What I did for beer today

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ba-brewer said:
Any suggestions on how to get better throughput during cooler weather?
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Sure. Three options come to mind:
1. Warm the feedwater. You can mix your hot and cold water, or rig up a heat exchanger.
2. You can increase the pressure with a booster pump, or in some cases you can increase pressure reaching the RO by improving the method you used to tap into your homes plumbing, or in some cases you can increase the diameter of your feedwater tube.
3. Install a higher capacity RO membrane. 24, 36, 50, 75, and 100 gallon per day membranes all fit in the same size housing, will all purify the water similarly, and are all spec'ed at 50 psi. If you jump up to a 150 or 200 gpd membrane you'll want 65+ psi. Don't forget that if you change membrane capacity you'll also want a new $4 flow restrictor.

Russ
 
Ordered everything to brew a Single Hop Session NEIPA. Get to break in my new kegerator!
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Draught line cleaning, made up a fresh 5 gallon bucket of Star San, got a CO2 cylinder refilled at LHBS and picked up a little red O2 cylinder at Ace Hardware, and ran 10 gallons of RO. Productive couple of days. No, really, I've done non-beer stuff, too!
 
ba-brewer said:
Where did you get the Maris Otter LME?

Would like to hear how your bitters turn out with the MO extract.

I was thinking about start doing 1gal batches of bitters using extract but was going to shoot for some more balanced and malty to use to check out my banked yeast slants. Was planning to keep it simple so I could tell if I am getting drift of contamination.
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Tested out this batch as I type.
While I may be using the bitter style loosely, I’m not noticing much difference from the MO LME vs my batches with regular DME with steeping to achieve a closer MO taste. I might actually prefer the non MO extract version. Maybe I just prefer a dash of brown malt, which I left out. Still a very solid beer, but nothing special. Still better than my all grain attempt. Woof.
 
danielthemaniel said:
I recently made a saison that I used light toast American oak chips soaked in gin with juniper berries, lavender and chamomile. Smells like a bouquet of flowers and is really good. Just in case you wanted an idea!
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Very interested in this. I bottled my first saison during the week and was very happy with a little early sampling. I'll be ordering more ingredients today for another batch that I plan to age in an oak barrel. What was your process for the juniper berries, lavender and chamomile? When did you add them into the picture?
 
Going to keg my RatDeath later today, after my husband, mother, and I move my Dad to his new digs. He's going from a memory care facility (he has Alzheimers) to a group home that will be scads better for him. Less stress for my mom, and the lady that runs it with her husband is an RN so he'll get better care. Also the place he's in now doesn't take Medicaid and the group home does, at much less cost. I would go into a super-long rant about how this state screws over spouses when their SO has to go on Medicaid, both financially and emotionally, but I'll leave that for the debate forum, at some future date. Had to clean out my SUV so I can move furniture, amazing how much loose grain was back there...oops.
 
TheEagleRising said:
Ordered everything to brew a Single Hop Session NEIPA. Get to break in my new kegerator!View attachment 664382
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I've got a fridge very similar to that, how did you run the beer lines? Obviously the taps are on the freezer side, did you just drill holes through the middle? Would be interested in doing something similar with mine.
 
seatazzz said:
Going to keg my RatDeath later today, after my husband, mother, and I move my Dad to his new digs. He's going from a memory care facility (he has Alzheimers) to a group home that will be scads better for him. Less stress for my mom, and the lady that runs it with her husband is an RN so he'll get better care. Also the place he's in now doesn't take Medicaid and the group home does, at much less cost. I would go into a super-long rant about how this state screws over spouses when their SO has to go on Medicaid, both financially and emotionally, but I'll leave that for the debate forum, at some future date. Had to clean out my SUV so I can move furniture, amazing how much loose grain was back there...oops.
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I had to see my Mom through Alzheimer's and Dad through Parkinson's. There just aren't enough words in the language to rant adequately about how hard it is on families. Sounds like you at least have some good facilities and help available. And my sympathy.

