What I did for beer today

Picked up my brown ale recipe. Now goin to sears to get my second freezer for another keezer

 

Smoked 10 pounds of 2 row with some hickory to make a smoked maple altbier. New expierement but I'll see how it turns out hopefully I won't puke.

 

Picked up 2 lbs of Cascades cheap. They are 2011 crop and the farm is making room for the new crop.

 

That sounds awesome

 

Picked up the remaining ingredients for tomorrows stout brew day. Dry-spiced the holiday spiced cranberry ale. Tried my first sour wit.

 

Scrubbed my trusty immersion chiller for an hour today to get some green copper stuff off of it that was above my star-san soak. That stuff is stubborn.

 

dry hopping our fresh hop that we brewed with wild Cascades I found in the field close to my house.

 

Cleaning the brewhouse so it can be introduced to the guy who welded the frame together about 7 years ago.

 

Cleaned a serving vessel
Transferred 3bbl into aforementioned serving vessel
Cleaned fermenting vessel
Double checking all ingredients for Pumpkin Ale and waiting on grain shipment to arrive.

 

I cleaned and de-labeled about 60+ 220z. bottles, and opened an IPA brewed 3 weeks ago

 

Ordered my Cool Brewing fermentation bag,
Excited to see the difference it makes with my future brews

 

Just bought a ready to go four tap keezer from someone who has gone professional. All I need to do now is brew more beer..... so I just ordered a Pliny the Elder kit from MoreBeer.com

 

Tried a sample of the vanilla porter after just one week in the bottle and 15 hours in the fridge. Amazing, can't wait to try it again in a month!

Bottled and kegged the holiday spiced cranberry ale.

Brewed up a chocolate oatmeal stout. Will add coffee to it in secondary.

 

Checked my inventory to make sure I have all the ingredients for the robust porter I'm brewing tomorrow.

 

Picked up ingredients for tomorrow's oatmeal stout, kegged my pumpkin ale, soaked the better bottle, and cleaned the keg from the recently kicked IPA.

 

Cleaned two kegs for transferring my ESB & Belgian Trippel IPA from secondary for keg conditioning.

 

Well, tomorrow I'm off to the Brewfest in Dover, DE. My first brewfest, looking forward to it.

 

Joined AHA & put a couple of bottles of cherry porter (mine) and DFH black & blue ( theirs) in the fridge

 

Dragging the brewstand to the patio for a good clean and sani cycle. Can't brew until I do maintenance and purchase propane. I expect to kick a keg today (Roll Tide) and clean tap lines. I should check a gravity and might keg a red ale.

Edit: keg kicked and I didn't even get beer. It was mild ale last night, was straight yeast today. Keg is cleaned and will be used to clean tap lines. Then I shall keg.

 

Ordered a pound of simcoe to split with a buddy and waiting for the mail to bring me 3 pounds of hops I ordered earlier in the week. Now it's time to get some recipes and a brew schedule together

 

Brewed up my 3rd batch of Commune Copper Ale and topped off at 82% efficiency!

Bottled up my second batch of Revvy's Belgian blonde and it turned out crystal clear!

 

Bought 2 sixes, you know just to harvest the bottles. Both flying dog

 

Bought another batch of my poblano smoked porter since the last one became infected

 

Brewing the second iteration of what will become my house IPA. About 10 minutes left in the mash... :rockin:

 

Enjoyed my Falconer's Flight IPA (70 ibu and dry hopped w/ 2 oz) and grilled some big steaks. Checked a batch of Apfelwein (bottle next week) and ordered ingredients for a Coconut Porter.

 

Racked my ESB & Belgian Trippel IPA to kegs for conditioning.

 

Racked RIS to secondary and finally mounted my 9 inch collar to the keezer so I could fit more kegs in there. After all, I've got to have a spot to put that new keg and some wood on which to mount that new bottle opener.

 

Brewed an all-grain White House Honey Ale with a friend. Downloaded a trial of Beersmith 2. Realized I like it more than the older version when I tried it, and think I might actually buy it this time.

 

Added ~8 lbs of fresh blackberries to the hefe I brewed last weekend, and cleaned up an enormous overflow of purple goodness a few hours later.

 

Discussed my brewing process with another homebrewer and got a few pointers

 

I kegged my Punk IPA clone, dry hopped my Hop Rod Rye. Bottled 2 cases of blueberry sour. Washed the yeast from the hop rod then brewed a Pliney the Elder clone. Finally relaxing and drinking a beer.

 

I bottled my amber wheat experiment V2. Primed with wildflower honey. Really wanted buckwheat honey but can't find it local and didn't want to wait for it to come in the mail. Mental note, add buckwheat honey to list for AHS order next week.

 

Brewed a clone batch of Rogue Hazelnut Brown Ale w/ my daughter. Her first brew.

 

Bottled my first batch of home brewed English Brown Ale. Cannot wait to crack one open in a few weeks.

 

Picked up 2 lbs of 2011 Cascade hops last week from a grower. Last years' leftovers are pretty cheap this time of year if you can find them. Today I broke the pounds into ounces and vacuum sealed 32 one-ounce bags (plus an extra bag with .3 ounces). My wife gave me the "you're pushing it" look as I was stuffing them into the freezer.

 

Worked on my second keezer.

It was originally white

 

Bottled my IIPA, 12 bombers of a test batch, and it came out great. The sample is so good. 9.18%. mmm and almost no booze taste to it.

 

Went to "Brewing World" in Warren and picked up DME for starters & priming, 2oz of Columbus hops, 2 sachets of dry yeast for emergencies, and a 90 bottle rotating tree.

I am too lazy to make my own tree. I usually use a dishwasher for bottling, but I'm now brewing and fermenting at SWMBO's house, where there isn't one. The tree is huge, so I am only assembling it to support ~60 bottles.

 

Bought replacement rings to introduce 2 retired corny kegs to their new retirement home, my brewery. Also bought some fittings to simplify the gas lines inside the fridge. And I had a brief chat with a brewpub brewer regarding a piggyback malt order.

 

Made a first attempt at a double IPA. So, so sludgy. I was shooting for a 3.5 gallon batch, ended ip with 2.75 or so. Looked like pond scum, so I topped it off a little. Really unsure if I've made something that will ever be drinkable.