What I did for beer today

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So it wasn't today , but it was this weekend. Saturday I brewed a tripel that I've brewed a dozen times. I was going to "dry hop" it with saffron for this years 12 beers of Christmas. The next day while I was putting stuff away after I got home from a friends house late that night I noticed a little dish on the counter. It contained the coriander that I should have put into the kettle 30 hours ago. That's not the worst of it though - we've all forgotten to add ingredients one time or another. What I can't get to the bottom of is that I came in at 1.064 when I expected1.071. Moral of the story: "Friends don't let friends brew drunk!"
 
Order from brewhardware arrived (in a PIZZA box, omg @Bobby_M that was classic but everything was just fine), installed the hardware for the 5th tap and playing around with the false bottoms (snork) to see how they will work best. And now I can tell my friends I (kinda) got pizza from NJ.
 
Kegged the first batch brewed at the city house since “building” the quick ‘n’ dirty keezer, an Amber Ale.
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A few days back I brewed a double batch(or almost) of IPA and diluted part into a golden ale. For todays new I check their gravity and raised the temp on the golden ale. The IPA is about a day behind the golden ale but I expected that as my last version/cake of wlp007 has been really slow to start for some reason.

Finally got around to brewing my festbier today. Mashed it low and did a 90min boil so it made for a long day. Got pretty close to my expected gravity, 1 point high and did not over boil so the correct volume.
 
Tested & tasted the hard seltzer I made on Saturday; think I nailed it this time. No nasty sulfur as in my previous tries, but it does have acetaldehyde so I'm letting it clean up for another couple of days. Came down from 1.035 to 1.001. Husband's best friend is coming for the weekend from Vegas, I want it ready for him to try.
 
Not really FOR beer, but for my beer enabler (aka husband); his best friend is flying in from Vegas tonight, as he and my husband will be attending the memorial for their other best friend's dad on Saturday. Did the flight of the bumblebee cleaning the house, since he will be staying with us, and planning an epic dinner for Sunday. Fortunately plenty of homebrew on tap to get me through it; Vegas friend doesn't drink beer, but we've got plenty of the hard stuff in the liquor cabinet to keep him happy. 20 years ago when I met his best friend for the first time, on a trip to Vegas, he grabbed me in a great big hug before he even greeted my husband and therefore became one of my own best friends; I call him the little brother I never wanted, said with love of course. And my most amazing boss is letting me work from home tomorrow so I can spend some time with him as well. I won't be attending the memorial as I didn't know other best friend's dad, and I want the three amigos to have some quality time together. So I get to brew in an empty house. Winning all round.
 
Had a couple homebrewclub peeps over to help me bottle for the first time (I'm a kegger). Bottles are for some comps (also a first time entering comps for me). It was a fun event overall and happy that the tapcooler filler that I purchased a while ago but never used yet worked exactly as advertised with the ball lock for CO2 adapter. Then we commenced to share some beers and sample more from the keezer.
 
Took a look at how things are progressing in the garden. The Centennial died off 2nd year in a row, idk. The Medusa didn't last but maybe two weeks and then rotted away. The Cascade and Eroica are doing ok, about 12' of growth so far. The Comet is 1st year, and only about 3' tall. On the other hand, Pic #1 is the Old Mission and Pic #2 is the Chinook, both have burrs, are over 15' tall, and are still going strong!
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828brewing said:
Great story! Being new to all of this, do you mind if I ask you when/how much you add to the beer? In the primary or secondary? Thank you!
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I believe most folks put fruit in the secondary. How much I couldn't tell you but I imagine how much of the fruit taste you want and what kind of fruit you are using based on how many gallons...subtle or in your face. I've read putting fruit in the primary will scrub away alot of the taste vs secondary which will preserve much of the fruit flavor profile.
 
Wasn't today but last Sat. Headed over to my fave LHBS to get the grains and fixings for a Brittish Golden Honey ale. 11am and they were closed...strange. Was just about to walk away all the while mumbling curses to the beer God's...forgive me...cause this was 1st chance I've had in months to get over there...when I saw the note hanging above the hours notice...Closed till after the 4th due to the untimely passing of the owner...😯😕😬.. What the What ???? I was in deep shock for days. I had no idea how the owner, a fairly young man, I'm guessing late 20s , could have suddenly departed. All kinds of horror scenarios haunted my mind for days....car accident ? Robbed and shot ? Domestic violence ?? Finally got a email from one of the shop workers I've known for years. The owner found out in late May he had advanced stage 4 bladder cancer 😕. Was setting up a plan for chemo and radiation but by end of June he was gone...just like that, just that quick and so young !!!! That young man was so nice and taught me so much about brewing over a 10 year period. He's the reason I went from extract brewing and bottling to all grain and kegging. I'm still in shock. I can't lose my fave LHBS Cap N Cork !! Brew God's bless you Andy. Save a spot in the Great BrewHalle in BrewVanna !! 🍻 🍻 🍻 🍻 🍻
 
Came home to a dead 20lb co2 tank. Muttering imprecations about husband and guest possibly messing something up, I did tests on all six kegs; nothing. Did the thing where I pressurized the regulator and turned off the main valve, with all the valves closed, then open, to see which side the leak was on; yep, on the kegerator side. Checked AGAIN; and found the leak. I have a 6-way manifold; 5 for taps and one for force carbing. One of the tap lines was recently changed from a black to a gray disconnect, so I could have five on tap; guess who didn't tighten the nut enough? Yep, me. Second spraying of starsan found the inevitable bubbles coming from the nut. Tightened it good, pulled the line out and reseated it, and no leak. I'm a dumba**.
 
