What I did for beer today

[Bramling Cross]

If you brewed Southern German Pils the Bratwurst is the wrong sausage for breakfast, Weißwurst is the one.
You got a winner with your grant, mine doesn't come close.

Truth is, it's the kettle that I started with. When they chopped a kidney out of me last December it was clear that I wouldn't be lifting any 9gal kettles of wort off the floor and onto the range top any time soon. And I'm decidedly middle aged now, so while I took some pride in the fact that I was able to make that not inconsequential lift, it wasn't a smart thing to be doing anymore. So I popped a hole in my old kettle and stuck a ball valve in it: instant stupidly large grant.

Honestly, I should've done it years ago.

Regarding the weenies, I'm blaming the Germans! They don't carry weisswurst at my local ALDI. For shame, ALDI!

 

[BrewZer]

Truth is, it's the kettle that I started with. When they chopped a kidney out of me last December it was clear that I wouldn't be lifting any 9gal kettles of wort off the floor and onto the range top any time soon. Even so, I'm decidedly middle aged now, and while I took some pride in the fact that I was able to make that not inconsequential lift, it wasn't a smart thing to be doing anymore. So I popped a hole in my old kettle and stuck a ball valve in it: instant stupidly large grant.

Honestly, I should've done it years ago.

My Assistent Braumeister is instrumental in helping me lift the kettle into the laundry room for cooling. If it weren't for her, I'd need a valve, a pump, and several feet of tubing...

 

[Bramling Cross]

My Assistent Braumeister is instrumental in helping me lift the kettle into the laundry room for cooling. If it weren't for her, I'd need a valve, a pump, and several feet of tubing...

I'm really lucky that I don't have to mess with stairs. I do not envy you, sir.

 

[BrewZer]

I'm really lucky that I don't have to mess with stairs. I do not envy you, sir.

We don't have stairs, but it's a 50-foot trek from the garage into the laundry room. And then a lift up onto the dryer to cool and decant into the fermenter...

 

[Bramling Cross]

Yikes! I see why you hump it into the laundry room, 55-60ft of silicone tubing would cost a pretty penny!

 

[Yesfan]

I bought a pair of Amycl 3 gallon single strap kegs from Amazon. $158 for a pair of them. After my gift cards from work, it only cost me $56/pr. I plan on adding some floating dip tubes to them so I can use them as fermenters too.

 

[OakIslandBrewery]

My Assistent Braumeister is instrumental in helping me lift the kettle into the laundry room for cooling. If it weren't for her, I'd need a valve, a pump, and several feet of tubing...

My brew helper is a valve, a pump and several feet of tubing.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Please post some results when it's ready?

Will do.

 

[HM-2]

Knocked up a recipe for a Brut IPA to brew next week.

80% lager malt
10% torrified flaked rice
7% wheat
3% Belgian candi sugar

20IBU of LupoMAX Centennial for bittering
30g each Strata and Tango in the whirlpool
70g each Strata and Tango in the DH

WHC LAX and Amyloglucosidase 300 to ferment down to 1.002ish for a nice round 7% from a 1.055 OG.



Also pulled a sample of my imperial rice lager. Need to actual check the gravity because it's tasting pretty sweet rather than crisp and dry. Have a feeling the Nova might have stalled out. If so I'll need to chuck something else onto it to get things moving again. Tasted reasonably good, though I might have overdone the whirlpool hopping a bit.

Last things last, checked in on the bretted Saison which is smelling incredible. I have half a mind to transfer a good chunk of the lager into the keg to bring it up a full size batch.

 

[Hoochin'Fool]

Brewed 3 gallons of imperial stout, bottled 2.75 gallons of ipa while the stout was boiling, then dumped the stout on top of the ipa's yeast cake once it was cool. Only had to use a couple of paper towels to clean up spills, and the ipa tastes quite nice, even warm and flat!

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Bottled my Mosaic IPA. 32x 50cl bottles. ABV was 6.3%.

 

[leedspointbrew]

Had 7 remaining 12 oz bottles of imperial Irish Red yeast bombs (don't ask) from March. Opened them, let them explode, repackaged them into 3 sanitized 22 oz bombers.

 

[camonick]

Brewed a batch of all cashmere hazy pale ale today. Also kegged 2 other batches. An Irish Stout and a Vienna lager. Used my new OxBar kegs. I’m interested to see how they work.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Today I brewed 23 litres of Harlequin Pale Ale
4200g Maris Otter
300g Biscuit malt
200g Torrefied Wheat (should have been Maize but misread the recipe)
100g Carapils
Mashed at 67C for 60 minutes.
30g Olicana at 60 minutes
25g Harlequin at 15 minutes
35g Harlequin at 80C for 20 minutes.
Lallemand Verdant yeast at 22 C

 

[BrewZer]

Finished the last of 4 12-oz samplers for the Frankenweizen's Monster. It's going in the 'fridge today!

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Boxed up entries and drove them to the shipping place.

 

[sdbbp]

Opened an issue on Brewfather this week Could have also been a post in Don't Do That.
https://gitlab.com/warpkode/public/brewfather/-/issues/1483

 

[HM-2]

Kegged up my dry hopped yuzu imperial rice lager. It's tasting pretty dang good.

Also dumped the rest of my leftover Hopfenweisse into my "all the Brett's" keg.

 

[Bramling Cross]

I'm boiling my o2 stone in brewery cleaner because it was well behaved all summer, so it's sure to start acting up again soon.

 

[ClaudiusB]

I was supervising the keg washing with free beers most of the day. My keg washer has a flaw: It's not senior citizen-friendly. A robotic arm is required to load and unload the kegs in the future.

