What a wonderful day to brew!

[balto charlie]

I'm glad I brewed last night. Woke up to frozen hoses this morning. That would have been a PITA.

I hear ya on the hoses. Here's my brewing from last night
Brutal cold weather settled in on the mid-Atlantic region this wknd, (25F w/ 20 MPH winds). I decided to brew anyway. It took a little longer than normal to bring the wort to a boil but eventually all was roaring. I was making an altbier which required a 90 minute boil. Tank 1 ran out of gas. Not to worry, a 2nd one was ready on standby. All went well until it was time to chill the wort. My ‘line out’ of the IC was frozen. I was trying to shake the ice clog free but the hose snapped off at the IC. Hot (and I mean hot) water came shooting out all over the friggin’ place. I grabbed the end (hot!) of the IC and aimed it into the bushes. I had to hold the IC for 10 minutes while the beer cooled. It cooled quickly. I was lucky the ‘line in’ did not freeze. The bucket of Star-san started to freeze as well. Another lesson learned. I guess those of you who brew outside in the winter do not hook up you IC hoses until you are close to chilling the wort. I must go back to the drawing board to re-config my winter brewing setup. All ‘n all I think it went well. My anticipated 70% efficiency was higher than expected (still have to figure it out); my 5 gallon cooler was MAXED out w/ 11.5 lbs of grains with OG 1.060.

 

[balto charlie]

I'm probably going to be moving to Arizona in about a year and a half. Brewing during the winter in Arizona is probably going to be a tad bit different than Michigan

You're right there, but chilling the wort in August will be a bit difficult.

 

[Revvy]

I did notice the part where you said your batteries died, just questioning your priorities. If my batteries were low in my camera I would first take the pictures of the hotties then second take pictures of the ugly dudes.

One thing to realize when you are dealing with a Polar Bear Plunge when the Pre-Windchill temp is 19 deg. Fahrenheit, they aren't walking around in their bikinis...They usually drop whatever long coat or clothes they are wearing while we are all counting down from 10....You tend not to notice the bikinis until they are running back up from the water.

And someone says "Oh my god, that fool's wearing a bathing suit!"

Believe you me, If I coulda got pics with Hot Chicks with hard nippleage in bikinis I would have and would have posted them instead of the pics I did.