What I did for beer today

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When I kegged my Flanders Red earlier in the week, I sealed up the carboy, in expectation of today’s brew day. So a new batch of Flanders is rolling along on top of the culture I started back in 2017.

Kegged the mid-1800’s British IPA. Tried a new technique for a closed transfer and I am very pleased. Thank you to the HBT community; good ideas and helpful hints are plentiful!

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And continuing to rework my old fridge. I thought I had cut away interi6enough for 2 kegs, but Noooooo. So I cut right side shelve suppoers and then realized the dang controller was in the way. Scrounged 6 connectors, and made a new bottom plate for the controller. Mounted it in back screwed to the top. Wire run around the back and insulated and taped up well. 2 kegs fit, barely. But fit. Now I can go brew number 3 next week. Got 5 of my six kegs cleaned, replaced all poppeta and orings. One has old plastic poppet, I'll have to replace the lid, so it is way backup.... Dang, why did I keep that one anyway.....
 
Well, was originally planning to brew today, but during the week the weather looked sketchy, and also got invited to a friends house. Well, it ended up not raining, and she had to reschedule, so here I was on a prime brewday with no yeast going...
Anyway, made the most of the day by kegging my doppelbock and shoved it in the back of the kegerator where it will lager for awhile, and decided to bottle the gueuze-style blend. Really want to give it a long time in the bottle before drinking, so planning to let it ride until next summer. Also decided the latest wild ale was super boring without the sourness or anything else going on, so decided to keg hop it to hopefully make it more interesting.
 
oat beer is tasty. toasted oats are more tasty :rock:

is it about the same effort to malt oats as barley?


it's the exact same, just sprout, dry, kiln....deculm....and maybe i should try some caramel oats now? even better! ;) :mug: (i mean they have dark rye, dark wheat? why not oats!!)
 
it's the exact same, just sprout, dry, kiln....deculm....and maybe i should try some caramel oats now? even better! ;) :mug: (i mean they have dark rye, dark wheat? why not oats!!)

There is a commercial product called golden naked oats, which is a crystal malt made with oats. Not sure if it does much to the body for me but I do get a little nutty flavor.
 
There is a commercial product called golden naked oats, which is a crystal malt made with oats. Not sure if it does much to the body for me but I do get a little nutty flavor.

if @jcrawford ever takes me up on the offer of buying some 5lb bags to give him samples out of....i'll recomend it to him.....(do they have husks? because i find the husks taste grassy..)
 
The are quite small.


why i have my mill still set at 015 for next brew day.....luckily this apex yeast didn't stop amazing at $60 a brick, this oat beer finished at 0.994~3....when the hydro goes below the lines hard to tell! but i like it dry! and i'm loving this yeast! lol
 
Cracked open the fermentation chamber/lagering box from @Knightshade to check on the thermometer; I am not running it on a temp controller other than the mini-fridge's internal system.

The Lagering Box is holding at 35F; it has three 5G kegs in it-Flanders Red, Mid-1800's British IPA, and the backup mineral water for the fam.

I can't believe that 4 1/2 years ago, I started with extract + soaked grains on the stove, chilling my wort in an ice-filled sink. Now I have a mini-glycol system for three fermenters, a mini-walk-in that holds three kegs, an all-electric 3V system and a 3-tap keezer.

I know there is an exit to this freakin' rabbit hole somewhere...:eek:!
 
Cracked open the fermentation chamber/lagering box from @Knightshade to check on the thermometer; I am not running it on a temp controller other than the mini-fridge's internal system.

The Lagering Box is holding at 35F; it has three 5G kegs in it-Flanders Red, Mid-1800's British IPA, and the backup mineral water for the fam.

I can't believe that 4 1/2 years ago, I started with extract + soaked grains on the stove, chilling my wort in an ice-filled sink. Now I have a mini-glycol system for three fermenters, a mini-walk-in that holds three kegs, an all-electric 3V system and a 3-tap keezer.

I know there is an exit to this freakin' rabbit hole somewhere...:eek:!

Woot!
 
Cracked open the fermentation chamber/lagering box from @Knightshade to check on the thermometer; I am not running it on a temp controller other than the mini-fridge's internal system.

The Lagering Box is holding at 35F; it has three 5G kegs in it-Flanders Red, Mid-1800's British IPA, and the backup mineral water for the fam.

I can't believe that 4 1/2 years ago, I started with extract + soaked grains on the stove, chilling my wort in an ice-filled sink. Now I have a mini-glycol system for three fermenters, a mini-walk-in that holds three kegs, an all-electric 3V system and a 3-tap keezer.

I know there is an exit to this freakin' rabbit hole somewhere...:eek:!
No....there isn't. I did pretty good the 1st 10 years...extract and with grains..kinda staying safe circling the Event Horizon of the brewing Rabbit Super Massive Black Hole. I started doing all grain about 12 years ago and got sucked right in. Nothing escapes from the Black Rabbit Brewing Hole, not even light!!!!! All I ever want now is more stainless steel brewing toys! Nothing else matters...😳😳 birthdays...Christmas...even Valentine's. Give me brewing money or gift cards 😬😬😬. I have about $3000 worth of Astronomy gear and I've seriously entertained the notion of selling it all...gulp...for more brewing equipment. I've got the bunny by the cotton tail and I can't let go !!!!!!
 
Went out looking, at several local stores, for Leinenkugels Chocolate Dunkel but no one was carrying it. Hopefully soon. But I did stumble across this scrumptious looking 4 pk of Griffen Claw Brewing 3 Scrooges Winter Warmer to stock up in preparation of the snow and bitter cold lurking just around the corner. 6.5%, Honey, sweet orange peel and Christmas spices. And to justify the buy, we had our 1st scattering of snow flakes today. Poetic Justification 😁
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Feel like I did a lot...more than normal at least.

