What I did for beer today

Yesterday brewed an AG kolsch, got a lower efficiency than I wanted but luckily I had compensated and got extra grain, so I hit my numbers. This was my first brew with my keggle, which performed perfectly, much to my delight. I also kicked my first tank of propane, luckily I knew it was running low and had the foresight to heat up my strike and sparge water on the stove inside!

I also bottled the other day, which I am becoming increasingly more at peace with. I don't know why people throw such a fit about bottling, I have a feeling everyone that complains about it is just upset that they aren't part of the cool 'kegging' club. Anyways, I picked up some Montrachet yeast from my LHBS on Wed. so I am planning on doing EW's Apfelwein soon. I just have to get the best possible cider/juice that I can find.

 

Today I got an order in from brewmasters warehouse w/supplies needed for a batch of Yoopers House Pale Ale and a replacement auto syphon (the old one was getting questionable sanitation-wise). I also received a separate package with my new BIAB bag. Tonight I'm going to make a yeast starter for said Pale Ale

 

Jeez, what didn't I do?

I brewed a Pliny clone and a batch of Brandon O's Graff.

I got ingredients for an experimental lawnmower beer that I'll make on Sunday, and made a starter.

Racked a small batch of cider so I could get at the yeast to use in the Brandon O's Graff.

Moved my Citra/Centennial/Simcoe IPA into the unheated mudroom to cold cash before bottling.

Drank a few beers too.

SWMBO's busy tonight. Can ya tell?

 

i got drunk, put heat in my cellar (for when it needs it) and moved my barrel intot he back basement. did i mention drunk?

 

Got my grains today!

 

Spent the $80 on a Food Saver. Really didnt want to bite that bullet but I figure I'll save a ton of money by repackaging bulk hops. Hopefully a year or so and it'll pay for itself.

Also grabbed a 12 pack of Ruthless Rye, a 6er of Hopslam, a bomber of Clown Shoes CDA, and a bomber of SlumBrews Flagraiser IPA.

$20 for the Hopslam...are you kidding me?

 

Transferred my (Yooper's recipe) DFH 60 Minute clone to secondary...

 

Cleaned and sanitized a batch of bottles, racked my Two Hearted and brewed a cream ale. Tonight gonna drink a bunch of homebrews and watch NASCAR.

 

Racked my American Amber to keg, split my harvest of Bell's house ale yeast into 3 jars (each with ~75 Billion cells, I think :rockin.

 

I got a starter working last night for a Marzen I'm brewing in the next couple of days. Not seeing any activity yet. Hope this yeast is just a slow starter... (Wyeast Oktoberfest)

 

Consolidated empty bottles. No more half-empty cases. Restocked the beer minifridge. Ran by the bottle shop.

 

Got time to inspect and check out my first keg. I was confused when the secondary lid I picked up from adventures in homebrewing didn't fit. Google quickly showed me that I had picked up a keg with a race track lid. Making matters worse I go to replace the racetrack style lid and it does not seal at all, like the o ring doesn't even touch the keg when the lid is "closed". It was sealed under pressure when I got it, which is nice but my plan is to prime with sugar and serve using a co2 charge at parties. There is no way it will hold co2 to carb up with this lid. I am hoping I can find an oval style lid keg and take it back to my LHBS. Oh well, at least my Denny's Rye IPA tastes awesome.

 

Got a new bucket for fermenting. Also finally got a hose that I can attach to my faucet to make filling my kettle easier.

 

Today, I hand-sewed a big bag for my 15 gallon Blichmann so I can use it to do a BIAB batch tomorrow morning.

Now I'm going to drink!

 

I'm brewing a 5 gallon batch of Yooper's pale ale right now. This is my first attempt at BIAB and so far it's going well.

 

started the day by transfering my Ipa over to secondary for dry hopping with Amarillo/Citra then head over to my homebrew club to bottle our Dusseldorph Altbier. Great end to the weekend !!!!

 

Brewed 10 gallons of oatmeal stout. Gonna ferment in separate 5-gallon fermenters, and I will add bourbon-soaked oak chips to secondary of one of the 5 gallons for a bourbon-barrel stout.

