Pro brew day today!

[OpenSights]

For any semi new to brew brewers here, if you are good with the owner of your local brewery and have the chance to help out on brew day, do it!

Brickhaven, owned by two brothers and former members of my club, one being a former president were nice enough to let me be in the way of their brew day. I had one job this morning, installing a hose bib in a crawl, not fun! So I got there after mash in. Of course I brought a few samples... my pre prohibition cream ale, skeeter pee and a small bottle of a joint venture of a braggot. I think my cream ale is horrible! Skeeter pee is too sweet and boozie, the braggot is awesome. They seemed to like all of them. Both the braggot and cream ale through them. The cream ale had less corn taste and an apricot flavor... which I think is why I don’t like it. The braggot is sweet and finishes like a dry red wine.

Tomorrow I’m installing two new 4” spread bar faucets for them and helping clean.

I have probably a dozen extracts, and three AG’s under my belt, two 150-200 gallon batches of homebrew under my belt, now, 3/4 of pro brew.

I want to build an AG system, but haven’t had much instruction and explanation of the process. Learning their system was easy! I’m hoping to help them out more in the future!

Comps, I get to use their mill whenever I want, work is barter. I charge $125/hr. They charge $5 a pint. Who’s the winner?

My situation is unique, but if you have the chance to be the “helper” and you pay attention you will learn a few things!

 

[OpenSights]

I tried their stout Saturday... usually I have their BIIPA, which is amazing. Anyhow, stout brew day is coming up sometime in the next couple of months and I asked if I could help (get in the way) again and buy 5 gallons of wort for my chocolate covered cherry stout. I have no doubt they’ll give me the recipe, and I want to see how my tincture works with their stout. They’re planning on splitting the batch in half to experiment with “limited” versions anyway. I’m hoping they like my tincture and incorporate it in their Christmas line up.

 

[VirginiaHops1]

The actual commercial process involving the equipment I don't really care about because I don't plan to open my own commercial brewery like ever but I would love to shadow some of the heavy hitters in my area, mainly to glean whatever info I could on their other brewing processes like recipe formulation, water, mashing temps/techniques, hopping, etc

 

[OpenSights]

The actual commercial process involving the equipment I don't really care about because I don't plan to open my own commercial brewery like ever but I would love to shadow some of the heavy hitters in my area, mainly to glean whatever info I could on their other brewing processes like recipe formulation, water, mashing temps/techniques, hopping, etc

These guys are small, they brew 250ish gallons every other Monday, along with wine and cider, but those are kits for consistency.

The equipment really isn’t much different than what we use other than larger but the same size as my club’s firebrew set up minus the fermenter. My club is limited to about 200 gallons of wort at a time.