What I did for beer today

[OakIslandBrewery]

I'm drinking HB while cleaning my tavern for a get together tomorrow. Always a little to do before company.

Food, friends, beer and Bourbon , what could be better?

OK, a couple things come to mind . . .

 

[Knightshade]

Stopped by the LHBS to pick up some grains for the next brewday...which I'm hoping will happen this weekend!

 

[BeerNsteadofH2O]

Just finished milling 9 and a half lbs. Of 2 row, 14 ounces of midnight wheat and 8 ounces of crystal 40 L.. ran 9 gallons of RO/DI 4.25 gallons in the brewzilla, the rest in the hot liquor tank, set the brewzilla to start heating at 7 Am.

 

[HM-2]

Switched my rum barrel red rye ale over yo spunding instead of airlock. Needs a couple more days before DH.

Prepped my oak stave pieces by vacuum sealing 12 of them in a large sous vide bag with about half a bottle of Appleton Estate 12 year Rare Cask Jamaican rum donated by my FIL from his stash.

 

[OakIslandBrewery]

Switched my rum barrel red rye ale over yo spunding instead of airlock. Needs a couple more days before DH.

Prepped my oak stave pieces by vacuum sealing 12 of them in a large sous vide bag with about half a bottle of Appleton Estate 12 year Rare Cask Jamaican rum donated by my FIL from his stash.

How long do you leave the staves and rum sealed up?

 

[HM-2]

How long do you leave the staves and rum sealed up?

About a week usually. Then they'll spend probably 6 weeks in the fermenter.

 

[OakIslandBrewery]

About a week usually. Then they'll spend probably 6 weeks in the fermenter.

Interesting, I was thinking they'd be added to an aging keg after fermentation. Do you use something similar to that?

 

[HM-2]

Interesting, I was thinking they'd be added to an aging keg after fermentation. Do you use something similar to that?

No, I dump the trub from my primary and just use that. I have transferred to secondary before but honestly would rather avoid dirtying another receptacle.

 

[day_trippr]

Another slow day here, decided to follow up on my post here regarding the rotameter I bought from @Bobby_M at brewhardware.com. I had wondered what the full-flow rates were with and without the meter in line.

I dragged out one of my old 10 gallon G1 kettles and set up a minimally restrictive configuration with essentially "negative lift" so as to enable as high a flow rate as possible. Put enough water in the 20 gallon G1 to allow 7 gallons to be transferred before the pick-up tube went dry.

Turns out the suspicion I expressed in that earlier post was pretty much on target. With the meter removed the pump moved 7 gallons in 1:05, and with the meter in line the same volume took 1:07. I only did the one test for each configuration, so I'd take the results as within the margin of testing error

Looking at the spec for the 815pl, the expected flow rate for such a simple essentially zero lift configuration would be 7 gpm, so I'm pretty confident that the meter isn't at all restrictive at the tested flow rate...

Cheers!

 

[day_trippr]

Spinning up a big 1318 starter for a 10g batch of my all-Citra hazy...

Cheers!

 

[garzlok]

Go some yeast going for an upcoming Irish Red batch, and off to mill some grains!

 

[Wigglebutts Brewery]

Bottled 5 cases of beer for patrons, kicking 3 kegs in the process… Happy Holidays everyone!!

 

[Knightshade]

0945 this morning..said "F it, I'm brewing today dammit!!!!"

 

[BeerNsteadofH2O]

Replaced a defective circulator pump in my home made chiller, washed and filled my oldest fermenter for a brew day tomorrow.set up my water and grain for an 8 am start.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

A couple days ago I pulled a sample of the Grodziskie for a taste and measurement of gravity. A bit sweet, yet well on its way. I also have a small amount of the yeast in a “vitality” starter in my kitchen which has moved to the fridge to crash (this is the Grodziskie yeast from white labs) it doesn’t seem to be as “powdery” as Kolsch yeast and is flocking slowly.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

Moved my Christmas ale to the kitchen keezer, kegged my second Christmas ale, and moved the second one to the garage keezer.

Accidentally triggered a stout faucet and had to remove all three kegs from the garage keezer so I could mop it out.

Found out my garage keezer was leaking gas, so I took the gas plumbing apart and redid it.

 

[BeerNsteadofH2O]

Moved my Christmas ale to the kitchen keezer, kegged my second Christmas ale, and moved the second one to the garage keezer.

