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What I did for beer today

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I kegged my English porter yesterday. Not sure how it happened, but all of a sudden I have tons of beer lol. The stuff on draught isn't close to kicking and you can see in my sig the stuff waiting or coming. Once I keg my marzen (double batch), I'll only have 1 "normal" keg left. Going to probably have to chop a brew or 2 off the schedule...ah, first world problems...
 
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Snagged a sweet deal today. $200 for all this. 5 kegs, 20lb co2 half full, regulator, 4 post manifold, and unopened bags of more hose clamps and keg connectors than I’ll ever need. Kegs need some TLC and I was only wanting to add 2-3 kegs to my collection but couldn’t pass it up.
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Snagged a sweet deal today. $200 for all this. 5 kegs, 20lb co2 half full, regulator, 4 post manifold, and unopened bags of more hose clamps and keg connectors than I’ll ever need. Kegs need some TLC and I was only wanting to add 2-3 kegs to my collection but couldn’t pass it up.
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You can never have too many kegs! I once thought 3 or 4 would be plenty. Now I'm at 10, and other than the 2 I set aside for specific purposes, I'm on the verge of only having 1 free :)
 
Transferred a black IPA to secondary and dry hopped, freeing up one fermenter for Friday brew day..ran my RODI water for my Friday brew.
I know. I've been using these beasts for almost 20 years now and I still haven't find a good way around hand washing them. I used to fill them up with room temp water plus two tablespoons of OxyFree and let them sit for up to overnight and they really did "self clean" themselves to where I didn't even need to use a brush. But that's 13 gallons of water per batch plus leaving them sitting around, just seemed wasteful and clumsy so I went back to cleaning them by hand.

Oh well, it's not a big deal (which brings me back to where I am :))

Cheers!
Sometimes it seems the hard way, is still the best way ,something to be said about 20 years of experience..
 
Been busy with new duties at work, so haven't been here much this week. Tonight tested my 'too much yeast nutrient' theory by tasting the PF lager I brewed last Saturday; and it is wonderful. Malty, nothing off, and set to crashing. Next up is bottling some cream ale and Strata Pale for upcoming competition, and drinking on said cream ale that I have been rationing until I could get the bottles ready for it. Going to brew it up again this weekend, now that I know better. Had a good day.
 
Today I brewed two beer, originally was just going to do one but got ambitious. First beer was a 3gal batch of Marzen and the other was a 5gal batch of citra/cascade golden ale. The marzen came in close to design but I rushed the golden ale and came in light so I added some sugar to bump the ABV.

Grain to glass in under a day :)
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marzen 35%pilsner/35%munichII/25%vienna/5%carmunichI
golden 50%GoldenPromise/50%GW2row
 
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Cleaning and organizing for an up coming brew day and adjusting the recipe. I’ll also calibrate a PH meter for the first time- hoping this has a positive impact on my brews, using it, that is.
Sometimes I use my pH meter, most times I don't. Might just be me, but I get too hung up on worrying about 2 points either way. I will use it tomorrow for a wee heavy I'm going to brew, but that one is for a mini-competition for the club and I'm stressing about it, never having brewed one before.
 
Racking my Mourning Dove WCIPA in to secondary to cold crash it. Taking a gravity reading on my BlackBerry Malomel and cleaning some kegs. If I feel like it I might mix up one of those cheap ABC pale ale kits and pour it over some dip hops. Maybe just Maybe!

EDIT
beer racked and conditioning, mead gravity at 1.020 down from 1.130, it’s young but tasty and still needs more time

Then to finish the day drink some Velvet Scoter Vienna Lager.
 
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Sometimes I use my pH meter, most times I don't. Might just be me, but I get too hung up on worrying about 2 points either way. I will use it tomorrow for a wee heavy I'm going to brew, but that one is for a mini-competition for the club and I'm stressing about it, never having brewed one before.
I’m brewing my first kettle soured Berliner Weiss, so since I have the meter I might as well use it instead of litmus paper.
 
Prototype for a special project.

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The debut of Coffin Jockey Box at a brewfest yesterday.

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ETA: We were just informed that we won the Favorite Brewer vote, from the field of 20 Comm'l Breweries and 3 Homebrew Clubs. Not bad for our first public outing, I reckon.
 
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Mixed up one of those ABC Pale Ale beer kits, made my own enhancer with 2 lbs of pale DME, 1 lb of dextrose and 6oz of Maltodextrine. While I was mixing that up and raising to pasteurization temp, I dip hopped the fermenter with 1oz of Motueka, 1oz of lemon drop and 1oz of Cashmere. Waiting for it to come down to pitching temp then throwing Nottingham at it and fermenting and my brewery ambient temperature of 71-72 For 2 weeks then crash and keg.

EDIT

Changed yeast to Voss Kveik, mainly because I can pitch it sooner and secondarily I think it will play well with all the citrus hops. So it will be done in 3 days. 🤷‍♂️
 
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Mixed up one of those ABC Pale Ale beer kits, made my own enhancer with 2 lbs of pale DME, 1 lb of dextrose and 6oz of Maltodextrine. While I was mixing that up and raising to pasteurization temp, I dip hopped the fermenter with 1oz of Motueka, 1oz of lemon drop and 1oz of Cashmere. Waiting for it to come down to pitching temp then throwing Nottingham at it and fermenting and my brewery ambient temperature of 71-72 For 2 weeks then crash and keg.

EDIT

Changed yeast to Voss Kveik, mainly because I can pitch it sooner and secondarily I think it will play well with all the citrus hops. So it will be done in 3 days. 🤷‍♂️
You'll definitely notice some grapefruit notes.
 
Today I made a hopper for my new Crankandstein grain mill.
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The mounting board is from my Barley Crusher which recently gave up the ghost. Had to add a scrap of plywood between it and the mill as the hole for the BC is bigger than the Crank.

The next step is a stand and to add a motor. I have an old general purpose motor with a 10:1 gear reduction for a nice, slow grind.

And now motorized and standified. Spent the better part of the day putting this together.
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My first attempted was a failure. I was winging the measurements and miscalculated. A 5 gallon bucket wasn't going to fit. Also I used a link belt with the motor and it didn't quite fit the pulley grooves and couldn't grab well. Switched to a standard belt, plus added a hinge mount so the weight of the motor added tension. That worked ok until I loaded it with a larger volume of grain, then the belt would slip. Rigged up a tensioner with a bolt into a pivoting barrel nut. A couple of turns of the knob snugged it up enough to eliminate the slippage.

The grey housing off the motor is a 10:1 speed reducer. The motor and reducer came with a vintage band saw that I've been planning to restore. That along with the 4" pulley on the Crankandstein gives me a speed of ~90 RPM.
 
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Last night into this morning, got the last two entries bottled for competition that closes entries tomorrow. One of them (a Citra/Sabro NEIPA that I've brewed many times) is just about the best one I've brewed from this recipe, cannot get over how tasty/hazy/awesome it is. LHBS where I'm taking them is only a few minutes down the road from work, so I'll take a bit of a lunch drive today.
 
I didn’t calibrate my PH meter yet. So very unscientifically I squeezed a small piece of lemon, then inoculated with Swanson’s lacto and covered the surface with Saran. The temp was 88.4 and I placed it over my old timey pilot light which should bring it up to 90 and hold it there.
 

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Kegged Foam on the Range Homebrew club Iron Brewer entry. Shoutout to Brew Hut for picking workable ingredients! Some years it’s been brutal. It’s a dark mild….. very dark. tastes to style, good flavor. Competition judging is August 5th, popular vote at club picnic.. Looks like 8 entries. Cross your fingers for me…
 
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