 

Cold crashing 10 gallons of oatmeal stout and cleaned two cornies

 

cleaned out the back cellar, made a stand for my new barrel, and started filling it. we emptied 3 kegs and drank almost three cases of homebrew at my daughter's 5th birthday party last nite- so i lots of sanitizing to do!!!

 

Brewed 6 gallons of a Dunkelweizen and 6 gallons of an Irish Red. Love the amount of brew earned in a double brew day but I'd like to increase capacity to do a full 10-15 gallon brew at once!

 

Emptied some bottles this weekend. A pretty well stocked pipeline is in sight. 35 Liters bottled, 20 more to bottle this week, then 20 more to throw in the fermenter.

 

Just got the BK on the stove 8 minutes ago to get 3G of water boiling for another batch of my wife's Summer Shandy clone. She insisted we brew this one together. Aaaaw,shucks,ma'm,twernt nothin...

 

Took inventory of my supplies. Got the pipeline stocked and the pipeline to the pipeline is in great shape. Have plenty of ingredients to do a couple 5 gallon batches of wheat beers & 5 or 6 Ales/IPAs depending on how much I put into em. Plus the 10 gal Speckled Hefer kit & the 5 gal Amber Ale kit.

 

Order an Irish pub ale kit and a few miscellaneous supplies online.

 

Racked my Ranger IPA Clone, Newcastle Brown Clone, and Irish Red to secondary today while SWMBO flooded the kitchen with the washer. *JOY*

IN the process of drinking my sorrow away.

 

Wrapped my Belgian Strong fermenting bucket with Christmas lights to see if I can bring the temp up a few degrees per day sloooooowly...

 

Bottled the blueberry wheat I made for the wife to take to a bridal shower. We served the same recipe at our rehearsal dinner, called it Something Blue Ale and was a big hit. That was my 2nd batch, this is like my 12th and I now brew all grain, use yeast starters, temp control, oxygen, etc., so this one is even better. My wife helped me bottle it, she had some trouble with the bench capper but she got a nice rhythm going. I also added some of my homebrews to untappd.

 

Bottled Mocha Porter to free up a keg. Cleaned and sanitized said keg and loaded it with Irish Red so it'll be ready for an early St. Patty's day. Transferred Scottish 80/ to secondary to free up a primary to brew in a few days. So now I have Porter, Blonde, Dunkelweizen, and cider all ready to drink, and will soon have Irish red and Scottish ale. Choices are amazing. Will be brewing IPA next followed by RIS to be ready when the snow blows again in Montana.

 

bottled a beer, racked a beer, kegged a beer, drank a few beers and brewed 10 gallons of plambic. nothing like a 5 hour mash to give your wife a reason to think there are more things than barrels in your basement that make you an idiot.

 

Debated whether or not to do a parti-gyle on my 11% vanilla oak bourbon stout that is getting brewed on Sunday. To parti-gyle or not to parti-gyle...

 

In the process of washing and de-labeling 34 more bottles......... when will I start Kegging?????

 

I drank a couple of my Oktoberfests I brewed a couple of months ago.

 

Gave 4 pints a new home....in meh belly!

 

Today I replaced the beer lines in my keezer, after finding out last night that the Bev-Seal Ultra I had in there for the last month or so is too rigid to be convenient.

I found out the hard way... I had been wondering why my pours were so bad and foamy for the last few days. Apparently I messed up a seal on Saturday because I had to wrench the hard tubing around to get a new keg to fit in there.... there was an inch of beer in the bottom of the keezer and it was coming out the drain.

 

Worked on some recipes, mainly a Belgian Blonde but lower abv and using some american c hops for a little citrus flavor. Thinking this will be my "summer" special that I share with everyone I just need to figure out what yeast to use. I also had one my friends drink one of my beers on Untappd which was pretty cool to see.

 

Changed the airlock on my Brandon O's Graff because, when I wasn't looking the krausen creeped up into the airlock. Haven't had that happen for a LONG time.

 

Bought an auto siphon and another bucket. Transferred a batch of wheat onto huckleberry purée for secondary.

 

Cleaned up my first bottle bomb...

 

Racked my very first batch to secondary after 2 weeks in primary and dry hopped with 2 oz cascade flower. Also, converted a cooler into a mash tun