What I did for beer today

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Got the British Golden and Hefe kegged, doing a 48 hour fast carb. Should be good to go Friday night.
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Do you push 30 through the normal CO2 port and let sit for 48 or do you reverse your fittings and force carb through the tube?
I just hook up a keg lid with a carbonation stone. Put it on 12psi. Shake and tilt for a few min couple times a day for first 48 hours then switch out keg lids and let it run the same 12 psi another day if needed. Worked fine last time I did this.
 
Tried my Northern Brewer fresh hop ale that's been spunded in the keg. Good but a bit off. The FG was 1004 with US05. Thats a couple of points too low and taste is a bit on the sour side. AND this was a fresh hop first try with adding about 1.5 pounds of fresh hops to 2.5 gallons at flame out. At the end of the day, it's an interesting taste and I will kick this keg pretty quickly.

My preference on fresh hop ales is to for something like .25# at 15 minutes, .25# at 10 minutes, .25# at 5 minutes and .25# at flame out for 2.5 gallons.

Prolly will harvest my Tettnanger this weekend for a fresh hop ale, and the East Seattle Goldings next weekend. Then that's it for this season's fresh hop ales....
 
I was going to buy one of those, but after reading some reviews, I'm convinced it will still break if I drop it, just in half rather than shattering. I'm just gonna have to treat it like a glass bowl and buy several at a time with the expectation that my clumsy self will go through them. :)
 
Yes this should be under What are you drinking? But it's so pretty don't think I will drink it for a day or 2. What I am doing is admiring it, taking a time trip back to Frankfurt, Germany remembering me and my Army buddies dodging the polizei after getting black out drive drunk at Monsters of Rock 1984! Ja! Ja! Rock me Amadeus!!😂😂
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Yesterday brewed up a batch of something. It was suppose to be a kolsch but I forgot about the top up water setting and goofed it up. It will be something more inline with a pilsner as far as bitterness but fermented with kolsch yeast.

Today I ran out and picked up some Lutra kveik for a future batch. I have done and sampled a few batches with voss kveik which been OK (slight funk and no orange)so I thought I would give Lutra a try which is suppose to be cleaner. I do like how fast voss got the job done at high temp, hoping Lutra is just as fast.
 
Weighed out the grains for tomorrow’s brew day. It will be a late day start but at least I’m still brewing. Woohoo!!
About 27.5 pounds of grain for a 10 gallon batch. Can’t wait!!
 
Going to pick and make a fresh hop ale tomorrow with either the Tettnanger or East Seattle Goldings I've got going. Whichever seems ripest and do the other next weekend, and that will probably be the end of this season's fresh hop ales. The NOrthern Brewer keg wiht the first half harvest will kick by tomorrow, 2nd half of the harvest is bottle conditioning, and drying the leftovers tonight.

After having done a half dozen fresh hop ales for about the past 5 years, I've zero'd in the recipe to be: DME/base malt 75%, flaked barley 20%, melanoidum 5%, with about 20 IBU worth of commercial hop pellets in the boil, and then "handfuls" of fresh hop additions at 15, 10, 5 and 0 minutes. Neutral yeast like Notty or Fullers.

Got in about 5 or 6 batches worth of on-line orders today (for stouts and bitters), including Archer and Progress hops to check out, stock piling some specialty grains to add to about 40# worth of DME in the garage (it was a 50# bag but I've made a few brews since picking it up).

For my tastes, my personal hop shortlist is EKG (and derivatives like First Gold), Tettnang, N Brewer. New world hops starting with Cascade have a "catty" or "skunked" taste that means almost all IPA's out there do not sit well with me. I do need to taste off the Archer, Bramling Cross & Progress that are sitting in my freezer, and see if any of those should be added to the shortlist.
 
