What I did for beer today

[OakIslandBrewery]

I disassembled grain silos for their two year inspections today.
The automation couldn't find any silos and requested to finish the installation.

On what days do you offer brewery tours?

 

[ba-brewer]

Yesterday was silo maintenance for me, I use old bucket fermentors so it is just some banging on the bottom and shaking to get out the last of the dust. Getting everything out of the ridge of gamma lid can be tricky though. Topped them up with sack of domestic 2row and a sack golden promise.

Today brewed a Czech amber lager and kegged my golden ale from a week ago.

 

[brewbama]

Entered the beer I am brewing right now (along with one kegged another I’ve yet to brew) into the Bluegrass Cup.

 

[Bramling Cross]

The Spousal Unit gave the order to free up a fridge for Turkey Day prep, so I kegged the 5th batch of my Ballantine IPA resurrection, then set the carboys up-side-down with a couple gallons of Oxyfree solution to break down the crusties...

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Cheers!

That's funny, I got three panicked emails from guys I've taught in the past about that very topic over the past few days. I told 'em to put their kegs in 5gal buckets with water and put their ice makers to work morning and night.

What else are you supposed to say? "Get a better wife," was my first thought, but I'm old enough to have learned that I should almost always disregard my first thought about any given topic.

 

[Bramling Cross]

With news that my local homebrew shop was packing it in and my work sorted for the day, I went on an adventure deep into the evil heart of Northern Virginia, specifically Manassas. I found a really spectacular shop named Jay's Brewing. Unfortunately, all I needed was a couple pounds of Vienna malt, but I grabbed another pitch of Pub because my current pitch is out to about nine pitches. At the register, the dude looked at the buy date on the pitch and said, "It's just inside of good enough," and looked to me for confirmation of the sale. I thought that was really cool, most shops would be relieved to simply make the sale. I told him not to worry about, it'll get a starter and an easy introduction to life in an ordinary bitter. Nice shop, nice dude, and three customers in the shop at 2pm on a Wednesday. Nice!

I also got impatient. I determined that it was crash day for that 1.065 American stout that I made last week, so I pulled a sample prior to crashing it. It's been a good long while since I've pulled a sample out of my fermenter, but it's been years since I've brewed an American stout, and a decade or more since I peeped above 1.060. Resigned to the idea that this beer will kill me, I figured I may as well get the entire experience.

I think this'll be okay. It's one of those, "Wow, I made that?" ales. Not so much because it's especially tastey, but because it's been so long since I've made a big beer, much less a big stout.

 

[Skeeter686]

What else are you supposed to say? "Get a better wife," was my first thought, but I'm old enough to have learned that I should almost always disregard my first thought about any given topic.

My wife still puts up with me. Not sure that there's actually an upgrade out there for me!

 

[brewbama]

Raised fermenter temp for D rest

 

[day_trippr]

Moved our frozen turkey from the freezer section of my #1 FC to the food compartment to start the slow thawing process, set my #2 FC to cold-crash my 18th batch of the HBT Julius clone so I can keg it on Sunday, swapped out the kicked keg of my all-Citra hazy from the keezer for its batch-mate, ran the kick through the venerable Mark II washer, recharged the rinser water supply keg in the keezer, then pulled all six faucets off the tower and gave them a full cleaning and replaced a couple of tired O-rings.

Good day so far!

Cheers!

 

[Willy]

Lowered the temp for an English Blonde IPA ... Beginning to crash. Kegging it on Monday.

 

[Bramling Cross]

Beerstone must die!!!!

I was setting up my filter and kettle to build my water for tomorrow's Vienna brewday when I peered into my kettle and decided it was time to wage war against the beerstone (yet again).

I figured I'd go after it with Barkeeper's Friend this time and save the expensive stuff for a free afternoon. Rather than enjoying the evening, I'm elbow deep in the kettle again. I kinda miss the carefree days when I didn't know what water salts were, had no clue what my pH was, and my kettle was always clean.

 

[jcav]

I took off the blow off tube off the fermenter on my Spiced Belgian Christmas beer and attached an air lock to finish up.

John

 

[Willy]

Another 5° lower today on the slow crash. This batch has been fermenting at 13 psi so it will be ready to drink in less than a week. Gotta finish off the OckoberFest batch to make room !

 

[RumOnTheDocks]

Today I set up my brewing equipment, prepared the water and recipe and went out to fetch some lunch. Meanwhile my SO went ahead and started brewing her first batch of beer, a best bitter. It was a smooth brew day for her and the efficiency ended up being higher than mine usually is.
All in all a good day for beer as far as I'm concerned.

 

[brewbama]

Closed xfer an Ord Bitter from fermenter to keg

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Transferred my Erdinger and West Indian Porter to bottling buckets.

 

[Deadalus]

Closed xfer an Ord Bitter from fermenter to keg

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Are you (or even anyone else) able to explain the reason for the return loop from the keg to the fermenter? I am interested in getting a mini bucket and saw this transfer sketched out. I think you have the keg sideways since it would be too tall for gravity. Is CO2 fed in to the fermenter to either equalize the pressure to allow gravity transfer and/or to get it started? I use a spunding valve to close transfer but I am trying to understand the purpose of the return loop.

 

[day_trippr]

Kegging my 18th Julius batch today...

...and getting the grist together for brewing my double imperial chocolate stout tomorrow....

Cheers!

