What I did for beer today

[day_trippr]

When I built my current brew rig 12 years ago I used full locking casters with expanding stems. Recently I noticed the casters were looking a bit "bow legged" and when I removed one of the caster assemblies I found the expanding polymer insert had majorly broken down.

Fortunately the polymer inserts are available separately for a couple bucks each so I ordered a set of four which arrived two days ago while I was up north fishing. So this morning I stripped everything off the rig, rolled it into the adjacent carpeted family room, flipped it on its side and started replacing the inserts.

Here's a bad one accompanied by a new one.

Eventually I found they had shipped me one undersized insert, shown on the right of the proper sized insert. It's a subtle difference, roughly an 1/8"D difference, but it would not expand enough to provide a solid grip.

After giving castercity.com a peeved phone call to arrange for a correctly size replacement to be shipped pronto, I took the best two of the old inserts and trimmed them on my table saw to make one correct length insert, and was able to get that to work for now. Got the rig all put back together, and if I had any empty kegs I'd get set up for a brew tomorrow, but I don't, so it'll have to wait. That's a high class problem for sure

Cheers!

 

[Deadalus]

When I built my current brew rig 12 years ago I used full locking casters with expanding stems. Recently I noticed the casters were looking a bit "bow legged" and when I removed one of the caster assemblies I found the expanding polymer insert had majorly broken down.

Fortunately the polymer inserts are available separately for a couple bucks each so I ordered a set of four which arrived two days ago while I was up north fishing. So this morning I stripped everything off the rig, rolled it into the adjacent carpeted family room, flipped it on its side and started replacing the inserts.

View attachment 858224

Here's a bad one accompanied by a new one.

View attachment 858225

Eventually I found they had shipped me one undersized insert, shown on the right of the proper sized insert. It's a subtle difference, roughly an 1/8"D difference, but it would not expand enough to provide a solid grip.

View attachment 858226

After giving castercity.com a peeved phone call to arrange for a correctly size replacement to be shipped pronto, I took the best two of the old inserts and trimmed them on my table saw to make one correct length insert, and was able to get that to work for now. Got the rig all put back together, and if I had any empty kegs I'd get set up for a brew tomorrow, but I don't, so it'll have to wait. That's a high class problem for sure

View attachment 858227

Cheers!

Bummer I just looked that site up. I had a wheel deteriorate and was looking for a single wheel. Wasn't finding a spare one on Amazon. Looks like they would have had one. Might just order it anyway and perhaps use the new ones in the future as I am thinking of getting a shorter table. I also wanted to shave an inch off in height.

 

[day_trippr]

The folks at Caster City have actually been easy to work with, someone in the shipping department just messed up a bit on this. It'll work itself out eventually They have the biggest selection of casters I found available at retail and their prices are pretty good...

Cheers!

 

[Hoochin'Fool]

Dropped off a 4-pack of bottles for a co-worker this morning, it was a 12% bourbonized imperial stout that I was really proud of. Just now got a text saying it was fantastic, she and her husband (who is a big beer nerd) both loved it!

My little secret: Well of course it was awesome, I don't share the "meh" ones...

 

[flipster]

I planted three hop seedlings this year in May (Fuggles, Tettnanger, Cascade). I didn't expect much from it in the first year... The Tettnanger barely made it a metre above the ground, the Fuggles looked well grown and reached almost 3 metres. After four days of catastrophic continuous rain (thankfully only annoying in my region but not dangerous like at our neighbours in AT and CZ), the provisionally extended climbing frame gave way under the weight of the Cascade.

After looking into countless posts on the subject of hop harvesting and the right time, I simply chose the one that best suits the state of my hops. So I was able to pick about half a kilo of cones. They will now be drying on my kitchen table for the next few days. I'm out of town for the weekend, so the sun filled kitchen is best place I guessed.
- I'm really excited and have already been thinking about a 5-litre batch of DMaSH Helles (I guess I always end up with "duo malts" ... without sour malt my water is just too hard).

