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What I did for beer today

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Finished the base for my mother of fermentation chamber
 
Gotta love those old school craftsman drills...plug in the wall and will never quit. Can I say "They don't make 'em like they used to?"
 
Last night I put a brown ale in the fridge for a quick cold crash then going to keg it tonight. On deck is drilling shank holes in said fridge to finally mount my taps. After that it's time to brew again. Whew, life is sure rough!
 
I spent last night running control panel, water and heating element tests in the brewery. First time I've had everything actually plugged in to the control panel (Kal/Spike).

Everything fired properly (after I figured out a little wiring problem on the boil kettle - DOH!), and there were no leaks. Amazing - there must be an even dozen brand new holes in those brew kettles and not one of them leaked!. It was pretty encouraging.

I still don't know what I'm doing with some of the control panel components, but hopefully I'll figure that out tonight. The damned PIDs and the timer are really process control engineer oriented and not very user friendly.
 
I flew out to Denver for GABF. Then proceeded to have a few beers :)

Brought out an old school faucet and shank for my brother (in my carry on, which led to two tsa secondary checks[at least the first time the guy was a fellow homebrewer and knew what it was right away]) and gonna help my bro build his keezer during the next few days.
 
Midwest stopped carrying all but one of their PM kits, so I got the ingredients list for their Traditional stout kit I used for my whiskely last year. Plugged it into BS2 & tweaked it per the dry stout category. Gotta get the ESB going this weekend.
 
Took another stab at calibrating my new thermometer.

Instead of trying to calibrate it at freezing and boiling, I decided to calibrate it against my old mash thermometer, which I never had a reason to dispute.

New thermometer now has perfect correlation with my old thermometer at mash temps. So, even it it isn't perfect, at least it will be consistent with my old data.

(I did check the old thermometer at freezing and it was perfect.)
 
Got a small batch of basic cider going - just 3 gallons so I can try something new for backsweetening.
 
Just kegged my Priceless Pup brown ale. Made in honor of my lab. He's pretty awesome so I made a pretty awesome beer in dedication to him.
 
Built a grain table, out of wood. It's pretty barebones, just a top, legs, and a shelf for the bucket.
 
Too true. Sometimes making things more convenient also makes them less reliable.

My battery powered drill is crap. Not the drill so much as the NiMH batteries. Not good for home use, as they don't like being left untouched/unused/uncharged longer than a week or so.
 
I installed a thermometer on my Keggle. Getting ready for a brew day on Sunday. It is my sons birthday and he is coming over. We are brewing an Irish Death clone. (His choice). I am excited to be brewing outside again.
 
Checked on (and wiped down) my overflowing yeast starter for Saturday's brew. :(

Also transcribed some notes from the starter into Google Drive and started adding some documents for Saturday (checklist, shopping list, recipe, etc.).
 
Checked on (and wiped down) my overflowing yeast starter for Saturday's brew. :(

Also transcribed some notes from the starter into Google Drive and started adding some documents for Saturday (checklist, shopping list, recipe, etc.).

Fermcap-AT works great to avoid this. Love that stuff!!
 
I got a starter rolling real early for a Pils-Ale I will be brewing tomorrow afternoon.
 
Put together my new brew kettle, set up the garage for brewing my first all-grain, and just chilled a couple of bottles of my most recent creation so there is a ready supply of "inspiration" on hand for this afternoon. I think it's gonna be a great day...
 
I just bottled a batch of ESB. I used S-04 and the yeast cake was really compact and stuck nicely to the bottom of the fermenter. Hydro sample tastes great. This one won't last long.
 
I brewed up the ESB with S-04 kit from Morebeer a couple months ago when pipeline filling. It was the first to kick! Got another one to brew up soon. Good ale with spot-on color & good balance! :mug:
 
I brewed up the ESB with S-04 kit from Morebeer a couple months ago when pipeline filling. It was the first to kick! Got another one to brew up soon. Good ale with spot-on color & good balance! :mug:

Mine was kind of winging it, based loosely on Palmer's recipe in How To Brew:

5 gallon extract batch

Fermentables
6 lb light LME
1 lb light DME

Specialty Grains
1 lb Crystal 80L
0.5 lb Carapils

Hops
0.75 oz Northern Brewer 10.6% @ 60 min
0.5 oz East Kent Goldings 5.0% @ 30 min
0.5 oz East Kent Goldings 5.0% @ 15 min

Other
½ Whirlfloc tablet @ 10 min

Yeast
Safale S-04

Expected OG: 1.054 Actual OG: 1.053
Expected FG: 1.015 Actual FG: 1.016
ABV: 5.0%
IBU: 40
BU/GU: 0.76
SRM: 12
 
Just for comparison's sake, here's the Morebeer ESB ingredients;
7lbs ultralight LME
8ozs crystal 40L
8ozs honey malt
4ozs special roast
1oz northern brewer @ 60 minutes
1oz EKG @ 10 minutes
1oz EKG @ 5 minutes
I re-hydrated the dry S-04 yeast packet. Just gotta remember to use only 1/2 the Whirlfloc tablet this time! I got a pill splitter that makes very clean cuts.
 
Had to get a new LPGas regulator from Blowes. Worked like a charm for this AM's brew day.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
A bit cold & windy for finishing up cutting the template for my RBC bracket. We're so sorry, uncle Albert. But we haven't done a bloody thing all day. We're so sorry, uncle Albert...but the kettles on the boil & we're so easily drawn away!:D
 
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