What I did for beer today

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I brewed up this evening
  1. 5 gallon Czech hack (5# Munich, 5# Vienna, 1/2# Carabohemia, 34/70)
  2. 4 gallon cyser with 5# Costco honey, 2 gallons Costco Apple juice, a big pitch of nottingham, and then will add in a big can of sour cherries when the fermentation drops down
  3. Half batch of Tony's Pre-1970's Boddington
  4. made a batch of rye crackers whilst juggling the above.
  5. cleaned 2 kegs
  6. put the 5 gallon Boddington's 1939 into the warmer bathroom for the yeast to do any clean up
Don't forget to add those new BEER batches to the 2021 Brew Total thread!
 
I'm out of shape and the beer belly is getting harder to ignore. Decided to make some better food choices and I downloaded an app to help me get into a workout routine. Finished today's workout and this ad comes up.
Screenshot_20210209-165444_Lose Weight App for Men.jpg
 
Dropped the dry hop on my Citra/Mosaic IPA last night, this morning turned it down to 64 to keep the heat lamp from going crazy. Sipping on some yummy breakfast stout tonight while I wait for dinner to cook, and watching the increasingly panicky weatherpeople try to tell us how much snow we will/will not get this weekend. Seems like every two years the PNW gets hit with a major snowstorm in February, and this weekend is it. Husband said a while ago I hope you're not brewing this weekend, I gotta cover the outside water spigot, and I said well yes I am, and I know how to put the damn cover on so I'll replace it when I'm done. Snowday brewday on Saturday!
 
Seatazzz, I do believe that you are the most dedicated brewer on this forum. My hat is off to you. Thank you very much for sharing you experiences here.


Dropped the dry hop on my Citra/Mosaic IPA last night, this morning turned it down to 64 to keep the heat lamp from going crazy. Sipping on some yummy breakfast stout tonight while I wait for dinner to cook, and watching the increasingly panicky weatherpeople try to tell us how much snow we will/will not get this weekend. Seems like every two years the PNW gets hit with a major snowstorm in February, and this weekend is it. Husband said a while ago I hope you're not brewing this weekend, I gotta cover the outside water spigot, and I said well yes I am, and I know how to put the damn cover on so I'll replace it when I'm done. Snowday brewday on Saturday!
 
Put away my latest grain order that arrived on Monday and updated inventory. Also racked my red ipa into my ukeg. I'm extremely glad that it was only a one gallon batch because it does not smell or taste promising. Ever have a feeling you might have just experienced your worst home-brewed beer? Yikes...
 
Set up to dry some Hornindal isolate from WL (harvested from a stout so it's pitch black but I use such a small amount that it won't affect the colour in any way) and made two starters, one for Laerdal (original culture) and Jovaru, the original culture too, I'm really looking forward to brew with Jovaru
 
Just bottled my first non kit brew. A cream ale recipe I got from Brewers friend that I scaled and turned into a coffee cream ale. Drank my FG sample and it was really good! SWMBO thought maybe a little less coffee beans next time but we will see how it is when bottle conditioning is done. Very proud of myself and I can’t wait to drink a carbonated and conditioned one! As Tom Petty once said, The waiting is the hardest part.
 
After a month of glaring at the obnoxiously pretty lump of stainless lurking in the corner of my shop and brewing two batches on my old rig just to spite the gorgeous thing, I finally decided to start letting go of my beloved Hooptie Brewery and set up my new SS Brewtech infusion mash tun, cleaned it, and ran it through a passivation cycle. There's nothing wrong with my current rig, it checks off on all the fashionable homebrew fetishes, except one. It doesn't recirculate very well and simply can't run pristinely clear wort into the kettle.

Clarity into the kettle is a foolish thing to fetishize, nevertheless it bugs me. Hence, the Brewtech infusion tun. Ultimately, it's the first step in an evolution away from my old Rube Goldberg rig and toward a modern, digitally controlled RIMS system. On the one hand, I'm excited about the possibilities that lay ahead, on the other... I feel like I'm going soft. I used to rejoice in the old joke about the two types of homebrewers: Those that focus on making great beer and those that focus on making great rigs. I'm not thrilled about being the butt of one of my favorite jokes.

Pride goeth before the fall.
 
I used to rejoice in the old joke about the two types of homebrewers: Those that focus on making great beer and those that focus on making great rigs.


hmmm, i guess i'm not a homebrewer...because my beer is so,so...and i cracked my ~18 year old 10 gallon cooler, and am wondering if i really need to buy a new one...at least the plumbing still works, so it'd only be like $40-50 or so....not like my bazooka tube deflated, or my ball valve started leaking.....
 
hmmm, i guess i'm not a homebrewer...because my beer is so,so...and i cracked my ~18 year old 10 gallon cooler, and am wondering if i really need to buy a new one...at least the plumbing still works, so it'd only be like $40-50 or so....not like my bazooka tube deflated, or my ball valve started leaking.....

Take heart! You can brew in a cracked cooler for years. I managed to burn through the liner in my first cooler in three spots with a heat stick--can't step mash in a cooler my arse! Sure the insulation starts to look a little funny, but it's good for at least another 100 brews.
 