 

[HM-2]

Should be kegging my Brut IPA but extreme lightning and horizontal rain have put play to that sadly.

 

[MograhmDeadbraid]

Got the ingredients to brewing Bock beer for Halloween. Pretty stoked on this one as this is a lead in to a short ferment Winter Warmer.

 

[Cameronl]

I need to do this for my hop addition cups. More than once I've had them lined up on the table and bumped it, knocking them over, or mixing up the order. I could line them up like a beer flight and add a spot to label the timing.

And so I did. I used my CNC to cut out the holes for the hop and water treatment cups as well as recesses for some whiteboard material so I can write the times for the various additions. The the CNC was able to cut the whiteboard to fit.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Checked FG and tasted my Scottish ale. Fermentation apparently stalled, pitched another packet of yeast. Did the same for my English barley wine. Yum.

 

[balrog]

So I blew my shoulder end of June, rotator cuff, haven't considered brewing since. Couple of tennis buddies came over 9/2 because they always wanted to see the 5 hours of boredom punctuated by 3-4 brief periods of sheer panic. We made a Citra/Vista whirlpooled Kveik 95F quick pale ale so chilling to 95 was like 5 minutes with tap water. Since I had an Altbier and a @Miraculix English ale in kegs already, we may have had a few also. Yesterday I kegged it. Lifting 5gal is still prolly not advised, but I know none of you folks will snitch me out to my shoulder surgeon.

 

[crazyjake19]

It was a sad day. Dumped my entire keg of Märzen that got horribly oxidized somehow. Still have no idea. I'm extremely careful with oxygen when kegging - fully purged keg, purged transfer lines, zero keg leaks. I guess it's bound to happen eventually. Only the third batch I've totally dumped in 7 years of brewing.

Pulled a sample of my NEIPA. Needs a little more time to settle out. I'll check it next weekend.

Pondered on what to do as far as flavoring my kettle sour.

Finally installed the RO system I've had for over a year in the box. It'll be used for the next brew.

Drank a half-liter of dunkelweizen.

 

[Zanatrik]

I finished building my new brew table BIAB lift device yesterday and tried it out in action today by brewing a nice stout. One of my first projects in quite some time that I didn’t have to go back to the hardware store for anything during the build, so definitely a win there!

 

[BrewZer]

 

[Deadalus]

So I blew my shoulder end of June, rotator cuff, haven't considered brewing since. Couple of tennis buddies came over 9/2 because they always wanted to see the 5 hours of boredom punctuated by 3-4 brief periods of sheer panic. We made a Citra/Vista whirlpooled Kveik 95F quick pale ale so chilling to 95 was like 5 minutes with tap water. Since I had an Altbier and a @Miraculix English ale in kegs already, we may have had a few also. Yesterday I kegged it. Lifting 5gal is still prolly not advised, but I know none of you folks will snitch me out to my shoulder surgeon.
View attachment 858445

I won't snitch to your doc or PT but it's such a long painful period before and after rotator cuff repair. It's not worth it! I wasn't completely mindful of what I was doing about 90 days out and I played a silly soccer drill with the kids where the coach falls down when the ball is kicked at the target (coach). I didn't tear it again but it hurt like I had for the next 2 days. Thinking I had and another six months down was awful. Do the PT too, my second one didn't recover as well as the first one. I didn't stick with it long enough the 2nd time.

 

[Willy]

The 10 gal Blonde ale, OcktoberFist completed fermentation and loaded into 2 corny kegs. One is in the keezer getting chilled and carbed while the other continues to condition in the "on deck circle", stored at room temps, 12 psi.

 

[flipster]

Today I bought some buckets, mostly for storage.

Sometimes there are just small things to do... Most exciting part of the story: I drilled a hole in one of them and filed it to fit an outlet. Now I have an additional fermenter bucket.