  • Made 1.5G Williams Brewing Ginger Beer and am force carbing that..unfortunately at room temp. I've never had it..but my kids love Ginger Beer so...figured I'd give it a shot. Hella cheaper than Bundaberg.
  • Racked my Haze Craze NEIPA from fermenter to keg
    • Pseudo cleaning fermenter by soaking in hot water and oxyclean right now
  • Transferred a WLP001 from 2L Flask to 2 400ml Mason Jars
  • Transferred 2 WLP028 400ml Mason Jars to 100ml Mason Jars
 
Cracked open the fermentation chamber/lagering box from @Knightshade to check on the thermometer; I am not running it on a temp controller other than the mini-fridge's internal system.

The Lagering Box is holding at 35F; it has three 5G kegs in it-Flanders Red, Mid-1800's British IPA, and the backup mineral water for the fam.

I can't believe that 4 1/2 years ago, I started with extract + soaked grains on the stove, chilling my wort in an ice-filled sink. Now I have a mini-glycol system for three fermenters, a mini-walk-in that holds three kegs, an all-electric 3V system and a 3-tap keezer.

I know there is an exit to this freakin' rabbit hole somewhere...:eek:!
There is not. You are sucked into The Homebrew matrix!! Welcome to the fold!! Bwahahhaha
 
Beat my head into a wall trying to figure out how I am going to brew this weekend. Surprise! I get to work all day Saturday and have three unexpected family members staying from now until Sunday. The grains for my Stout for the AHA brewday smell soooooo good! The yeast starter is ready.

Curses! Foiled again!
 
Beat my head into a wall trying to figure out how I am going to brew this weekend. Surprise! I get to work all day Saturday and have three unexpected family members staying from now until Sunday. The grains for my Stout for the AHA brewday smell soooooo good! The yeast starter is ready.

Curses! Foiled again!

Sounds like a late night Saturday brew after everybody has went to bed and some 5 hour energy. Then sleep in Sunday! :mischievous:
 
I'm tending 10G of an 8.5% Belgian Tripel using WLP530, trying to keep temps reasonable. I've used it before, but man this yeast is a beast. We're at 40 hours, and it's right at the point where it may ignore the blowoff tube and just rip the lid off instead.
Pitched at 65F, kept it around 67 for the first bit, then we had a little thermal probe issue and it jumped to 74F before I got it back to 70F.
 
Beat my head into a wall trying to figure out how I am going to brew this weekend. Surprise! I get to work all day Saturday and have three unexpected family members staying from now until Sunday. The grains for my Stout for the AHA brewday smell soooooo good! The yeast starter is ready.

Curses! Foiled again!
Put the family to work grinding and rinsing, gathering water, etc.

Meanwhile I sampled my fermenter; the SJAHA is stable at 1.016, for 72% attenuation and 5.78% ABV. Taste is slightly bitter/sour... but there's still a lot of yeast in suspension, and I expect those notes to mellow over the next week or so. If they don't I guess I'll call it a Sour Honey Ale... It's not bad, but I hope the extra week or two will clean it up.
 
Pulled a sample of the Blonde I brewed at the city house a couple of weeks ago. Looks like I’ll be bottling today. But, after taking inventory of my bottle stash, I realized I would have to drink at least two beers to have enough for a 2.5 gal batch. Oh well. We artists are supposed to suffer for our art, right? :cool:
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Brewed up an imperial stout yesterday. Efficiency was worse than usual, even by big beer standards, but still more than sufficient OG of 1.095. Used 1968 in this one and it's a monster! Glad I checked as soon as I woke up! Had to get a blowoff tube on it pronto!
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Just set the ferment fridge to crash for the Helles & Dead Guy clone brewed last weekend. Also just finished first day at new job; going to take a bit to get me up to snuff, but it's hella easier than last job. And, added bonus; office is literally two minutes drive from my LHBS!! I could walk there if I wanted to (I don't, busy street) but from now on if I need something, just hit it after work.
 
well i put some oat sprouts in the oven, tried getting my dryer wired up for deculming.....got the holes drilled for the push button and on/off switch, harvested all the old wiring for canibalism....should have it's naked, side still off, inaugural run tomorrow! it had a trial run already, but the duct tape didn't hold the SS screen on the back good and i lost a bunch of kernels out the back of it. i left the screen material but reatached the back plate, and have it underneath now...


anyway oats be in the oven, and the house smells like oats! :mug:
 
Opened the door to watch my cosmic punch army kick the sugars ass! Got a nice set of wort into the fermenter with next to no trub from brew day. It’s pretty violent right now lol. Pic is at about 28hrs post pitch. On a different note: it smells fantastic but can’t help but wonder if I get all these smells will there be any aroma left in the finished product? Lol it’s a question I always ask myself.



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Did a test run with the new drill on my corona mill. Tried with my old drill and it wasn't up to the task but the new one worked really well. This will really help my poor arms!


man, the fact i just had to imagine you milling by hand is going to haunt me tonight while i'm sleeping! (should be interesting, all night cracking a mill...waking up saying WTF was that...)
 
man, the fact i just had to imagine you milling by hand is going to haunt me tonight while i'm sleeping! (should be interesting, all night cracking a mill...waking up saying WTF was that...)
And I have a bad back! Mostly do 1-3 gallon batches so it isn't that bad, but I am doing more and more 4-5 gallon batches now and I just couldn't take the cranking anymore.
 
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