friday. I really don't like the needles but it does help. Friday morning it was good due to the local ansthetic but its taken a few days to start working and still improving. Weirdly saturday and sunday my knee has been more clickey so i guess some inflamation that built up over the last month is being delt to.

I now have a lot of home renovation stuff to organise now the bank has given me access to 35k. It seamed way to easy to get but the property prices round here took my place from 250kNZD to 416k over about 3 years (crazy) (1Nzd arround 0.7USD ) so my equity in the house is much higher. Like now over 50% even with the added 35k.
A good thing is higher equity and the bank drops the interest rate a little bit too. All said and done after fixing half of the mortgage for 2 years and the other changes my minimum payment is now less dispite the extra 35k.

I'm hoping I can squeeze in a brew in the next few weeks. I have a motueka pale ale cold crashing now so one evening I will clean a keg and get that carbonating. Its actually an accidental big batch due to a slipup involving too much pale malt so i need to clean a 2.5g keg as well as a 19L/5g one. I suspect my knee might take a few more days to settle so got to take it easy until it does .

organising things for the reno takes priority. I have to clear out a large part of my lounge as I'm replacing a 3.6m ranch slider with double glazed bifold doors and removing an old door. Add to the getting quotes etc an upgrade to hot water cylinder to mains preassure and some electrical work and insulation etc its going to be a busy few months but i do need to brew to enusre there is beer for my dad who is helping me. Probably not expirimental brews but ones to keep the pipeline flowing.

 

[kh54s10]

Good luck with the reno, the knee and hope that you don't have a real estate crash like the had here in the US. Tons of people suddenly found their house was worth far less than the mortgage they were paying.

 

[Sparkncode]

Good luck with the reno, the knee and hope that you don't have a real estate crash like the had here in the US. Tons of people suddenly found their house was worth far less than the mortgage they were paying.

Thanks, yep a crash is always a concern as house prices are pretty high compared to incomes at the moment here but i have enough margin i should be fine. My house value didn't change in the previous 7 years, just the last 3. I brought a year before the previous peak but wait long enough and it went up, more than i would have expected though.

 

[kh54s10]

Thanks, yep a crash is always a concern as house prices are pretty high compared to incomes at the moment here but i have enough margin i should be fine. My house value didn't change in the previous 7 years, just the last 3. I brought a year before the previous peak but wait long enough and it went up, more than i would have expected though.

I bought my house almost 10 years before the bubble burst so the value of my house went way high then after the crash was still worth well more than I bought it for. The housing market had improved enough by the time I sold last November that I got almost the same as at the peak, before the crash. I did well.