 

[mac_1103]

Are you (or even anyone else) able to explain the reason for the return loop from the keg to the fermenter? I am interested in getting a mini bucket and saw this transfer sketched out. I think you have the keg sideways since it would be too tall for gravity. Is CO2 fed in to the fermenter to either equalize the pressure to allow gravity transfer and/or to get it started? I use a spunding valve to close transfer but I am trying to understand the purpose of the return loop.

I think you're understanding it correctly. The return loop lets you use CO2 from the purged keg to replace the beer drained from the fermenter. Gravity transfer will be (a lot) slower than pressure (unless you can really elevate the fermenter and use very long jumpers).

 

[brewbama]

+1. Just allowing the CO2 in the keg to go somewhere.it takes ~15 min to fill the keg

 

[Deadalus]

+1. Just allowing the CO2 in the keg to go somewhere.it takes ~15 min to fill the keg

It seems like you would save CO2 vs using a spunding valve and pushing the beer out of the vessel using CO2? About the volume of beer in the fermentation vessel.

I've always just used the spunding valve as that's how I first understood how to do it. Plus the stool I use to transfer keeps the FV a little lower than gravity would work for. So I never paid attention greatly when people demonstrate. If that's correct about the CO2 it would be worth it.

 

[Deadalus]

I soldered on four new ports and electrified this kettle. No leaks and heating nicely.

Here's an inside look.

Still have to flip a valve handle before an outside pic and maybe a few small tweaks to the control stand.

 

[brewbama]

I brew in a series of three batches at a time because I don’t want to store a LHBS’ worth of ingredients. Today, I ordered the next three batches worth of yeast, hops, and grain. These batches will be brewed beginning mid Dec or so into Jan.

 

[Bramling Cross]

Just started the runoff on a Vienna that I was supposed to brew on Saturday. All the recent pictures of gorgeous Viennas on the "What are you drinking now?" thread inspired me to join the party.

Edit: Here’s how it turned out. A little darker than I was aiming for, but the flavor seems right. Hit my numbers and left the floor as clean as it was this morning. Not a bad day.

 

[day_trippr]

Brewing my 107 point beast of an imperial chocolate stout today. 46 pounds of grain...

...and a nearly submerged auto-sparge set the drama for the day

So far it's going great!

[edit] And now, something completely different: I was maybe 10 minutes from the end of the boil when one of my wife's best friends called to tell her she was having a huge asthma attack and couldn't get her new rescue inhaler to work. Wife comes hobbling downstairs (she of the hip replacement two weeks ago tomorrow!) to tell me I need to get my ass over there, stat!

Yikes! Killed the kettle burner, jumped in the truck and flew the half mile to her house. The woman was in rough shape and could barely talk but she gives me the inhaler and its instructions. Took a couple of minutes to figure out what happened and get the inhaler working, she takes it and bangs in a couple of hits. She starts to come around so I stayed with her until she was breathing comfortably again. Come back home and it takes almost 45 minutes to get the kettle back up to boiling and finish the job. Amazingly to me I still hit the expected 1.107 OG! It's all gassed up and in the FC...

Could have done without all that but it's all good in the end...

Cheers!

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Brewed 21 litres of Sussex Best Bitter and bottled my West Indian Porter.

 

[Bramling Cross]

Brewing my 107 point beast of an imperial chocolate stout today. 46 pounds of grain and a nearly submerged auto-sparge set the drama for the day

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View attachment 863122

So far it's going great!

Cheers!

I am in awe!

 

[Bramling Cross]

Brewed 21 litres of Sussex Best Bitter and bottled my West Indian Porter.

I've noted with curiosity your use of the term Sussex Best Bitter/Bitter. That prompted me to do some searching. When you use that term are you using it to refer to an inspired by/clone ale of Harvey's Sussex Best Bitter, or is there a more general Sussex style of bitter? Your beers look delicious and I'm interested to learn more.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Well, I’m planning to brew a Grodziskie before the Christmas holiday and I will definitely need to acquire some rice hulls because barley is staying pretty damp in the grainfather basket after a sparge. My recent hefe didn’t get “stuck” lucky me. So, making plans and getting organized. A trip to the LHBS, is in order for new tallnecks too.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

I've noted with curiosity your use of the term Sussex Best Bitter/Bitter. That prompted me to do some searching. When you use that term are you using it to refer to an inspired by/clone ale of Harvey's Sussex Best Bitter, or is there a more general Sussex style of bitter? Your beers look delicious and I'm interested to learn more.

Yes it’s a clone of Harvey’s Sussex Best. The recipe is
3500g Maris Otter
200g Flaked Maize (Corn)
150g Medium Crystal malt
Hops
25g Progress at 60 m
25g Bramling Cross at 15 m
15g each of Fuggles and East Kent Golding at Whirlpool 80C for 15 m
Nottingham style yeast.

 

[Bramling Cross]

Yes it’s a clone of Harvey’s Sussex Best. The recipe is
3500g Maris Otter
200g Flaked Maize (Corn)
150g Medium Crystal malt
Hops
25g Progress at 60 m
25g Bramling Cross at 15 m
15g each of Fuggles and East Kent Golding at Whirlpool 80C for 15 m
Nottingham style yeast.

Thanks for taking the time, I appreciate it. Once I get the kettle cleaned up I'll plug that into Beersmith.

Extra points given for using the world's foremost hop.