Unexpected "Donations"...are you kidding me!?

[Evan!]

My friend, who got me onto brewing in the first place and helped me learn the basics, seems to know all kinds of weird dudes who for some reason have dusty old brewing equipment taking up space in their sheds. Or something. The vast majority of the actual equipment I have has been "donated"...IOW, this friend comes over to my house with a bunch of grimy old brewing stuff and drops it off. No idea where it comes from, but who am I to complain?

So, prior to yesterday, I had 9 fermentation vessels and 3 brew kettles. My friend, he calls me out of the blue and asks if he can drop off a bunch of brewing stuff, like I'm gonna say no? Here's what I scored:

• Corny Keg
• (3) 6.5gal Glass Carboys
• 50L Stainless Kettle w/ Spigot and removable steel mesh false bottom
• Large-diameter immersion chiller (stinks like rotten mule turds, but that can be cleaned!)
• A big bucket (almost full) of powderized 5-Star PBW cleaner
• A bunch of bottles and growlers

So, now, I can finally do all-grain with confidence. The false-bottom is obviously professionally made...very nice, welded handles and legs, etc. I've never kegged before, but now I guess alls I gotta do is find a co2 canister and I'm set---it has a little "dispenser" hooked up to it, so I could keep it in my lagerator and dispense from there. I've been looking for an immersion chiller for awhile, but I've been too cheap to buy one...so this is good. And if my guess is correct, there should be another one under the christmas tree too. The PBW will be nice...I've never used it before, but I think it'll be better than using Simple Green. As for the carboys...I already have too many...and when I get more, it's just more to taunt me with. Rough, I know.

Now if I could just find the time to remove the labels from all the bottles I've been getting, I'd be set, and I could bottle my IPA and/or Porter. But, this time of year, good freakin' luck.

 

[david_42]

I HATE threads like this! Paying retail bites!

 

[the_bird]

If I say that I now hate you, you know it's only out of jealousy, right?

Nice score, man.

 

[magno]

I need more friends like that

 

[Evan!]

I hate threads like this too. This is just payback for all the ones I had to read (and subsequently yell at the computer screen).

 

[rdwj]

I wish I knew more weird guys with random brewing equip laying around.

On the positive side, my mom wants me to start making wine and is going to buy the extra stuff I need. From what I can tell, it's not much more than a bigger primary bucket, a corker and some bottles/corks

 

[the_bird]

Tell her you need a conical fermenter, a PH meter, a.....

 

[zoebisch01]

Wow, just wow. Nice score m8.

 

[ColoradoXJ13]

you guys need to scour craigslist more frequently. I picked up:
2, 5-gal carboys
3, 6-gal buckets, 1 with spigot
several racking canes, bottling wands, tubing
two cappers
several bags of unused caps
3 funnels, one with screen
drying racks
6 cases of bombers
about 100 6-pack holders
assorted brewing chemicals/supplies
brewpot (kinda small)
and a bunch of other crap for $40...

now I can brew 3 batches at once! Guy was moving, hadn't brewed ina while, and decided he didn't have time for it anymore and didn't want to move all that stuff. He also had about 20 cases of 12-oz bottles...I declined those, my jeep was full and I generate enough of those on my own.

 

[Evan!]

Very nice, that. Too bad Craiglist blows cock where I live. I keep an eye on it, but there's usually very little along the lines of brewing-related stuff in my area. If I lived in a big city, it'd be different, I guess.

 

[Aabrewedxxxx]

I hate you.

 

[Beer Weevel]

Here's to the wierdo's