 

[grampamark]

Went to the LHBS and picked up the ingredients for an Altbier. Planning to brew tomorrow.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Today I brewed 22 litres of Mena Dru Stout (it means Black Hill in the Cornish language) The genuine stuff is brewed by the St. Austell Brewery in Cornwall.

3500g Irish Pale Malt
300g Smoked malt
180g Roasted Barley
180g Naked malted oats
180g Chocolate malt
140g Medium Crystal Malt
Fuggles 46g at 60m & 30g at 15m
Nottingham yeast
OG 1.044 expecting ABV 4.5%

 

[BikerMatt]

Portioning and vacu-bagging an industrial sized bag of centennial hops

 

[BrewZer]

Sacrificed a 22oz Summer48 for the common good -- wife unit is braising a pork shoulder in it in the slow cooker.

OMG, it smells so frickin' good in the house right now!!!

 

[flipster]

My recently harvested hops dried during the weekend, and I put it in one of the new buckets. Almost half a kilo fresh from the vines, 70g after drying... and a full 5 ltr bucket of heavenly fragrence.

After initially thinking about a Helles, I ended up brewing a pale ale with the fresh Cascade yesterday. I still had half a pack of M44 dry yeast in the fridge, which was a good opportunity for a 5-litre batch.
To bitter I used some Citra, and added a total of 25g of dried hop cones to the hot whirlpool and after cooling down to the brew.

In addition, I used a scoop of this wort to wake up the first half of the M44 yeast, which had been harvested from another brew and was resting in the fridge ever since. So today I made another 5ltr batch of Pale Ale "Juicy Kolibri" with Styrian Kolibri, which will be also dry hopped in a few days' time.
I'd say, I had a streak.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Today I bottled my Calabria IPA 34 x 500ml bottles.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

I packaged my Scottish ale, a few bottles for competition, sharing, and a keg for an event on Sunday.

 

[refect]

Today I cleaned my blow off arm and put it back on since it was done spewing out yeast like mad. I also cleaned out the glass and put fresh sanitizer back in for the blow off to continue to bubble into.

I then got online and looked at new flasks for a yeast starter since the one I had fell over and broke when cleaning up after brew day on this last batch (I feel like I always break those things some how).

My amazon order for more pH soaking solution and cleaner also arrived as well, so I opened that box and put it away.

 

[HM-2]

I'll be packaging up some of my Brut IPA for my local homebrew club today, plus cleaning and sanitising my All-Rounder in preparation for a Kwak-inspired Belgian Dubbel.

I'll also finally get my RO setup mounted on one of my beech worktop offcuts and onto a French Cleat so I can hang it by my outdoor tap in a way where I can move it super easily when I don't need it.

 

[Pkrd]

I gave my hops a dose of fertiliser, then pulled away the lawn clippings covering them. Pleasantly surprised!

 

[BikerMatt]

Was itching to brew last night but only got whole grains and no mill so tried to use a food processor, yea don`t. Took forever to get through 7kg of grains, you get dust and whole grains and nothing in between, brewhouse efficiency was absolute garbage, OG 1.035, ordering a roller mill next week.

 

[Hoochin'Fool]

Made a 1.038 half-gallon starter wort, pitched a bit of S-04 on to it, hopefully it's got a nice yeast-cake for the big (1.105) chocolatey stout I'm making next weekend!

 

[Cameronl]

I did a deep clean on my Therminator plate chiller today. A few gallons of water with PBW in the keggle, heated to 180, run through the pump, in through the out port of the chiller, back into the keggle through the whirlpool arm. Let that go for about 1/2 hour. Then I pumped the solution into a 5 gallon bucket and dunked the chiller to soak the outside (it was stickier than I imagined). Flushed everything with water afterwards.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Poured my Scottish ale at a fundraiser with my HBC, the keg kicked and I’m actually cleaning it tonight. LOL. I need to plan for a brew day soon for an event in early
November.

 

[wetmk]

Picked up a mixed case of Weihenstaphaner, Lager, Heffeweis, and Vitus. Also a sixth of SN Pale Ale. Total Wine, 30 minutes away but so much cheaper than the local guys.