 

[lumpher]

Brewing a Mild Brown Ale. Getting too old for the Imperials, Extra..., Heavy...

 

[T Murph]

Checked on my recently brewed pale ale. I force carbonated it two days ago. I expected it to be perfectly carbed and cleared as it has been in the beer cooler for 5 days now. But no it was totally flat. I forgot to swap out the tap that I use to carbonate, which leaks CO2, to a serving tap. So I re-carbonated it but I did pull a sample and it is spot on. I really gotta quit forgetting things like that. CO2 ain't cheep now days.

 

[Bramling Cross]

Eager to get my UK-style season going in earnest, I opened BeerSmith and scrolled down to my UK recipes, then started looking at my dark milds, browns, and brown porters while trying to predict the Mid-Atlantic weather for the next month or so.

Still too hot, I decided. Damnit!

I really need a dark ale fix, maybe a dry stout? Those are good when it's hot.

 

[BrewZer]

Opened the first of many 22-oz Frankenweizen's Monsters and it went delicious on me!

 

[Bramling Cross]

I turned a 4lb sack of cane sugar into about 5lbs of invert #1. Total yield with the jars is a smidge over 7lbs, one jar weighs 10oz, so roughly 5lbs. That’ll keep me going for over a year.

I was a little concerned that the batch over-darkened while cooling, but compared to the remains of my last batch of #2, it looks about right. Honestly, I have no idea what these colors are really supposed to look like. I mostly go by taste, but I don’t actually know what they’re supposed to taste like either!

Stupid Yank.

 

[BrewZer]

Grilled steak. Beered chef.

 

[ClaudiusB]

I replaced the batteries and paper memory in my reliable 30-year-old temperature monitors/recorders. They have a storage capacity of one week.

 

[Wigglebutts Brewery]

Hey BC, me too!
I had 4# of turbinado sugar to turn into invert #2.. perfect project for watching college football. Love the dark color, but don’t ask me SRM .

 

[Cameronl]

I swapped out the 9.5mm duotight right angle connectors on my Temptwister with 3/8" push-ons from Home Depot.

The duotights are supposed to work with the TT, but only one would make a good connection. I tried two different connectors, but they just wouldn't latch on. Found these at HD and they pushed on with a nice confident feel. I hooked them up to the chiller and it worked great. No leaks.

 

[Bramling Cross]

I made another batch of invert today, invert #2. I do believe I’m ready for UK ale season.

The left jar on the top row shows a clear demarcation line where I poured the last bit of today’s batch onto the leftovers from last year’s batch.

And here’s today’s #2 sitting next to yesterday’s batch of #1.

I think I should've given the #2 an extra ten minutes. Oh well.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Today I bottled my Harlequin Pale Ale 37 50cl bottles at 4.9%.

 

[Malticulous]

I washed all my 12 oz brown bottles and filled over 100 of them with hefeweizen. This is my first time using the new W-68. The final sample was good but it's not WLP-300. There wasn't much aroma when bottling.

I also kegged one part of a 15 gallon batch of pale ale. The other 10 gallons are still under pressure in my allrounder. This part was fermented in a bucket. The aroma from the cryo Simcoe and Mosaic was intense when I opened the bucket. yum.

 

[broot]

Picked up 2x4's for my brewery build. Didn't have time to work on it though.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

A couple days ago I washed bottles, today I brewed a partial mash kit to be served at an event, nice and quick brew day. Yeast has been pitched and I’ll be done cleaning in the next few minutes. Tomorrow I need to bring out the beer gun to package a certain beer for a competition and check the starsan in the airlocks.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

American strong. Bottled for competition and sharing.

 

[Wigglebutts Brewery]

On Facebook Marketplace a homebrewer was giving away bottles so I picked up 5 cases. Bottles were clean on inside but still had labels. I’m using eBIAB equipment to make hot water PBW mix to attack labels in brute trash can. Works well except for Elysian label….

 

[bike2brew]

Yes, those plastic labels don't soak off very well and you have to apply a solvent like goo gone, or one of the organic hydrocarbons. I have found it easier to peel the labels in their entirety rather than scrape them off. Good luck

 

[Deadalus]

On Facebook Marketplace a homebrewer was giving away bottles so I picked up 5 cases. Bottles were clean on inside but still had labels. I’m using eBIAB equipment to make hot water PBW mix to attack labels in brute trash can. Works well except for Elysian label….

View attachment 857169

The Elysians are tough to get off! Not worth trying in my opinion. I soak bottles in buckets with water, ammonia, and some Dawn for multiple days usually. Then brass brush any residues. If not all the way off or close to it, that bottle just gets chucked. I'd recycle but local center doesn't take glass. If you have a cat, the cat litter buckets work pretty good. They'll fit under your sink too, they are about the size of the bucket you already have under your sink. I keep two under my utility sink myself.

 

[bike2brew]

Totally agree. I have generally quit buying bottle beer mostly because I like my HB better, but also have a good supply of bottles in use now. When I do buy bottle beer, I select for paper lables that soak off. Lots of good craft beer in cans these days, and they transport well in the RV when I'm traveling so I don't have to be committed to promptly rinsing once the beer is dispensed.

 

[Cameronl]

The high school marching band has a monthly bottle and can drive. Last time I dropped off a bag of cans I asked if I could grab some bottles in exchange for a donation. I found about a dozen bottles from craft breweries on the top of the pile. They said I could just take them, but I gave them a $5 donation (both my kids had great experiences with the band when they were in HS). I don't bottle too much, but it was enough to top up my stock for bringing six packs places were I don't expect to get the bottles back.