What I did for beer today

I bottled 9 six packs of Cream of Three Crops and washed 4 pints of US-05 yeast. I also pulled the Fizzy Yellow Beer carboy out of the fermentation chamber to hill before bottling. Started researching the next couple of batches...thinking about an Irish Red and a Scottish Ale...

 

Cleaned the carboy and kettle for brew day this Friday. Bought a dagone funnel so I can get water in the carboy without spilling it all over the kitchen floor. I swear this beer thing has me looking like a monkey tryin' to funk a football.

 

Just mashed in for our first pale ale picture taken by swmbo im in the white... View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1424841198.275158.jpg

 

Pitched the yeast into our pale ale this brew session ran real late.

 

SWMBO and I are prepping to buy the LHBS and growler fill station. It's ours next Monday if all continues to go well.

 

Awesome! Good luck!

 

Wow! That's a big deal. Good for you!!!

 

Took care of some real estate business & saved 1% & 143 bucks on my payment besides by getting rid of 2nd mortgage. Mo money, mo money! Especially since I saved several hundred last year on it already with the same company. Mo money, mo money!

 

Go to your LHBS and get some straight A cleaner. Fill a large container (I used a new Rubbermaid garbage can) with water and a few tablespoons of the cleaner. Sink your bottles and let them soak overnight. Remove bottles and you will find all of your labels at the bottom of the container - glue and all! This will not work with foil labels.

 

Picked up my new HLT w/ ball valve, sight glass, & flexible Blichmann Brewmometer.

 

Made a starter last night, kicked in the second step tonight to get up to 2L in preparation for brewing this weekend.

 

Acquired a fridge to convert to fermentation chamber. Plugged it in and nothing happened but the light bulb turning on when the door was opened. Couple minutes later I had the compressor plugged directly to wall outlet and it purred to life and made refridgerant moving sounds and the coils inside got cool. Unplugged the monstrosity at that point before there was an incident.

So it seems my STC-1000 will be bypassing every bit of manufacturer recommended wiring. I plan to splice it in to run that fan beside the compressor in parallel, I'm sure it's there for a reason as it seems to share the same stock circuit. Only caveat is no internal lighting at this point. I'll survive.

 

Many a fridge has been kept grudging by bypassing everything you can. Good job.

 

Cleaned up the man cave/brewery for mortgage inspector later. Trying to save more money on this fancy dog house. And we all know what that means...

 

I also cleaned my man cave today (see Naval Aviation Home Bar thread) and made..... wait for it. MAPLE BACON Brown Ale. BOOM!! OG. 1.60... If I read the hydrometer right.

 

Finished tweaking a DIPA recipe. I bought all the hops and yeast when the nearest LHBS closed last month, but I need to pick up the grains tomorrow. Brewing Sunday (I hope)?

 

Also finished stripping it today. Nothing non - cooling related left. Lines for the ice maker, the ice maker bucket, rails for the flimsy shelving, the panel that had temperature control knobs, all gone. Blank slate. Somebody did the courtesy of removing the cardboard from the rear which is apparently an integral baffle in some instances. I can conjure something up as a replacement.

That's what I did for beer today. Still working on scrubbing some of the "used appliance gunk" off. Almost there. Wait I lied. I didn't strip the doors down yet.

 

Currently brewing some stout partigyle style. 3.5 gal 1.100 imperial stout and 5.5 gal "small stout" not realy lol 1.055. All from the same grain bill. Added just a little dme. It was a full mash tun.

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Checked the Maple Bacon to see how its fermenting. Looks good. Recipe recommends 67-70 deg but I'm running 72-73. No fermenter so we we'll see what it gives us.

 

Maple Bacon. and Guns. and Freedom.

 

Got ingredients for a Dusseldorf altbier that I'll make next weekend, made my first attempt at getting a starter going from a slant, and did some tinkering with my little pump/Therminator combo setup.

Then I had to make room in the keg fridge (heh heh). I thought my cider keg had no more than 2 glasses in it. Nope, there was a lot more. A lot more.

 

Bottled up an IPA yesterday that fermented with WLP644. Initial flavor and aroma were damn good, I have high hopes after its carbed and chilled.

 

The Blonde I put in the carboy yesterday plugged the blowoff tube and gave predictable results. I spent a hour and a half cleaning. I named it wild Willy as the go came in a little high and has williamette hops. I see it was a good name!

