Confession Time

I "once" used my brew pot to scald chicken's before plucking

 

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I admit I've been drinking this lately since my homebrew pipeline went dry... Even my bmc friends give me crap about it. But I say it's $21 spent wisely in a time of need

 

You are drinking motor oil? What is that 2w8?

 

Big Flats. 3 bucks a sixer. If it's frozen it tastes almost okay.

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Multiple turkeys have been fried in my brew pot... no issues here.

 

?

 

Ha! I bought a sixer of that last weekend for sh!ts and giggles when I went camping.

Sh!t tastes turrible as soon as it starts to warm up. Makes BMC taste good.

 

It's undrinkable at 35* or so.

Not too far in the past, I was working three jobs. Customer Service here, media team assistant at Church, and at the pizza joint I worked at as a teen. We had a terrible ice storm, and were the only non-chain open. The owners son showed up at closing with a flat of Big Flats in the bed of his truck, covered in sleet and snow. They were slushy. Best American Lager I ever had. Repeat visits have proven that to be a situational opinion.

 

I have spent WAY more on this hobby than my wife realizes.... (that felt good. Let's keep going....)

I have never used PBW on my brewing system (only on used kegs I just bought from questionable sources and wanted to remove stains). I gently 'wash' what I can reach with a plastic yellow and green scratch pad inside my boil kettle and trust the boiling process next time to sanitize anything else. During the boil, I circulate through a pump and my HERMS coil and back to the boil kettle to make sure those are also sanitized but I only use StarSan and IOstar on my fermenting containers.

I only use blow-off tubes. Airlocks are annoying.

I pretty much want beers to be as high-gravity as I can manage, and I don't care if they taste "hot" because I also love scotch neat.....scotch neat is also pretty 'hot' and yet it is delicious.

 

I hate all the sexism in homebrewing, implicit and explicit. I think the acronym "SWMBO" is demeaning to him, to her and to their partnership. I hate the gratuitous use of scantily clad women adorning various things homebrew related. I hate the needless mentions of woman as sex object or friction in our personal lives. I hate the fact that when I mention my wife I feel the need to point out that she's really cool with my brewing and I do it in a way that's also respectful of having time with her--as if that shouldnt' eb the default assumption. I hate the fact that Jamil begins podcasts with a joke about cajuns, (sort of) apologizes for being inconsiderate of his cajun audience (you know, less than 1% of the population), and then proceeds to make at least half a dozen extended jokes that should be offensive and alienating to women (you, half of it) without the slightest pause. In my opinion, this is to humor what Milwakee's Best is to beer: insipid lowest common demonmenator junk that everyone would be better off without.

Here's the confesion:

I'm too much of a coward to call people out for this ****.

(I'm not saying everyone does it, but those who do shouldn't get away with it so easily.)

 

I did something similar with a batch of wine. Had to go all the way to the bottom to fish something out. Being wine, I could not see so I had to feel around. a year later I was handing those bottles out as holiday gifts.

My wife thinks wine kits (ingredients) are $50, beer is $25. She also how no idea what I spend for a 12 pack of SN or high end IPAs. But I tell her it all evens out since I dont have to buy bottles for my brew.

She also thinks I have 1 homebrew a day. Truth is she sees me have 1 brew a day!

I have no idea what a blow off tube is,
but I have way more airlocks, buckets, carboys and random things than I will ever admit to!

 

I have no words.

When did people lose their sense of humor, and when did we start becoming so offended by everything?

Lordy.

 

I'm not going to pretend to agree with the rest of what you said, but honestly, does ANYONE find Jamil funny? I can't stand him or his podcasts. Not because I find him offensive, just unfunny and obnoxious.

 

I have no idea who Jamil is because I don't listen to podasts, but I do abhor sexism, which is basically everywhere.

SWMBO is not strictly a homebrew acronym, though. It's fairly commmon. It's also pretty harmless.

 

a few dozen turkeys, hundreds of chickens, several dozen pheasants and a couple dozen grouse have been scalded in my brew pot. (Actually, I brew in my scalding pot.) Maybe that is the "off"flavor I get every now and then. LoL. Nah, can't be....

 

"I'm getting a lot of gelatinized pheasant feather in this one."

 

I thought that pheasant feather was a great finning agent.

How can you have a 10 gallon pot just to brew in. My has seen duty not only for brewing and scalding, but salt potatoes and sweetcorn at BBQ's, several batches of boiled dinner large enough for the extended family, a couple pots of soup for church functions, and who knows what else.
:fro:

 

The "giant pot and best burner I can get" approval came from just that.

"Look, babe, I'll only be using it once a month for beer. We can fry in it, make enough chili for an army, my sister can make us tamales...tons of stuff."

In a year, I bet we'll never use it for food once.

 

This...is the best thread ever.

 

I just hugged my carboy full of beer.

I take solace in the fact that I'm not the first. And probably won't be the last.

 

Kirkland has light beer?? wth I have seen everything now. I bet their supplier is bergie. I can find a lot better things to spend $21 on. Im not sure I could ever even try that.. I get embarressed if I`m seen with a stella in my hand (it can happen in the summer)

 

I have used mine for shrimp boils, marinated a 9# pork butt to smoke it, chili. soups...and the list goes on.
But plucking chickens...that's just gross.