Accidentally triggered a stout faucet and had to remove all three kegs from the garage keezer so I could mop it out.

Found out my garage keezer was leaking gas, so I took the gas plumbing apart and redid it.

You do realize,washing the floor with stout constitutes alchohol abuse

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

You do realize,washing the floor with stout constitutes alchohol abuse

Thank goodness it was only a couple of tablespoons. Just enough to make an annoying mess.

 

[brewbama]

I bottled some competition beers for bottle conditioning.

 

[day_trippr]

Busy day! Getting ready for what's likely my last brew day of 2024 tomorrow, programmed my RO system to put 18 gallons in the rig while I measured out the grains and salts 'n' stuff and got everything staged. Only had one empty keg on hand, so I brought out my 1.7g Vevor mini keg, drained the least full keg in the keezer into it, attached its dispensing top with a fresh CO2 cartridge, and ran the freshly kicked keg through the venerable Mark II washer.

Loaded a fresh keg in the keezer, then pulled all six faucets off the tower for a full cleaning and O-ring inspection. Finally I swapped out the wet pair of EVA Dry 500 dessicators in the keezer for dry ones and plugged the wet ones in to dry overnight.

Cheers!

 

[Knightshade]

I was relieved to see a couple of bubbles in the blow off for the lager earlier this morning. Enough to dump out the tiny bit that was still left of the guava hard tea, clean that line and the keg.

Evening creeping in and I've noticed that the gravity hasn't moved at all on the Tilt, so now I'm starting to worry again. Pitch was only about 32 hours ago so I'm not going to stress about it too much. Unless it hasn't taken off by tomorrow morning...

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Downsizing the yeast bank and by yeast bank, I mean various sized mason jars, some quarts that only have a few oz of yeast (the only jar’s available at the time). Tossed 2+ year old Lutra and moved Hefe yeast from a qt to a half pint jar. Itss so a start and now there’s room for, um, food.

 

[day_trippr]

Got a late start this morning with a 10 AM strike, but things have gone smoothly so far. The new rotameter I picked up from bobby_m has been quite revealing wrt actual flow rates at different stages of the brew vs my assumptions. It should make it a bit easier to dial in batch to batch...

Cheers!

 

[leedspointbrew]

Ordered hops (Goldings, Fuggles, Magnum) for next two batches. Lack of foresight + extended shipping times = last brew of 2024 now being the first of 2025.

 

[Knightshade]

I checked in on all day on the fermentation chart for this most recent brew on brewers friend like a paranoid freekazoid w/an addiction to Fun Dip on a Vietnamese iced coffee IV drip before finally deciding to just give the damn thing some yeast energizer.

Only to open up the keg this evening and see a very slight krausen on top and go…awwwww hell. And dumped in 1 tsp anyways.

 

[MaxStout]

I bottled 5.5 gals of ordinary bitter that I brewed earlier this month. It was a "test" to see how it would turn out if I did no oxygenation other than pouring the chilled wort through a stainless strainer into the Brew Bucket. I pitched 1 packet rehydrated S-04 (with an exp. date of May 2024). I do use Go-Ferm when rehydrating. Of course it was a low-gravity beer so I didn't expect the yeast to have a difficult time. Still, it makes me think adding O2 at the pitch isn't necessary for dry yeast. At least not in lower gravity brews. For bigger beers I will hit the wort with O2.

Beer turned out fine, hydro sample tasted good with no off-flavors. Yielded 54 12oz long necks. Beer is 3.8% ABV, so will be a nice session brew.

I also brewed today, a London Porter. I did the same--pitched rehydrated S-04 with no oxygenation. OG was 1.052.

Next time I might stick my neck out and just sprinkle the yeast, like the mfr. says.

 

[BrewZer]

Discussed the next batch with Assistent Braumeister but we still can't decide whether we want to go heavy (Piraat clone) or SMaSH pale ale...

 

[Cameronl]

Washed with TSP and passivated with citric acid my brand new Brew Bucket. It was a Christmas gift from the wife.

 

[MaxStout]

Discussed the next batch with Assistent Braumeister but we still can't decide whether we want to go heavy (Piraat clone) or SMaSH pale ale...

I loves me some Piraat. Tried to clone it once, it was OK. Might have to take another shot at it. If you brew it, let us know how it goes.

 

[Ramjet]

Brewed a helles with Ipa malt the other day. Brewed inside with an induction burner for the first time. Beats brewing in the garage in a Wisconsin winter