Popped test bottle #2 on the Munich In Tents marzen-like ale. It's only been two weeks, and I bottled with DME, so I expect it to take longer, but I'm disappointed at how slowly this batch is carbonating. While the taste is everything I expect from a marzen-like ale, it needs bubbles to lighten up the mouthfeel.

This, too, shall sit. Another two weeks in bottle-finishing purgatory.
 
A bit busy today: filled two kegs, washed two carboys, Star-San purged a couple of kegs, set up the rig for tomorrow's Juicy Bits brew and loaded it with RO, then weighed out all the grains for morning milling. Going to use both mills as this will be an all-malt neipa - no flaked grains for this batch, going with malted wheat and malted oats, and they need the .025" gap on my old BC mill vs the .032" on my CK. I want to see if there's any noticeable difference between the flaked adjunct recipe I've done a half-dozen times now...

[edit] Forgot the 1056 starter for a future IPA...

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Cheers!
 
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I have a Brewer's Edge Mash and Boil, non-circulating version. My biggest issue with it is it keeps temperature in a +/- 6F temperature range. I typically mash high around 158F to get more mouthfeel for session beers. I'm also trying to clone a few recipes, and that requires getting the mash temp right among a host of other things. Just can't do that with the Brewer's Edge.

For my half batches I've been using a sous vide wand to heat the mash and to dial in the temperature really accurately.

Well, silly me, it was only today that I thought. Hmmm, I could heat up 6 gallons in the Mash and Boil, dump in all the grains, and the sous vide wand can immerse far enough into the mash to keep a steady temperature. And it did. Kept it right at 149 for 90 minutes. There might be some stratification with the temperature cooler at the base than on the top, but should be much improved over the 6F range. Efficiency went up to around 70 (previously was closer to 60).
 
After kegging my brew and partially force carbing it on Thursday I gave a good taste today, and then another. It is pretty damn good. It still needs another few days to get up to the carb level I want so I'll have to check it 2 or 3 times a day to make sure it is progressing ;)
 
Kegged and dry hopped 5 gallons of my czech hack (equal amounts munich and vienna, 5% carabohemia and/or melanoidum, tettnanger hops). at 64F daytiime temp (colder at night), 34/70 feremented to 1010 in two weeks. Gonna let it lager iin the garage a week or three.

Kegged the half batch of Tony's Boddingtons and dry hopped with Bramling Cross.

Will bottle a bit of left over czech, and a 1939 Boddingtons
4
Gonna brew something tonight. Not sure what. I have a dry stout in the wings. Also 5# of specialty wheat and buncha odds and sodds.
 
Tapped the latest WF lager that's 2 weeks old. This one was done with nothing but Crystal hops late; was supposed to get a bittering addition as well but somebody who shall remain nameless forgot to put the hops in the bag for that. No worries, it turned out just as I wanted. Later tonight after some delicious BBQ ribs and rice might keg the Crystal/Mosaic (yes I'm on a Crystal hop kick) to be ready to tap later this week. Snow finally changed to rain which will more than likely freeze the f*ck out of the roads overnight, yay.
 
Cleaned all the kegs using the Mark’s Keg Washer for the first time. Love it. Moved the Comet SMaSH onto dry hops in the keg and cold crashing + carbing.

Got a 3rd opinion on my 1st attempt at lager; it had green apple flavor, sourness (infection?), and a dull bitter. Since I don’t like lager yeast-bubble gum flavor, this was going to be a gift anyway, but no, I poured it out onto the pomegranate tree. It was kept at 50F for a week, then rose to 65, dry hopped in the keg, and lagered for about 6 weeks.
 
Chill Day. Did an inventory sanity check vs what BS3 thinks I have on hand (pretty close - just wish recipes had a flag that showed if their ingredients had been removed or not); made up some 25% PA; ran my Hopstopper through a hot PBW treatment (immediately turned hop-resin-yellow. woof!); and checked on yesterday's brew which is purring along nicely at 64°F beer temperature while purging the kegs it will end up in...



Cheers!
 
Chill Day. Did an inventory sanity check vs what BS3 thinks I have on hand (pretty close - just wish recipes had a flag that showed if their ingredients had been removed or not); made up some 25% PA; ran my Hopstopper through a hot PBW treatment (immediately turned hop-resin-yellow. woof!); and checked on yesterday's brew which is purring along nicely at 64°F beer temperature while purging the kegs it will end up in...



Cheers!

I have a column in the recipe that shows inventory on hand, it also does a popup that flags items I don't have enough of when I do "remove inv". If it can not fulfill the need it will not take it to zero though.
 
Well aware of the "on hand" column, but there is nothing that tells you if you have used the "Remove Inventory" function on a recipe.
And if you do a remove twice, it will remove twice...

Cheers!
 
I will sometime copy a recipe to modify it and when I go to "remove inv" it will occasionally flag me that I recently removed inventory and ask if I want to really do it. So I think there is some checking but not sure what triggers it, but it sound like you might want to know if you have already removed.
 
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