Gainesville, FL

[Ebbtide]

New here so I thought that I would give this a bump. I'll be @ the brew class that HTA will be having on July 8th.
I'm new to the home brew and will be reading lot's on here trying to learn.

 

[Pie_Man]

Welcome to the hobby and the forum. I attended that event about a year ago. It was very informative and a lot of fun. We're lucky to have a great homebrew store in our community.

 

[Ebbtide]

Thanks Pie Man.

 

[Ebbtide]

Any Gville folks a member of the local brew club? Just curious as to how it is, good people, worth the time etc? I have been a member of other type clubs before that were not so welcome and seemed very new member unfriendly. Would like to know if this is kinda the same deal. Thank you for any insight.

 

[ShepFL]

I live in Sanderson (Baker Co) just north of Gville. Still need to make the trip to get some goodies!

 

[Pie_Man]

Any Gville folks a member of the local brew club? Just curious as to how it is, good people, worth the time etc? I have been a member of other type clubs before that were not so welcome and seemed very new member unfriendly. Would like to know if this is kinda the same deal. Thank you for any insight.

I'm a new member of the Hogtown Brewers, http://www.hogtownbrewers.org/. I think it's a great club. They're friendly, knowledgeable, and down to earth. The club has a lot of activities and events. There is the Hogtown Brew-off competition, beer fest, various group brews, pub crawls, etc. Easily the best money I've spent in homebrewing.

 

[mneilson]

I'll second Pie_man's sentiments about the Hogtown Brewers... A very knowledgeable and friendly bunch, and a good club to be a part of.

 

[Ebbtide]

Great! Thank you for the feedback, I appreciate that. After I get my first brew or two under my belt, I will more then likely send in my app.

 

[Ebbtide]

I had a good time @ the brew class yesterday. I ended up buying a few things from the shop after the class, so I am on my way to my first brew now. I just need to build my tun and figure out what way I want to go for a brew pot.

 

[Ebbtide]

This thread was going crazy awhile back, now everyone abandoned it?


I don't know about you guys but I am ready for some fall football and cool weather brewing.

I drilled my kettle last weekend and in the final stages of rebuilding my new/old kegerator along with gathering the rest of my brewing tools.

 

[cnmaestro]

I'm still here lurking. Just got my Moose Slobber kit from Northern Brewer that I'm brewing this weekend and I'm getting ingredients for EdWorts Apfelwein to slap together this weekend too. I got three empty legs that need filling

Happy Brewing,
Chris

 

[Ebbtide]

Nice! I can't wait till I fire up my burner for the first time. Let me know how that moose slobber tastes.

 

[CS223]

Another near Gainesville resident. How did I miss this thread?

 

[Ebbtide]

Hey CS! Where do you guys get your Co2 filled up @ in or around Gville?

 

[cnmaestro]

Hey CS! Where do you guys get your Co2 filled up @ in or around Gville?

Alachua Fire Extinguisher on Williston Road. Filled up a 7lbs for around 20 bucks.

 

[CS223]

Alachua Fire Extinguisher on Williston Road. Filled up a 7lbs for around 20 bucks.

Yep, real nice folks, a little out of the way for me but they fill while you wait. my 10# bottle was right at $20. HAW has their prices posted as well. I tried to talk them into working some deal where customers could drop off bottles one day a week, have AFE pick them up, fill them and return them to HAW for customers to pick up. I need to email Barron and run it by him again.

 

[knuckleheadbrewing]

Just north of you a bit in Tallahassee

 

[Ebbtide]

The only prob with Alachua Fire is that I can never get there during their business hours. No weekends and they close @ 4:30. That would be ideal if HAW worked out something like that. It would be a win-win for both biz.

 

[ArcaneXor]

I'll mention it to Barron, but there are a few logistical issues to deal with to make this work.

Airgas is an alternative, though I believe they swap rather than fill. There's also Praxair, but I don't know if they do consumer co2. I didn't know they existed until Neal at TPs mentioned it.

 

[CS223]

I'll mention it to Barron, but there are a few logistical issues to deal with to make this work.

Airgas is an alternative, though I believe they swap rather than fill. There's also Praxair, but I don't know if they do consumer co2. I didn't know they existed until Neal at TPs mentioned it.

Airgas only swaps. I called and at that time they said only 5# and 20# were available. I didn't call Strait Welding, they're off of Waldo road in the industrial park. Disintegr8or swaps his at Car Quest, and Tractor Supply I believe carries (swaps) welding CO2 as well.

 

[Yambor44]

I use Airgas and swap. Was really hard the first time letting my nice shiny aluminum (?) tank go but I had no choice as the folks that fill here stopped doing so. I want to say I swap out a 20 for like $16.95 out the door. Food grade too.

 

[Ebbtide]

Cool, I'll check out airgas. I called car quest and tractor supply and the folks on the phones acted as tho I spoke Lebanese.

 

[Ebbtide]

Any word on HAW doing the co2?

 

[CS223]

Any word on HAW doing the co2?

I emailed Barron about it and he replied, I don't look for it to happen, too many issues with AFE & logistics. He did say that he's looking to add fill service to their store when they move to a bigger place. When that might be, he didn't say. When I mentioned the idea to Chris a while back, he did say that he drives past AFE every day. You might be able to get him to do the fill legwork for a couple bucks. It would be worth another $5 to me just so I didn't have to take off in the middle of the day and run over there.

 

[Ebbtide]

Sounds good. Thanks a ton for trying to give the nudge for the Co2 service up there.

 

[Ebbtide]

Ok, bit the bullet and went over to AFE @ lunch today. Of course my tank was out of date. They had one that was ready to go so I just paid for the exchange. $42

 

[MichaelBrock]

Anyone having issues with the grind at our local LHBS? I bought 16 lbs of grain there this past Thursday for a weizenbock. They did say that they were having trouble with the grinder but I didn't check the results at the time. When I got home I found that most of the grain wasn't crushed at all. Fortunately, I have a corona I usually grind with and I was able to fix the issue. I'm sure they'll get it sorted; the grind there is usually perfect and I get a consistent 80% efficiency with it. I just wanted to give a heads up. Check your grind!

 

[ArcaneXor]

Michael, I apologize. The mill has been temperamental during the past week, and we have a new one (a nice 3-roller mill) on order. In the meantime, I'll remind the rest of the crew to check the crush and double-mill if necessary.

 

[MichaelBrock]

I was certain you guys were on top of it! I just thought to add a suggestion that it is something to look out for in the mean time. Oh, while you're at it can you order some lighter colored bottle caps than those gaudy bright gold ones? :cross: I bought some anyway but I much prefer the silver or light gold ones you used to carry. The bright gold ones are too flash for my beer!

 

[ArcaneXor]

I'll order some pre-packaged caps next time.

Edit: We now have the bright gold as well as plain black caps out front. We have silver caps in a box in the back that we haven't started digging into yet. We also have our new mill running now.