Confession Time

Lowzyness?

 

Yikes. Corrected.

 

Big buildings, lots of doors, staff eat lots of snacks = lots of mice.

 

Based on this, you COULD be working at disney land, and have mickey mice all over.


My confession: I'm considering infecting a batch or two and leaving them on top of my good stuff.

That'll teach them mooches to take without permission.

 

i brew outside in flip flops because its freaking hot in AZ this time of year

 

My wife was Mickey Mouse in Anaheim for a few years, she is still afraid of mouse traps.

 

Sometimes I get up very early to brew (less time to do it with family), I still enjoy handcrafted ales while brewing. It doesn't make me a bad person.

 

Mickey is a GIRL?!?!
who knew that Disney was so progressive when it comes to transgender individuals and same sex relationships!

Hey, it's noon somewhere.....

 

Hilarious

 

One time I had to step away for a short while the wort was chilling. I came back to find both my dogs drinking out of the brew pot. Beer turned out fine.

 

Went to the market to grab some carnation malted milk powder for a whopper stout. They were short so I subbed in a can of ovaltine.

 

I drove to the mexican restaurant in the middle of the boil.... with the garage door wide open.... mid boil....

I told my wife the fire extinguisher is next to the door.... I'll be back in a half hour.

 

I have definitely left mid boil, both while using an electric stove and a has burner. Normally to go get ice or food.

 

Brewed an black IPA... Don't really like it. Missed my OG. Too sweet. Not carbonated enough. Added some lemon juice and, it's drinkable after all ;-)

 

but i had a turkey burner on a wooden brew stand. meh. all-grain number 48. i can be trusted, right?

 

I made a batch of beer without sanitizing anything, for two reasons:
1. To see what would happen
2. If it tastes like crap, it sits on top of my other beers to punish those who take without asking.

 

I brewed Fuzzymittens Hi-Nelson Saison on Friday. It was a comedy of errors until mash in, then after the boil I realized that I forgot to rehydrate the yeast so I just threw it in. Then about half an hour later I found the sugar that I forgot to add. No wonder my starting gravity was low. Guess what? I sprinkled it straight into the fermenter. Fermentation should mix it in. It was going gangbusters in less than 4 hours. Take that proper brewing procedures.

 

Oddly enough...it does not taste like crap.

 

Some wild yeasts may ferment very slowly and take weeks, maybe months before causing any noticeable difference, either positive or negative. I would be very careful around the bottles, especially if they're not kept refrigerated. You definitely don't want to meet a bottle bomb up close and personal.

 

My bottles are plastic pepsi bottles. So if they do explode, there shouldn't be any shrapnel

Glass bottles being hard to come by here.

 

I removed a camlock without closing a valve and took a 2qt shot of 170 degree water straight to my crotch.



Twice.



Two different days.



PID controlled, 170 degree sparge water.



Straight to the dick. (with pants)

 

Fool you once, shame on you... fool you twice...



Seriously though, ouch, man.

 

Does it still work?

 

HAH! Yes
Thanks.

 

I would think so, camlocks are tough.

 

^ I see what you did there haha

 

Lucky you wear pants while brewing!

 

Lucky I WAS wearing pants.

Second confession?

 

I havnt cleaned my gear since my oast brew day. I really need to do that.

Im not going to confess how long ago it was so dont even go there.

 

Is your wife/significant other fond of beer brats?

 

a

 

I was going to make a Darwin joke here but decided against it...

 

I usually wash with hot water only, especially everything pre-boil.

I'm not that hardcore, but I have a pretty advanced ghetto brew setup. I try to spend the money on things that help the most and skimp where it doesn't matter. I have a bottling bucket mash tun with a cpvc manifold, another bottling bucket for HLT, stir plates made from fans in a computer I found on the side of the road, tons of buckets from the bakery, a water bottle secondary, etc. I have bought stir bars, a direct oxygen set-up (on sale with $5 oxygen bottles), and an STC-1000 to run a ghetto version of SOF.

I try to get some beer through really quickly. Most recently was a saison with Belle yeast that I left out in the hot weather so it'd ferment faster. I think most of the carbonation happens by the end of week 1, so it's already drinkable but gets a little more fizzy over then next week or so (given you're conditioning at a warm temp). I left said saison in boxes (no light) in the sun to carb faster.

