What I did for beer today

Weighed out grains and hops for another 10 gallon batch of Centennial Blonde I am going to brew tomorrow or Wednesday, depending on how I feel.

 

divvied out a new can of hop extract, this time I only managed to get a little bit of the extract on my hands.. much better than last time.

 

Flushed my lines, and kegged my own original recipe...not quite sure what to expect

 

Put Shirley's Nut Brown Ale in to cold crash, washed Wyeast 1028 London Ale yeast and drank some Vanilla Oatmeal Stout and some Stratcona Pale Ale.

 

First AG batch...supposed to be a best bitter, but ended up an ordinary bitter due to 64% efficiency. My mash tun needs more frequent infusions than I thought it would.

 

Good times. Glad I am not the only one. I have brewed a few "supposed to be ordinary bitters or premiums" that turned out to be premiums or ESBs while dialing in my new 10 gal system. I figured I would shoot for the middle of premium every time. My thinking was that I over shot or under shot, I would be somewhere within that broad style.

I just bought extra hops and kept track of my pre boil volume so that I could adjust bittering on the fly.

I love English pales as it is. And it's a forgiving style when you're trying something new

 

Canned 4 qts. And 4 pints of starter wort, and finally diagnosed a foamy keg issue that had been bothering me since the weekend

 

just finished transferring my "double IPA" to secondary and added an other dry hop 1oz of centennial..

 

Brewd the other PM Berlin wheat yesterday. Smacked the activator pack,but not much came out. Guess it had a leak even though it blew up to critical mass. Gotta wait till 10am for lhbs to open so I can get another one. Just hope what little was left in the first activator pack makes some co2 to protect my work!?

 

Today I did a lot of forum browsing (if that even counts), and went dumpster diving for a better mount for my STC-1000.

 

Opened my fermenter closet just to smell the nice aroma.. Lol

 

That lil bit of yeast left in the smackpack started visibly fermenting my Berlin Wheat at 11:12.17 1/2 hours to the minute after pitching. Whew,that saved my concerns about another trip to Westlake. Much less a batch gone bad waiting for the car to get done,which will likely be after the lhbs closes for the day.

 

Went to the LHBS here in town and bought some bottles, caps, cleaner and sanitizer.

 

Idk its still one of my favorites..

 

Bottled and then realized I can't find 29 mm bell for capper. It's only the last 5 bottles, but it's kinda pissing me off. I'll look around some more and then give up and cork the dang things.

 

Brewed 10 gallons of Biermuncher's Centennial Blonde. And cleaned, and cleaned, and cleaned . . .

 

Spontaneously made mead for the first time. Just water, honey, yeast(soon), nutrition(soon) in fermenter, and I'll probably add some fruit in secondary.

 

Got a big ol' starter going for next week's Quad.

 

What yeast are you using?

 

Taste tested a bottle of my Spring Lager (Brooklyn Brew Shop recipe) that's been conditioning for the past week. Carbonation was good and it was mighty tasty. The rest of the batch should be ready for the fridge in about seven more days.

 

Westmalle (via Wyeast 3787).

 

Made my first yeast starter.

 

Cleaned and filled 118 half barrels. Transferred 50 bbls from a fermenter to a bright tank. Cleaned some hoses, PRV as well as CIP components in the empty fermenter.

 

Imperial IPA...Drained some yeast out of my conical. Added some centennial/citra hops for my dry hop addition.

 

That's fun

 

Today I read, ALOT I started with,"beer is proof god loves us" and I am now on to, "brewing up a business" by Sam from dogfish. Educate yourself to make the best beer you can; you must know where beer comes from and what it has been through to know where it is going.

 

Came home, opened fridge, cracked one open. Hard work, but someone had to do it.

 

Only kegged 24 half barrels today. But bottled 4320 bottles of our red.

 

Sniffed the airlock.

 

Scrubbed & drained the other fermenter I was soaking. Got a few bottles to clean. Saoking some airlocks clean,& cleaned up some small bits. Got some of my Maori IPA in the fridge. Carboy brush def came in handy for the Cooper's micro brew fermenter.

 

Cleaned out and sanitized, a keg. Racked my version, of an Enjoy by Clone, to keg, and check F.G. Then I Purged, and connected to co2. And finished, by scrubbing out and cleaning/sanitizing, the 6.5 gal glass carboy.

 

Packed up a case of beers that I owe someone. Luckily I will be able to hand deliver this one since shipping would be insane!

 

You in no way, shape, or form owe me a case of beer you crazy bastage! You might after I get done with you, though. I will not be out beered. You don't get Boulevard up there according to Seekabrew....

 

I use the word 'owe' loosely - although the MAW honor is involved.

Also, that is spilt 50-50 commercial & homebrew. And no, we don't get Boulevard here.

 

Made a starter for my brew day Sunday

 

How many bottles?

 

Finishing up some cleaning around the brewery today. Gotta make room for a few more beers in the fridge for next week. My pipeline is def starting to pile up nicely.

 

I got the parts for my new/used keg from Midwest yesterday. New ball-locks and dip tubes. I know that I could have gotten a complete used keg for less, but I now have basically a new stainless spartainsberg challenger VI for about 1/2 tha cost of a actually new one. Still a win. Now, to polish or not to polish, that is the question................

 

Washed yeast and kegged a nut brown that had been in cold crash. Worked a bit on my keezer and did some "research" comparing my beer to craft example

 

Checked the gravity on the imperial centennial blonde I brewed a week ago. It's BM's recipe that I added honey and some Columbus to. Finished at 1.010 so it's about 6.8%.