 

I think folks get way to hung up on the whole carboy size issue for a primary.

I think if more people used 8gal carboys for 5gal batches, there'd be less drama in the Beginner's forum.

With that mentioned, I use 5gal water cooler bottles as carboys for 3gal batches. I have been known to turn them back in (washed) in exchange for newer, clean bottles with fresh water. Costs me 5 bucks for water and a fresh, clean carboy.

 

I think if they all embraced the bucket, we would only have the "my airlock is doing nothing is my beer ruined" threads because they failed to seal the lid. Much easier that finding, and affording, 8-gallon carboys.

Another personal confession, I still use properly diluted bleach for many sanitizing activities. I love Star San but bleach has its place and lordy is it cheap.

 

This happened last night.

I had to jerry rig my chiller with a pump that I had since it's too cold to use my hose spigot. I ran out of ice and was dumping dirty snow in the bucket when the tubing popped off and shot about half a glass worth of dirty assed snow water into the wort.

It'll be fine...right???

 

Yup had that "problem" dang what am I going to do with all this beer.

Confession, I follow recipes closely but I have little understanding of why some stuff works well. Aside from using some campden to drive off chlorine I have little understanding of water chemistry. Friend said add a tsp. of gypsum to your mash water in this area. Beer comes out great so I keep doing it.

 

That's Homebrew Voodoo. "Beer comes out great" is the only correct answer to "Am I doing this right or not" and the justification for "You don't need to be doing what YOU do, because what I do is THIS, and..."

Confession: in spite of having a pretty good grasp of what I'm doing, from water to bottle, I have yet to score a 40 or higher in competition. But "beer comes out great", so...

 

I have to admit, I agree with all of this, except for the SWMBO stuff. My wife finds SWMBO to be hilarious. To quote her, "Obey me when I ask for a new keg of beer, other than that, we can talk about it." Actually, she supports my brewing more than most would believe. In the last two years she has bought me a kegerator and helped build a keezer, (each for different parts of the house) and most of an electric brewery set up as gifts. I couldn't as for anyone more supportive.

Now my Confession:
The last two beers I made I took no notes and no gravity readings. One is an octoberfest, the other a Russian Imperial Stout... and both of them are fantastic.... and I have no idea why or how to do them again.

But I guess I can enjoy them while they last.



Wstbrewing

 

I use this pump in winter to run chilled water through the coils of my wort chiller. I fill up a big plastic tub with water/snow/ice while I am brewing. Attach one end to the chiller and second to the pump and I go from 212 F down to 70 F in about 10 minutes.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0018X2XT4/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

 

I feel bad every now and then...but I usually get over it.

Reading Billy Klubb helps...(sniff)...

 

Noticed a leak in compression union on my skanky homemade immersion chiller today when I was still at 120 F. This was recirc'ing mostly melted snow with an appropriate level of dog urine and hair. Wrapped it in a few layers of paper towel, electric tape and hope for the best.

I am sure it will be fine as I pitched on the old, unwashed, Nottingham cake...fermentation was active in 2 hours.

 

I saved the yeast from a batch I did last month in a big mason jar. I didn't wash it or anything. Just poured it into the jar, sealed it up and stuck it in the fridge. Tonight when I got home from work I transferred the batch I did yesterday out of the kettle and into the bucket then measured out 1 cup from the jar and dumped it in. First time doing this so I have no idea what to expect.

 

Provided you sanitized the mason jar well before you put the slurry into it, you'll be fine on the repitch if the rest of your sanitation was good also.

Confession -

I do it all the time, I think I've got two mason jars in the fridge right now just hanging out, US05 and W.York. Try to use them within a month, that reminds me I need to toss the US05, it's been in there a while.

It's so much easier than washing and it works fine if you don't have a ton of hop trub in it from dry hopping - but even with the hop trub it still works. I usually just pitch on the cake though.

 

I only take hydro measurements so I can drink them. I'm gonna be a quart short when I bottle my first batch.

 

I confess: I take hydrometer readings for SG and FG for every batch. And the beer turns out fine somehow. Don't hate me.

 

I rarely ever check gravity 3x. Actually don't think I ever have. I just rely on time...

 

Wow. I have no words. I think you win the prize for most awful confession.

Completely unrelated, I'm thinking of adopting Black Island Brewer's stance on trying other people's homebrew.

 

That's a pretty reasonable price, and I know this is a popular way to do business. On the other hand, $20 is almost a batch of beer on its own. At this stage, I would have to choose between the two. And I choose beer!

 

I win! I win!

Seriously, though...years working in restaurants have inoculated me "gross" when it comes to sanitation. I do my best and have never had a been ruined due to sanitation in over 20 years of brewing (with a 4 year hiatus while I played in the sandbox). This one could be the one...who knows.

 

I get lazy on my scheduled kegging day and sometimes let a beer sit in primary for an extra two weeks after it's done until I find the motivation to keg. Has something to do with having to clean the fermenter afterwards. Then I eventually do keg it and wonder why I put it off for so long since it is pretty quick and easy.....rinse, repeat....