Today I watched bubbles for a while and checked on the shipping status of some parts I ordered to add a second pump to my brewing setup. I have two temperature controllers in my setup but I have been manually controlling the hot liquor tank and stirring it. The new pump will allow the controller to set the temp and keep me from over shooting my sparge temps.

Yesterday I brewed a golden ale and it seemed to turn out OK even though I had a couple troubles getting it done. Started off by accidentally snorting some camden dust while I crushed them up, man did that stuff burn. I normally smash the tablets in the bag with the end of a screw driver handle but this time I had a whole package loose in a mortar and pestle which created some fine dust to float up. I could not see the dust but sure did feel it. It took a while for my nose to stop burning but part of that could of been the tap water I used to rinse my nose out. Then when I mashed-in I started to hear something funny coming from the pump, a kind of soft ticking type noise. It wasn't until I dumped all of the grain in that it dawned on me that I forgot to connect the false bottom to the ball valve on the mash tun. Even with the pump throttled down the crushed grain did not plug it up and I had good flow or I might of caught it earlier. That was first time I have done that so I am blaming it on being under the influence of camden. Took about 20mins to scoop the grain out and clean the RIMS and pump so the temp dropped to the low 140s so it should be a pretty dry beer. Everything after that ran pretty well but with bad thing coming in threes I kept wondering what was going happen next.
 
So last year's grape crop got eaten before I could harvest. Every year I plan to do a wild-fermented wine that is blended with my pale sour. Those wild yeasties are our house culture that I try to keep alive year to year as well. Last year was a big crop of grapes and in one night <poof> gone. This year I took a lesson from YouTube and used the leftover plastic boxes from fruits and veggies. So far, so good. The hops grow in front of the grapes in the raised boxes.
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Belly crawled under the house to run a 240v 15a lead from the electricity box at the front through to the back yard where I brew.
Totally worth coming face to face with ancient rat skulls, getting covered in dust and bruises to have an extra 2400w heat stick to boost the heating times on my slow 2400w BIAB system.
 
ba-brewer said:
Today I watched bubbles for a while and checked on the shipping status of some parts I ordered to add a second pump to my brewing setup. I have two temperature controllers in my setup but I have been manually controlling the hot liquor tank and stirring it. The new pump will allow the controller to set the temp and keep me from over shooting my sparge temps.

Yesterday I brewed a golden ale and it seemed to turn out OK even though I had a couple troubles getting it done. Started off by accidentally snorting some camden dust while I crushed them up, man did that stuff burn. I normally smash the tablets in the bag with the end of a screw driver handle but this time I had a whole package loose in a mortar and pestle which created some fine dust to float up. I could not see the dust but sure did feel it. It took a while for my nose to stop burning but part of that could of been the tap water I used to rinse my nose out. Then when I mashed-in I started to hear something funny coming from the pump, a kind of soft ticking type noise. It wasn't until I dumped all of the grain in that it dawned on me that I forgot to connect the false bottom to the ball valve on the mash tun. Even with the pump throttled down the crushed grain did not plug it up and I had good flow or I might of caught it earlier. That was first time I have done that so I am blaming it on being under the influence of camden. Took about 20mins to scoop the grain out and clean the RIMS and pump so the temp dropped to the low 140s so it should be a pretty dry beer. Everything after that ran pretty well but with bad thing coming in threes I kept wondering what was going happen next.
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Well at least you will have sanitized airway passages !!! Wow !
 
Not today but yesterday; made another batch of hard seltzer, this time using a can of Oregon Fruit pineapple puree, and doing a full 5g instead of 2.5. The first batch is going fast; nice to have something different on tap. Husband is out of town until next Wednesday, so this weekend might just be a double-brew weekend.
 
seatazzz said:
After my previous (very hilarious, come on guys need more likes) post,
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say what? as an adult, i can see you are already 120% more liked then me here!
seatazzz said:
Not today but yesterday; made another batch of hard seltzer,
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wait a second you've only been brewing since 2013 did you say? and you're already resorting to sugar washes? ;) :p


and if hard seltzer counts now, i checked the gravity....
 
Sat in commute time traffic crawling for a couple hours to return a bad pump and pick up a replacement. Should of tested it the day I got but I was waiting until I got the rest of the parts I needed. Replacement worked fine.

Kegged my festbier, which involved cleaning a keg and cleaning the fermentor.
 

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