Now, stop wasting good grain in the back of the SUV, it'll just attract mice, and you can never, ever get the smell of mouse pee out of a vehicle! (Trust me.)
 
seatazzz said:
Going to keg my RatDeath later today, after my husband, mother, and I move my Dad to his new digs. He's going from a memory care facility (he has Alzheimers) to a group home that will be scads better for him. Less stress for my mom, and the lady that runs it with her husband is an RN so he'll get better care. Also the place he's in now doesn't take Medicaid and the group home does, at much less cost. I would go into a super-long rant about how this state screws over spouses when their SO has to go on Medicaid, both financially and emotionally, but I'll leave that for the debate forum, at some future date. Had to clean out my SUV so I can move furniture, amazing how much loose grain was back there...oops.
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Heart goes out to your family. As other's said, Alzheimer's is aweful. I have 2 of 3 known genes to aid development...thanks grandma. My plan is to die of liver disease first...
 
PianoMan said:
Heart goes out to your family. As other's said, Alzheimer's is aweful. I have 2 of 3 known genes to aid development...thanks grandma. My plan is to die of liver disease first...
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We get enough B vitamins from our homebrew to help mitigate liver disease...just make lighter ABV beers! And thanks.
 
Hoppy2bmerry said:
@seatazzz you're in my thoughts. My Mom died first, so she didn’t see my Father’s decline she would have definitely made things more difficult than they were. Glad you found a good living situation for your Dad. There’s never a dull moment. Be well.
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Thank you my dear. Love reading your posts. The love and support I get from this forum mean a lot to me; I'll probably never meet most of you face to face, but we share a passion that brings us together.
 
Move went smoothly (for husband, Mom, and me at least, Dad is a bit upset) and home now for some relax time. RatDeath turned out to be more of a reddish/brown ale with a good flavor (at least the uncarbonated sample tastes good) so trying to figure out what it is. I'll post a pic once it's carbed and ready. Guessing I should have subbed in Chocolate for the absent Carafa II instead of roasted barley; but should be a nice easy drinking dark-ish ale.
 
Kegged my schwarzbier to lager for a bit. Not too bad for the first beer made with (some) of my well water.
 
Filled the storage buckets with 2-row. I can’t get a full sack into two 5 gal buckets so I also weighed out grain for this week’s brewday.
 
brewbama said:
Filled the storage buckets with 2-row. I can’t get a full sack into two 5 gal buckets so I also weighed out grain for this week’s brewday.
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It's a close thing. When I get the bucket almost full, I thump it up and down on the floor, rotate rapidly, or a combination of the two, to settle the grain. Always have been able to get a full sack in 2 buckets.
 
Dave Sarber said:
It's a close thing. When I get the bucket almost full, I thump it up and down on the floor, rotate rapidly, or a combination of the two, to settle the grain. Always have been able to get a full sack in 2 buckets.
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I can never get a sack in two buckets either. First, the gamma lids seem to need extra room to tighten down. And more importantly it probably depends on the grain. Different malts have different sizes and shapes of kernels with different packing efficiency. And if it's a European grain, or Rahr 2 row, it's 25 kilograms and that extra 5 lbs will do it. I just spread it across 3 buckets and have room to keep a scoop in there. As soon as I'm through two buckets, I have room to stash a new sack.
 
Bottled 48 12 ounce beers for my youngest' child ski instructor. Guy is a volunteer in an organization that helps kids with special needs (Outdoors for All), and is amazing as an instructor. This is the third year he's coached my daughter, who at the end of year one was able to get down the bunny slope by herself skiing behind the coach who went downhill backwards and kinda guided her down like one of those guys with lighted batons bringing a plane into the gate.

Anyhoo, 3 seasons ago I asked if he liked beer? "Trick question?" And then it turned out he likes American IPA's. So, each season I have bottled some kind of hop bomb for him. Generally, American hops are not for my palate. So, year one I did an English IPA loaded with Fuggles, Bramling Cross, N Brewer and EKG. Last year was a variety of noble hops. This year is an Strong Bitter with a lot of Fuggles. Win-win. :ban:
 
Bottled a pils. My first time using lager yeast. Beer looked really clear in the fermonster. I used up some styrian aurora hops that I scavenged from a friend and it sampled way better than I was expecting it to. It ended a couple gravity points higher than I expected, but it was the second time using my mash&boil system, and I definitely remember some temp swings on that one. Really excited to sample off the uKeg and not have to wait for the bottles to carb and condition.
 
Kicked one, tapped one, and got a great comparison. Two otherwise identical Dunkels, but the second has my typical 1% Carafa Special 2, while the first dropped that and just made up the color with extra Sinamar. I cannot detect the difference as a perceptible roast character in the second. But there was definitely something missing in the first. This one tastes like I expect a Dunkel to. Cool.
 

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