I've had several brewdays in a row that went flawlessly, so it stands to reason I was due for a banner day of screwing up. First: forgot my magnetic thermometer was on the brewstand, heated up the strike, and now have a partially melted (but somehow still working) thermometer. Second: last night turned on the heat lamp to warm up the currently fermenting lager, and melted the airlock. Third: forgot to close the valve on the HLT after running the strike into the tun for the breakfast stout I'm brewing today, and half the wort flowed back into it. Heating it up now for an impromptu mashout that I never do. Hopefully that will be it for the screwups today....
 
20 days ago I brewed a Black IPA, partly steeped with 600grams GoldSwaen©Red and 400 grams BlackSwaen©Chocolate B(grinded just like coffee) at 74 degrees Celsius for 5 minutes. This "tea" I added at flame out. Partly with light and dark dry extract. Magnum hops for the bittering and Wakatu and Aurora hops as a late addition aroma hop.
After in primary for 5 days with Mangrove Jack's US West Coast M44 I heaved to secondary and added Aurora and Eukanot for a 7 days dryhop. All pellets.
It is 7 days in the bottles now, yesterday evening I tasted one and it came out great, not to hoppy with a very nice and long lasting aftertaste and you can also taste a bit of that steeped grains didn't came out as black as I wanted, next time I will steep for 10 minutes.

Cheers!

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In the botteling bucket:
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Bottles and a party keg:
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fermentation:
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Prepped for brewing tomorrow, which involved more than usual since I'm doing a pumpkin ale (wish I could stop making this, but a couple people might be upset with me, lol). Also kegged the porter, but it's going to have to wait to get tapped until the NEIPA kicks.
 
With the newly received sheet of Formica in hand, the K3 build made some progress today.

I rough sized the laminate top using a saber saw with a 24 tpi blade, then commenced applying the contact cement to lid and laminate. I've found the cheap mini-rollers are the best bet and save the angst of trashing a good brush.

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Waiting for the cement to get that "dry gloss" look...

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My dad always used kraft paper as a buffer while lining up laminate to counter tops, but I've found dowels - or the moral equivalent in this case (a bunch of 1/2" quarter round scraps to go with the three actual dowels) is easier for one person to deal with...

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Top lined up. From here I removed the center spacer and pressed the laminate down by hand, then worked outwards in both directions, removing the spacers along the way.

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Then used a 3" J-roller, again working from the center outwards, and paying particular attention to press all the edges.

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Last step was trimming the laminate flush to the lid perimeter. It'd been so long since I used this antique Hitachi trimmer I had to review the manual, but it worked a treat. Only issue I had along the way was dealing with wrinkles in the protective plastic film atop the laminate - had to peel it back on the far end - but got it done. Followed with a palm sander to get everything dead flush.

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So...next step is running a modest oak band around the top to capture the edge of the laminate and cover up the raw plywood edge, then some paint, and I'll be able to start loading this lid with goodies :)

Meanwhile, "K2" is still hanging in there - every 8-9 days I hit it with another shot of r134a and it snaps right back to peak performance. She's a gamer :)

Cheers!
 
Bought over $200 worth of equipment and ingredients from our lhbs, which is going out of business, for half price. The prize purchase is a $100 grain mill for $10!! Score!
LHBS are an endangered species. Hopefully, with the herd thinning out, the remaining shops can stay in business.

I buy more than I should from my LHBS vs on line because I want to see them stay in business and keep giving me local support.
 
Yesterday I learned a valuable (although too late) lesson; propane tanks CAN fail. During the brewday I noticed a slight propane stink around the BK burner; thought it was coming from where the line attaches to the tank. Fortunately the boil was almost done, so I just let it go as it wasn't huge (and yes I do ventilate my brewery). Once cleaning was done looked into it more, and the leak got worse. On a side note, I have two tanks hooked up to my brewstand, one for each burner. I didn't move the tank to the other burner to see if it was the tank (big mistake), just went to amazon and ordered a new line/regulator, and paid extra to have it by last night. Once it arrived I installed it, and tried it on the same tank; still a leak. This time I put the OTHER tank on that same line, and no leak. Bad valve on the tank, first I've had in over 4 years of using propane for brewing. It's barely 1/3 gone, hoping HD will be nice and give me a full, not-defective, tank, but I doubt it. Worst part is that I had planned another brew for today, but got frustrated and sad the heck with it, I'll brew next weekend.
 