 

Well this actually happened Saturday but we went to the Michigan Winter beer festival at the 5/3 baseball stadium in Grand Rapids, it was only about 20 degrees but as you can see it didn't stop people from enjoying the day, I know I did!!

And guess what Budweiser, I saw a lot of people there that really like beer!! and not the kind that was brewed through a Clydesdale!

 

Dang, that is quite a crowd for 20 degree weather! And I like the Wild Willy name! It always makes me think of the King of Ye Old Awful Altered, "wild Willy" Borsch!
:rockin:

 

Visited the nose doctor to get this congestion in check, updated the blog, drank a few glasses of my pale ale

 

Made some keg outline templates to shop for a chest freezer. We need to make sure the thing will, no kidding, fit 4 ball locks with C02. Gonna make a trip to the Depot tomorrow to see what I can get. Ideally, a freezer at about 7-7.2 cu feet will do the job.

Checked on the Maple Bacon in the fermenter. Thankfully, we've had a cold front so the fermentation temp has come down to perfectly in zone.

 

Finally gotten warm enough yesterday & today to add the honey & molasses to my kottbusser. Gotta get that one done & ready to bottle soon.

 

I just went to a few online retailers and looked at the kits dreaming of my next batch

 

doing my first BIAB... just to see what all of the fuss is about... I've been doing AG but this sounded too easy so what the heck. I heated 8 gallons of water while grinding 5# of 2 row and 5# of Vienna...and 1# of oats just for fun...have it at 150* right now on the 75 minute mash...so far too easy... I plan on heating to 170* and letting it set for 20 minutes before draining the bag and starting my boil... DANG... fresh ground grain smells awesome!

 

I just finished bottling 5 gallons on Brown Ale.

 

Made some testers to decide if I want to soak oak chips in bourbon or rum for a stout I made. They both tasted great so it was a tough call. I almost leaned towards the rum but decided on bourbon in the end. I think next time I'll brew a bigger batch, split it and do half and half. Looking forward to this one!

 

Added the honey & molasses to kottbusser in primary to ferment out. With this warmer spell, internal temp is up to 64F. Looking & tasting great so far!

 

I got a refill bottle of co2 so that I could get some beer out of the kegs!!!

 

I like this idea!!! :rockin:

 

Bourbon, rum & scotch are the usual culprits for soaking oak with. But I imagine others could be used.

 

Today, I cleaned and sanitized an empty keg, and made a starter for my next batch.

 

Continued my side by side ferm chambers build. I'm not going to lie it's either a lot more work than it first seemed or I'm making things much more labour intensive than they need to be. Ideas as to what might be holding up production:
-Tearing up and tossing most stock wiring
-Teardown of all non-essential parts (shelving, lights that don't work since the wires / sensors are gone)
-Cleaning up after the former owner. What a mess this thing was.
-Tracing all the circuits on the internal connectors.

The latter was kind of fun. I can have all the following running / switched for both sides with only running 3 conductors to the control panel in door:
- Heat
-Cool
-Recirculation fans

I'm happy with that. The new life of this thing is going to have a clean interior install. Guess that's the reward for tracing all the routes. Being a dual chamber fermentation control zone probably added about 2.2 X the amount of work to do. Double the controllers, heaters, some otherwise unneeded drilling and cutting.

 

A couple lessons from a first bottling experience tonight...

So as I write this, my fingers are melting off from the Starsan. I just finished bottling the Merlin Blackberry Red I started last month and Holy SH!T! What a PAIN! I learned a great deal about the process but dear god thank you for the SWMBO because if it wasn't for her, I'd be 2 hours into it and still at it. I think I broke the auto siphon and the dagone graduated cylender leaks.... so much for the FG reading. I think I got a guess before all the beer leaked out at least. And I learned another thing... if you're gonna use fruit, use a grain bag or 2. I think I lost .7 gallons of product because of the fruit particulate in the bottom of the proverbial barrel. The good news is it IS finished and got the first batch in bottles. Here's hoping it didn't get infected or over aerated. Also, the fruit causes the auto siphon to aerate at times and clogs the lines. I think a keezer is in order. Soon.

 

Have you met my friend http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/chest-freezer-specs-layouts-377518/ ?