What I did for beer today

Off to Cash N Carry after work to buy the frozen raspberries for my Raspberry Golden ale. I'm a mite concerned about this one, it's been effing hot this week and I'm scared to test it...last sniff a couple of days ago was sulfury/yeasty so it was still working, but I haven't checked since. Ah well, if it's nasty I can just save the raspberries and try again when we're out of this heat wave...

 

Absolutely nothing! My beer loves me anyway.

 

Tasted the beer I'm planning on taking to the offspring's wedding in 2.5 weeks. I did a 10 gallon batch 2 weeks ago, been drinking the first keg for almost a week. The one I'm taking with us tastes even better than the first one. I'm hoping my daughter & future son-in-law like it, and there's no shame in bringing some (or most) of the keg home with us. They're not asking for gifts for their wedding, just asking people to donate to a charity that they recommend, and she wanted us to bring some of my beer as our gift. Can't wait to see them both, and hoping they enjoy the beer I created for them. They both love a good brew (him more than her) and I'm tickled that they wanted me to brew a beer for their special day.

 

Made the starter for my brew tomorrow using Wyeast Sonoma yeast.

 

Bought a chest freezer to use as a fermentation chamber.

 

Thought about starting a spin off thread called, "what beer did for me today"!

Ummmm.....beer!

 

Brewed a 6g AG batch of New Albion Ale and did a deep clean of my pump and CFC afterwards.

 

Helped my brew assistant partner brew his first small batch on my equipment after hauling it down to our boss' brewery (from whence came most of my equipment, and his as well). Long day, helped along by our boss/mentor coming out (when he was supposed to be doing yardwork, yah who would rather do yardwork than brew?) and pushing things along with his much better ideas. Gotta love my second job and the guys I get to work with. Brewed a Red IPA a'la Dogfish Head 90 minute that, based on the sample going into the fermenters, is going to be epic. Tired but happy girl who gets to brew at home tomorrow as well. When your hobby becomes a job, but you still love it as a hobby, it's heaven.

 

Been slacking for a few months so just put on a batch of Muntons highland heavy ale extr. kit, opened a shepherd neame master brew and let out a long sigh. Bottle wash-a-palooza about to start, after that all the other pots n pans, hopefully getting a brew in next week cause it's my summer vacation.

 

Bottling my California common and putting one bottle back in order to compare to the bottle Morrey gave me Saturday. He uses the same recipe as me, and so does mongoose33... We are the 3 Beermigos!

I slay me...

 

Picked some mulberries for a secondary addition on my sour saison.

 

One of the busiest days in the brewery since moving in. Had some mead and beers in some kegs and wanted to free the kegs up so I washed bottles, bottled beers then washed all the kegs, Kegged 4 beers, Painted the top half of my kegerator with chalk board paint so I can stop using masking tape and started a simple bar build using pallets.

 

Kegged 11 gallons of my house ale.

 

Picked 2 of my 3 hop varieties, have 2 trays of Willamette and 6 of Chinook in the dehydrator at 125 degrees. Will pick Northern Brewer later today weather permitting and if I can chase off or kill 2 wasps who built a nest right at the top of the vine support! Knocked the nest down today but it looks like they went right back to rebuilding it and I can't use spray...

 

Moved my RH40 APA from secondary/dry hop to kegs using CO2 transfer. Put in to cold crash at 32°.
Cleaned transfer equipment and carboys.

 

started crashing my munich helles, added gelatin to really clear 'er up. also, made a new batch of starsan and sanitized/purged two kegs.

 

Drank a couple. Yesterday I ordered another contactor, and tomorrow after it arrives I'll put it in the new control box build.

 

Brewing a wet hopped rye ipa as we speak. Filled up a 6.5 gal fermenter bucket from the top 10 feet of one cascade plant. A third will go into my brew, the rest will get dried for keg hopping a few beers. For me, I get roughly 6 oz for every 2 liters of wet hops which yields approx an ounce when dried.

 

kegged my munich helles, cleaned the carboys

 

Brewed an esb, brewed and kegged an extract rootbeer, and cleaned. Did this yesterday

 

Sounds about right, I got about 1 liter of hops per dehydrator tray and ended with 1.1oz Willamette and 5.5oz Chinook from 5 trays.

 

threw a pack of wyeat American ale In the fridge so that I can brew the 512 pecan porter this weekend!

 

Just now agreed to meet someone in the morning to buy a "used once" homebrew kit... buckets, glass carboy, 2 cases of bottles (I keg, but...) brushes, etc. for a very low price.
Worked on the control box for the brewery tonight...it's getting there.

 

I will bottle some today and make some tomorrow...

 

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Picked some Cascade hops from my neighbors yard. They started growing the Cascade plant a few years ago for decoration around their pool deck and wall. Now I get to benefit from it! Woohoo!! They are in the dehydrator at 105 degrees (F). Next week my Centennials and Chinook should be almost ready to harvest.

 

Added 2 more taps to my kegerator. https://instagram.com/p/BXtY2f8g1Vy/

 

They sure do dry down to nothing weight wise! I had 3 full trays in my dehydrator(same model as yours from the look) and net was 2.15oz of Northern Brewer in Mylar vac bags.

These are the bags, I triple seal them in the same spot with my Foodsaver and they seal nice. Just wait and hit the seal button again, if it blinks wait a bit and push it again. 2 times will usually seal them but I do it 3 to make sure. http://www.discountmylarbags.com/ho...art-embossed-aluminum-foil-mylar-vacuum-bags/ With whole hops you can get around an ounce in each bag by compressing them as you fill it. And that makes for easy measuring, grab as many oz bags of hops as needed!

 

Thanks for sharing the link MaryB! I may have to look into those bags. Right now I am just using the food saver bags or similar ones and keep the hops in my chest freezer. I tried to reseal a mylar bag with my FoodSaver FM2000 sealer, but it didn't work. I didn't think about leaving it in there and doing it 2-3 times.

It seems that each tray had about 1oz of dried hops after it was finished. It was a hand-me-down dehydrator from my in-laws. Old but works great! Take care! Cheers!

 

Scooped the raspberries out of the fermenter that my Raspberry golden ale is in, and popped it in the fridge to crash for 24 hours before kegging it tomorrow. BTW, "used" raspberries are really gross to look at. Like what you would imagine bloated flesh would look like. Yes I know disgusting. But the beer turned a beautiful crimson and the flavor & aroma are off the sheet. Going to force carb it and hope to have the first glass Wednesday or Thursday. Will post pics then!

 

Cleaned one of my tap lines with line cleaner and then put my Black Butte Porter clone on tap!

John

 

Made a yeast starter with WLP008. It will be over built so I can keep some for a future brew.

 

Rearranged my basement to better organize my various beer batches, baby steps...

 

Racked Aletoberfest, harvested the 1007, brewed a brown ale.

 

monitoring my Oktobirthfest in the fermentation chamber. 2nd son will be born around the same time this is done lagering.

 

Well I breathed in relief as the yeast took off in a amber that I brewed. I normally use repitched yeast and it takes off in 4 hours. I bought some 1318 for this batch and it made me wait for 20 hours. Cheers to all!

 

Cleaned out my kegerator. Been putting that off for way too long.

 

Pitched my starter into my wee heavy at 7 am today and had at least a half inch of krausen at 6 pm... Cool!

Also saw a good inch of healthy krausen on my dark mild after rehydrating and pitching last night, about 22 hours ago.

Exciting...

 

made a starter for janet's brown ale

 

Racked a Kolsch!



Kal

 

I thought that you were implying you either had 8 children or octuplets!