I did 2 batches, 5 gallons each. An American IPA and a hoppy golden ale - I'm exhausted.

Reason I did this is that I wanted to take advantage of the current temperature of the room I use to ferment (has been steady 19C), since spring just started and temps will start to rise. Also I'm starting my shifts next week, I work 4 days of 3 days off at a mine site, so it gives me plenty of time to let it cold crashing while I'm away.
 
Began reorganizing my brew stand to accommodate my new HERMS system by putting 4 layers of reflectix on my 15 gal MT and swapping out my old 10 gal HLT with a 15 gal kettle.
I put cam locks on my Riptide that will handle the recirc.
Next is setting up my soul vide for maintaining temp in the HERMS coil.
Im going to do a test run of everything Tuesda-Wednesday.
 
I cleaned and de-labeled 2 cases of bottles, then bottled a 5 gallon batch, then washed yeast, then put yesterdays wort in the fermenter and pitched the yeast.
Haven't had bottled homebrew in forever.
 
Started yesterday and finished today the process of moving my brew controller from the temporary plastic box I prototyped it a few years back to a nice metal enclosure. Did a slight upgrade in the process as I now have two ez-boils in the new box vs only one in the prototype so less chance of over-heating my sparge water now.

Everything appears to work but I will do some load testing tomorrow and hopefully a real brew in few days.
 
Yesterday I learned a valuable (although too late) lesson; propane tanks CAN fail. During the brewday I noticed a slight propane stink around the BK burner; thought it was coming from where the line attaches to the tank. Fortunately the boil was almost done, so I just let it go as it wasn't huge (and yes I do ventilate my brewery). Once cleaning was done looked into it more, and the leak got worse. On a side note, I have two tanks hooked up to my brewstand, one for each burner. I didn't move the tank to the other burner to see if it was the tank (big mistake), just went to amazon and ordered a new line/regulator, and paid extra to have it by last night. Once it arrived I installed it, and tried it on the same tank; still a leak. This time I put the OTHER tank on that same line, and no leak. Bad valve on the tank, first I've had in over 4 years of using propane for brewing. It's barely 1/3 gone, hoping HD will be nice and give me a full, not-defective, tank, but I doubt it. Worst part is that I had planned another brew for today, but got frustrated and sad the heck with it, I'll brew next weekend.

I had this from a propane tank from HD as well. I use some keg lube and an o-ring from a ball-lock post to make a better seal and solved the problem. Probably should have taken it back, but I was in the middle of brew day and didn't want to call it a day. Emptied the tank and traded it back for one that doesn't leak.
 
I had this from a propane tank from HD as well. I use some keg lube and an o-ring from a ball-lock post to make a better seal and solved the problem. Probably should have taken it back, but I was in the middle of brew day and didn't want to call it a day. Emptied the tank and traded it back for one that doesn't leak.
Damn, I didn't think of that. I'll give it a shot and see what happens. thanks!!! now to find where the hell the keg lube got to....
 
Not sure if I screwed up.. 5th brew ever. I wanted to springboard off the Witbier I just finished and kegged, so I saved all the trub and refrigerated it. I ran the same recipe, and got the right OG when I pitched, but holy mother of pasta look at this! Wonder how that’s gonna turn out??
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Not sure if I screwed up.. 5th brew ever. I wanted to springboard off the Witbier I just finished and kegged, so I saved all the trub and refrigerated it. I ran the same recipe, and got the right OG when I pitched, but holy mother of pasta look at this! Wonder how that’s gonna turn out??
View attachment 700458
I've had a few slurry pitches where the slurry/trub just about hit the halfway mark on the carboy before it compacted down to something reasonable. Couple questions; how long after pitching was this pic taken? Did you aerate the wort? Did you let the slurry warm up to room temp before pitching? If it's still good, I'd say it's a good thing you have plenty of headspace...
 
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