What I did for beer today

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My Modelo clone a few months old now and really hits the spot.
 
Upgraded the table at my brew station to a desk, office got new furniture, I run the maintenance department, scored a desk now I have ORGANIZED ingredients, brewing tools and small parts storage...and my grain bill for BJCP 21b Christmas special beer came today.. brew day Saturday.
 

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Racked the NEPA to keg. Set to 30@30 and will wait 3 days before testing.

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Finally got around to cleaning the keg/fermenter for this brew. Man..what a pain.

It smelled so damn good though! Stuck my face into the opening a couple of times inhaling wonderful goodness lamenting that it was going into the vermiposter. Hope the worms don’t mind…??
 
Finally got around to cleaning the keg/fermenter for this brew. Man..what a pain.

It smelled so damn good though! Stuck my face into the opening a couple of times inhaling wonderful goodness lamenting that it was going into the vermiposter. Hope the worms don’t mind…??
I did than once when cleaning a keg, it smelled so good when I removed the lid so I lean down and took a big whiff and burnt the crap out of nose from the CO2. OK maybe I did that more than once.
 
Bottled what I thought was a Bass clone that everyone here on HBT thought looked, recipe-wise, more like an ESB; whatever. Despite doing almost everything humanly possible to get in my own way during the cooling (dropped a sanitzed thermometer into the wort) and pitching (was in a hurry and dumped the yeast @ closer to high 70s instead of high 60s that Nottingham likes), the last week's British-style weather favored my efforts, and from the sample I tasted, I think it's going to be OK. Could it have been better;definitely. But I'm happy that it's not looking like the dumper I expected this morning.
 
Put the Hobyob Ale to bed in bottles today. Now comes the hardest part...




"The waiting is the hardest part
Every day you get one more yard
You take it on faith, you take it to the heart
The waiting is the hardest part
"

I know he's not talking about homebrewing here, but damn if the chorus don't fit.
 
1st brewday in a while. Pale Ale with MO and all homegrown hops: Cascade, Old Mission, Chinook, Comet, NeoMex/Medusa, Saaz. Should be a hot mess, but at least it's my hot mess. Trying out the RoboBrew as a Mash Tun alternative. Efficiency dropped a lot (-12%), going to have to figure out how to recirculate for higher efficiency, not less. No more bag squeezing, so also have less wort in the boil kettle. Added some LDME to bump it to the 4.5% level. But the wort is CRYSTAL! Damn, I have never had wort that clear before!
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Spent a lot of downtime cleaning, organizing, and throwing away stuff in the brewery space. Next time will be better and easier!
 
I put off my brew day this Thursday and will do it next week instead.

I tend to brew during the week, I take a 1/2 day off and time it with days that my wife is going into the office. I had planned for this Thursday, exactly 3 weeks after my last brew day, when I made a stout with Denny's 1450 yeast. And, it's.... well, it's not done yet. Still making some bubbles on the surface and out the airlock. Nothing's wrong, it's just not done.

So I delayed my ESB brew from this week to next week.

I suppose people get it, it's actually VERY hard for me to do this, to be patient (WTH is this patience thing?), and not brew that next one yet!!! But, I am going to do it.
 
It has been a brew-centric weekend Friday milling grain and other preparations, Saturday milled more grain and mashed in twice. Sunday first batch went into a fermentor, second batch into the kettle.

Attend HBCs meet up for Oktoberfest. 🍻 Prost!

Home again start cleaning, and the boil on the second batch, add the bittering hops (for our meme thread buddies) and resume cleaning.

Today is Monday - more cleaning, watch the airlock bubble on #1 move #2 into a fermentor and pitch. Calgon take me away.
 
Brew day today!

"Kitchen Sink" IPA ... an attempt to clean out my freezer of hops and my fridge of yeast. This one has 6 types of hops (breaking my own "rule of 3"), and a blend of Chico and English yeasts. 12 hours post-pitch and we're rockin' . We'll see how it turns out.

Cheers.
 

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Checking the numbers, tasting by the dropper full and sniffing airlocks. My first ever grape ale is tasting interesting and could be done- will move into secondary before the fruit causes problems. The stout is still chugging away. I pitched Voss into the porter and missed all the action over night it seems. It tastes like beer.
 
Work has been keeping me crazy busy lately (currently on day 10 in a row of 10-12 hour days) so haven't had much time to tinker in the brewery. Did a replacement cream ale last Saturday during work from home, other than that not much....until today. Got me a paint-stirrer that fits my drill, been contemplating adding my kettle hops commando for a while now. But since I use a plate chiller, didn't want it to get all clogged with hop goo. Paint stirrer created a nice glump of hop goo (I use pellets) at the bottom of the BK, which I further captured by turning my hop basket upside down over. Then drained the whole thing into my HLT with no screen to see how much hop matter got through. Very little, surprisingly. I have a nice hop spider that does great for bittering hops (yes some people use them meme generator thread), but I don't think I get the utilization I could be getting from the late additions with it. Planning a Mosaic Smash for the weekend to test the theory further.
 
Tasted the first bottle of Hobyob Amber, and I declare it a provisional success: one week in, it's carbonating well (with a slightly disappointing head), starts with a cereal presence, slightly sweet, with a malty middle and faintly floral, bitter finish. A fine bronze/copper color and great clarity make this one a drinker.
 
Brewed up a batch of lager yesterday, dry hopped the Mosaic Smash this morning, and getting ready to do the 2023 Oktoberfest Stein Dash 5k later today. Will be more of a 'mosey' than a 'dash' for me; running is for being chased by zombies. If I don't collapse on the course, afterwards is actual Oktoberfest at the Puyallup fairgrounds. Beer, food, oompapas, fun!
 
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