+1 for bucket-tun. I don't use airlocks much either.

I soak in bleach-water and rinse. It works better than brushes which seem to leave some areas on the bottom untouched. I'm not sure if it saves any time because I'm so anal about rinsing the bleach, though.

I've done this in a dingy basement. It's all getting boiled anyway.

I may have to try this. In the past I've run hot water through my IC before adding to the boil to mitigate the effect.

This is why I stay home and drink HB. It's also why I seldom drink commercial beer.

That seems like overkill! Do you split hop pellets to get it right? My scale goes to the nearest gram.

I use beer glasses but concur on the first point. I'd love a separate beer fridge at 45*F, and I'd still sit some bottles out to warm before popping them. Since I hope to keg some day I wonder if that sort of serving temp would lead to foamy pours...

this

GO TO NARNIA!

That isn't what everyone does? I always look up a few good recipes, adjust to what I have on hand (especially subbing hops), and sometimes adjust for my own taste.

I have used some really old hops and BMW brew kits.

Same here. No way I'm paying someone to drink the beer I worked so hard on after I pay to ship it. I love feedback from fellow brewers and beer enthusiasts, though. I like sharing, too, but I don't make a lot to cater to what others like.

I used to walk the streets early on recycling day to build my bottle collection. The best was the first recycling day after New Year's. I grabbed a back-pack and walked around snagging a few dozen champagne bottles and even scored a magnum!

I did something similar with a Tripel. I missed my mash-out and either took a long time to boil another infusion or just started sparging and it dried out way too much and wasn't very good at all. Some styles are more forgiving than others. Lots of hops or roast malt can cover a multitude of errors.

I had something awy worse happen. I was using a lid sans airlock (see above) and I grabbed the wrong one (different bakery buckets; see above) and flies got in and the whole krausen ring was crawling with maggots. The beer was about vinegar by then so I dumped it. I wish I'd just kept it for malt vinegar.

I went to college without doing any of the above.

You must have a good job, too!

See the link in my sig about pipe-line diversity. I feel the same way and won't brew a lot of styles because I don't want a ton of it on hand. A good hefe or witbier are nice now and again, but I get board with them so I don't brew them.

Where do you guys live?! I need your help when I switch to kegging.

That's glorious. Is tobacco illegal or taxed to death there?

I did about the same thing when I moved. I brought most of my bombers, pints, quarts, and 750mls, though.

I did 40 gallons for a friend's wedding. A good bit was cider, though. I did one two-batch brew day (pils and tripel) and then two 3-batch brew days. My friend helped a lot, including clean-up and bottling. He also bought me a Colona capper/corker, which made bottling easier.

That's just smart. I almost always do that to get the last 10 degrees or so when my IC slows down.

I don't have time or money to brew that much, but the diversity link in my sig may help you out a bit.

Original confessions:

-I bought a direct oxygen set-up to use only on high-gravity beers (cheapskate), but now I use it on everything because I'm too lazy to listen to Taylor Swift's advice.

-I wash yeast, but I keep it around forever before re-using. Up until recently my starters were pretty much always 1/4 or 1/3 cup DME per quart regardless of gravity or age of yeast sample

-I quit buying commercial beer when I started homebrewing (cheapskate). I don't get much valuable feedback on my brewing, so I don't know if my skills have improved or my tastes have declined.

-I read this thread over the last few days and multi-quoted every post I missed by not reading this thread earlier.

 

Epic multi quote.

 

I am wanting to know if the standard plastic faucet on the bottling buckets is safe enough to handle wort at 155 F. If it is then I think using a bottling bucket with a voile cloth liner can make a good introductory ghetto mashtun.

 

Seriously!

 

It... it was just a joke...

 

Uh...did you not read my dissertation-length multi-quote? I do it. I have a manifold in mine now, but started out with a paint strainer bag when I switched from BIAB. Also, I have gone up to 180 with mash-out/sparge.

 

I have seen a variety of style of plastic faucets on bottling buckets and didn't know if there was a special type of one that could be used for this project.

 

Mine is the red one like this: http://www.midwestsupplies.com/bottling-bucket-with-spigot.html

I use it on the MLT and HLT.