What I did for beer today

Stopped by my local brew pub to pick up a growler of silly pants stout.......mmm mmm good

 

Bottled my amber (Yooper's hoppy American amber recipe) and bottles some cider for a carbonation/pasteurization experiment. I bottled a gallon of very dry cider with different levels of sugar. I'll pasteurize them all in a couple days and see what level works the best.

 

Made a starter yesterday for the Tripel I'll be brewing tonight.

 

Took FG readings of my two batches in primary. Was going to bottle them and brew an IPA today, but it just didn't have time to do any of it. Might take a sick-day-brew-day this week and knock it all out then, otherwise next weekend.

 

i've got air locks clacking all over - 10 gallons of lambic in the barrel (almost full- yay!) 5 gallons of flanders pale ale - racked my paddy stout and bottled some alt. the basque cider dregs i threw in my cider finally started rocking, too. whole lotta fermentin going on!

 

Used my canner for the first time to prep some plates and slants. Also started growing some yeast for a Belgian IPA.

 

Babysat my exploding starter and am in the middle of brewing a Belgian Tripel.

 

I brewed my first 10 gallon batch, a pale ale. I split the batch across two buckets and used s-04 and us-05. Should be interesting to do the side to side. I also got to use the awesome wort chiller that my wife got me, the 5/10 split from more beer

 

Started my first ever attempt at brewing. Used the West Coast Pale Ale w/Booster from Mr. Beer kit. Made sure everything was clean/sanitized before starting and made it thru the directions fairly easily. I can see how this could get costly... already looking at all the options from A to Z...

 

Well, on the weekend I spent some time taking part in my favourite part of this hobby. I emptied a dozen or so 500 ml bottles to get ready to fill again!

Edit: Oh yeah, checked gravity on my Pail Ale!

 

I bottled 5 gallons of bourbon barrel stout. The first time in ages I actually bottled rather than kegged a beer.

 

Congrats on your first brew!! Nice thing about brewing is, you can make it as complicated as you want or keep it simple. Keep us posted on your progress!

 

I just finished kegging a batch of SNPA clone and BeerMuncher's Centennial Blonde Ale and used the cake of those batches to bank some Nottingham and US-05. There's like 800 billion little yeast cells in each of those cakes!

 

I called a local brewery that is expanding to offer engineering services.

 

Trensferred my Flanders Brown Ale to the secondary so I could free up my primary. Brewing again tomorrow! Also, harvested some of the yeast from the batch.

 

I drank some since they were begging me.

 

I finished the book "Yeast". Checked on an American IPA and Irish Red that is currently fermenting. Finished a Hefeweizen recipe that we are going to brew twice the same day (2 5 gallon batches) First one with a single yeast strain, the second with a blend of yeast. Finalized some planning for a tasting party we are doing Friday and some planning for St Patrick's day many many more things. Good day for beer!

 

Bottled a chocolate. Milk stout with a FG of 1.30.....(??)
Added a vanilla bean to some of the stout
And split a batch of orange cream ale
added more zest to each half and a vanilla bean to one

 

My first home brew activity in two months. I'm dialing in my new kettle (building up an oxide layer, figuring out how long it takes to get to a boil, checking boil off rate) in preparation for this weekend's brew day.

 

I'm going to be cleaning bottles all night while I watch hockey. I'm bottling my first homebrewed black IPA tomorrow!
I'm also going to figure out this whole yeast cake saving stuff so I can put that 11 bucks into ingredients instead of new yeast!

 

First thing I did was unpack grain mill purchased off ebay.

Second thing I did was repacked the grain mill in anticipation of sending it back. The grinding gear was broken so I don't think it will grind very well. Would probably have to run the grain through 3 or 4 times to get a decent mill.

Third thing I did was to go on the AHB site to check on my order, bummed that I didn't have a working grain mill and had grain for two batches on it's way with no way to mill. Looking at my order it appears I didn't uncheck the mill the grain option and I should be able to brew with it after all. :rockin: Gota love a mistake that turns into something useful!

 

Made my first Kolsch. Man it smelled great.

 

Built my first electric cooler HTL came out great. Planed brew day for fri evening. Drank beer great day

 

Stepped up my starter (third step) that I made from the yeast from a single bottle of Bell's Winter Wheat and then hit my Graff and a lawnmower beer with gelatin finings. Also picked up more bottles because my pipeline is so full that I'm out of empties.

 

Made my first porter (3rd brew overall), which has plans to be married to two cups of bourbon infused with 3 vanilla beans in about two weeks. Where, you ask? In my new glass carboy, on its way via Amazon (complete with bung, airlock, and temp strip).

P.S. Drank a glass of my first brew, an English brown ale while brewing today.

 

Placed my first order from Northern Brewer...

Star San 32 oz
Barley Crusher w/ 7 lb.-capacity Hopper
Dead Ringer Ale All-Grain Kit - unmilled
Wyeast 1056 American Ale
Denny's Rye IPA All-Grain Kit - unmilled
Wyeast 1450 Denny's Favorite 50
AHA Membership - 1 Year (New or Renewal)

 

checked the grav on my 2 batches of newcastle brown and my hefe, then proceeded to gulp some pale ale

 

I thought about it..... Alot!

 

Washed a total of 42 bottles, 12oz, 22oz, and a few Grolsch, to prepare for bottling this weekend. I soaked in Oxyclean, rinsed with my Jet bottle washer, and removed the labels. I've used some of these bottles for a long time and never removed the labels.

I'll sanitize right before bottling. Maybe I should try the dishwasher method as I never have. That would require putting away the dishes.

 

Ordered my next brew at AHB with extra goodies to get free shipping.

Ordered some Russian River and The Bruery beers. Cant wait to try them and use my grain mill for the frist time.

 

This girl I've been seeing was sitting on my front lawn drinking PBR when I woke up this morning, it's a super nice sunny day. I shotgunned a PBR with her and went to work, damn nice day.

 

Then I came over and helped finish the rest of the beers...

 

Boiled some syrup for a belgian brew on sunday:


500g sugar in a 22L batch, probably won't provide that much flavour but it'll add a tiny bit of colour and dry it out a bit(I think, I'm not sure how fermentable it is).

 

Checked on 2 beers fermenting
Bottled a whit
Brewed a Blonde

 

oh and now i am going to consume some hefe, some watermelon pale ale, some citra/amarillo ipa

 

The marris otter for my brown ale showed up in the mail today. I also placed my yeast starters in the fridge so I can decant in the morning before pitching. I had been using American yeasts all summer, except for my Belgians, but I now find myself interested in English and Scottish yeasts. So the 2 batches I am brewing tomorrow will be splti between WLP002, WLP007 and WLP028. I thinking WLP007 will be come my go to yeast for hoppy beers and WLP028 will become my yeast for maltier beers, stouts, browns, etc.

 

I was planning on brewing Wednesday but it was too windy. My order from Bargain Fittings arrived (Wednesday, ordered Monday Thank you BF) so I installed the new fittings.. I brewed Thursday, decided to add a whirlpool fitting today, tested it and everything looks good.I'm looking forward to the next brewday

 

Kegged an APA yesterday and am ordering some grain and yeast from BMW today for the blonde ale i'm brewing next weekend

 

Heating up water right now to brew an IPA. Columbus and Centennial in the kettle, Amarillo dry hop.

 

I'm going to check the FG on our 2nd batch of Summer Shandy that's been in primary 2 weeks & 5 days. Gotta get a 12 pack of my Sunset Gold APA in the fridge today so it'll be carbing,etc in the fridge for 7 days. I can't wait to see how the Ahtanum & Stirling hops turned out.Also got some bottles to clean out.