What I did for beer today

I poked fun at BMC's & myself all in the same post. How's that work here?? But to be serious, I'm cleaning up some more bottles for my son & the few I'll send out from the kottbusser next month. Darn Root beer ale labels are worse than Great Lakes to remove!

 

Transferred my Pilsner to the secondary and ordered another ball lock keg for the previously mentioned Pilsner.

 

Checked the fermenter on the blackberry red just to make sure all is happy happy, ordered a MAPLE BACON (!!) LME kit (which I am STOKED to brew) along with a graduated cylinder for taking gravity, bought a turkey baster for the same, and took some notes on how I did the fruit puree, pasteurization, and transfer from primary to secondary on the aforementioned blackberry red.

 

Transferred my Porter to a keg. Need to put together my splitter so I don't have to keep switching the gas line back and forth...

 

Love your enthusiasm! My first batches, all grain, were IIPAs, Barelywines, etc, myself.

 

Soldiering on delabeling more bottles. Soaked the Small Town Brewing bottles three days & those root beer ale labels won't budge at all. Tossed'em. Great Lakes going south too. I'm tired of scraping to get labels & glue off.

 

yeah it's a pain switching back and forth, check out my youtube video on how I put together a double regulator set up off of one co2 tank, here is the link
http://youtu.be/bS3CyltgrMI

 

Bottled my blonde, moved the Session IPA out if the ferm cabinet for bottling tomorrow, I hope.

 

Brewed a Bock today, and how's this for a way to make all this damn snow useful

 

Will do, thank you

 

Kicked a keg of Porter ...so tapped the Munich and racked an Irish Red into the clean keg.

 

That's pretty awesome. Are you taking orders. Haha

 

Kegged a pale ale that I made a couple weeks ago and started a 3-gallon batch of simple cider.

 

Yesterday... Brewed 5 gallons Ordinary Bitter, kegged 5 gallons Ordinary Bitter, and kegged 5 gallons Saison. Then went to dinner and to a hockey game.

Today... Brewing 5 gallons 80 shilling Scottish Ale. Will be setting around and taking it easy as much as possible today. Yesterday was a busy day.

 

I took a sample of Merlin Blackberry Red Ale using a sanitized turkey baster. I tried to use a wine thief but dagone thing wouldn't work (can't figure out how to use it). It tasted AWESOME. A little sweet with a great backberry aroma coming off it. Deep red hue. I would like for it be a little clearer but for a first batch, I am one happy brewer!

As a function of that, is it ok to pop the lid off and grab a taste while in secondary?

 

Kegged a 5 gal batch of IPA, onto some dry hops. I used combo of Amarillo, Citra, and Simcoe.

 

I kegged my Irish red that had been cold crashing. After that is when the fun started. I cleaned 3 kegs I had sitting around that were recently emptied. I also started brewing my honey wheat that everyone but my wife likes (she has yet to like one of my beers, not bland enough I guess). On top of that I made some homemade meatballs and spaghetti.

Everything's all cleaned up and stored now on the shelf I built yesterday.

 

As a recommendation, try to keep the beer away from oxygen as much as possible. Only open lids, and xfer if needed. For example, I stopped using secondary for dry hop as others suggest. Last Pliny the Elder was the best I ever made.

 

Bagged up a # of cascade into ounces, brewed a batch of white ipa, and gonna keg a batch of my house DIPA in a bit if I don't get lazy. Also cleaned around the house and made a nice dinner for the kids. That should earn me points to brew more later this week

 

Today was a very simple day for beer.

All I did was move my Irish Ale to secondary and wash my primary bucket.

 

Dang it. Ok. No more sneaking a taste until it's ready! Hey, at least it didn't taste like old socks!

 

Brewed up an amber-ish 10 IBU 1.030 OG beer and pitched a bunch of bugs. In a year to 18 monthsish (whenever cherries start ripening) I'll rack onto 5 lbs of fresh sour cherries and then age another year before bottling.

 

Vacuumed, and botched some laundry, money in the bank!

 

Racked my milk stout (that I forgot to put the lactose in) to the secondary. It tasted so good I'm going to leave it as is.

 

Added dry hop of Citra, Amarillo, and Columbus to my ipa fermented with wlp644. Smells so good!!
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1424731218.416076.jpg

 

Looks so good! I think I might borrow that dry hop combo from ya on my ipa!

 

Normally I include simcoe as well (simcoe + amarillo = retarded good) but decided to see how I like it without the simcoe this time. You know, for science!

 

Finally split my co2 so I can carb and serve without switching. Wish I watched Arty76's video before I bought the splitter...

 

Also made an appointment with a ear, nose, and throat doc to get my nose checked. I need to be able to smell to taste properly.

 

I checked my small-batch barleywine (which is in its third week in primary), and placed online orders for hops, malt, and amylase.

 

Making a Yeast starter drinking good craft beer along with some homebrew with some dead kennedys in the background View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1424744882.406173.jpg

 

I approve of punk rock brewing.

 

Oi!!!!!

 

Kegging up my DIPA. Never got around to it yesterday.

 

Drinking this fine IRS YES I AM MAKING MULTIPLE POSTES ABOUT THIS BEER IM DRUBK AND VERY PROUD OF THOS BEER SORRY HBT BUT **** MAN THiS TASTES GOOD gram crackers and red wine and chocolate View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1424753328.564384.jpg

 

Just moved my cream ale to the fridge to cold crash. This is my first time doing it. Hope it turn out ok

 

Got caught up on reading articles the last few days. Lots of good stuff in there. All the while my kottbusser is maintaining a bit of pressure during these bone chillingly cold days. That WL029 is a real trooper!

 

Took FG and sampled experiential IPA, the dry hopped. FWHs were citra, simcoe, mosaic. No 60min hops, 30min w/centennial. Aroma and dh w/citra, simcoe and mosaic again. VERY floral and topical fruity. No harsh bitterness detected. Know more in 2 weeks.

 

But that ever happens, bottle some then tell your friends this was the BEST S**T you ever made!...and be entertained by their facial expressions.

 

Took 1st FG sample of my kottbusser @ 2 weeks today. Needs to knock of a couple more points. Flavor is slightly sweet/tart so far. Right on track.