 

[flipster]

Again just a small step for beer I did, but an huge step for cider: bought a new outlet for my fermeter barrel.

We pressed and juiced pears, but when transferring from the kettle to the barrel, we realised that the tap didn't quite fit into the thread and therefore couldn't be sealed. Warm plastic has its limits, so screwing it in tighter doesn't help at all (and I wanted to avoid a 'don't do that' story by doing 'just another quarter tighter'). So I put a drip catcher underneath and quickly drove to the DIY store to buy a new valve, which then fitted. The spilled third of a litre of warm pear juice was delicious. Now there are 23 litre pear cider fermenting, I might transfer a few litres into an extra bucket in a few days and dry hop them with Lilly hops.

On Sunday I did another hike, finding this hilarious beer-filled vending machine at the car park, where my tour started up to the summit of mount Schober at lake Fuschl. Austrians (the "no kangaroos here"-guys) are hilarious!

 

[BikerMatt]

What I did for beer today? Lucked out that's what! Ordered a twin roll grain gorilla mill today, asking for an in-house pickup at closing time. An hour later my phoke rings, it's the shop manager saying someone just returned a once used THREE roll pro version saying they couldn't get it to crush corn, they went over it and there's nothing wrong or broken but since it's now "used" they can't sell it for full price so if I want it, it's mine for no extra cost. Came home and immediately found the problem: the crank handle bolt is too short so the handle is slipping on the hex at the end of the axel that's 50 eur my way!

One thing though.. I don't have the slightest clue what setting should I be using on the gap. Any help on that one?

 

[Hoochin'Fool]

One thing though.. I don't have the slightest clue what setting should I be using on the gap. Any help on that one?

Nice score on the "used" mill. If you are using the brew-in-a-bag method, set your gap as narrow as it can possibly go!

 

[BikerMatt]

Nice score on the "used" mill. If you are using the brew-in-a-bag method, set your gap as narrow as it can possibly go!

I have a 45L BrewMonk electric machine

 

[Dog House Brew]

What I did for beer today? Lucked out that's what! Ordered a twin roll grain gorilla mill today, asking for an in-house pickup at closing time. An hour later my phoke rings, it's the shop manager saying someone just returned a once used THREE roll pro version saying they couldn't get it to crush corn, they went over it and there's nothing wrong or broken but since it's now "used" they can't sell it for full price so if I want it, it's mine for no extra cost. Came home and immediately found the problem: the crank handle bolt is too short so the handle is slipping on the hex at the end of the axel that's 50 eur my way!

One thing though.. I don't have the slightest clue what setting should I be using on the gap. Any help on that one?

 

[Dog House Brew]

I’d start at .92mm and see how it goes. I don’t brew with an all in one system. I did find that gap to be good for efficiency and no stuck sparges.

 

[CthulhuBrew33]

assembled my brew tree today finally and also made preparations to keg my first batch using Kviek yeast!

 

[JohnDBrewer]

Trying to resurrect a small amount of Lallemand Kolsch yeast. Pulled it off a yeast cake back in the summer of 2023 and just found it in the back of my frig. Looking good so far. Brew day tomorrow.

 

[Deadalus]

I did a deep clean on my Therminator plate chiller today. A few gallons of water with PBW in the keggle, heated to 180, run through the pump, in through the out port of the chiller, back into the keggle through the whirlpool arm. Let that go for about 1/2 hour. Then I pumped the solution into a 5 gallon bucket and dunked the chiller to soak the outside (it was stickier than I imagined). Flushed everything with water afterwards.

If you can get a filter/ of some sort on the return PBW to the keggle, that will catch all the bits that get lodged in the Therminator. What I would do was I would put my hop spider in the keggle and run the return hose over the top and into the spider. I would catch about a 1-2 tsp of little bits after every brew. Then I'd run hot water through to rinse and about 1.5 gallons of Starsan after that. I have a HERMS coil also in the cleaning loop.