What I did for beer today

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Had a spontaneous brew day yesterday evening . Brewed up a brown ale, but missed my OG by about 10 points. I think I was shorted on grains from the company I ordered from. Oh well.

1.045 OG it is.

I will say, however, Opal 22 smells soooo good.
I love spontaneous brew days!
 
Kegged off my Strata Pale and plain hard seltzer this morning. Husband wanted to go to Puyallup Oktoberfest today, but I convinced him that staying home, drinking some of his wife's amazing homebrew, and watching our 20-year-playoff-drought-breaking Mariners hopefully kick the BlueJays butts is a better option. I might even make some popcorn. Also going to make some candy.
 
Cleaning day and kegging day.
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Finally kegged my fizzy yellow swill version of an Oktoberfest after work tonight. It hit TG from 1.057 on day five, then spent another thirty days at 35F waiting for a keg to open up.

I've been looking forward to this one all summer, so it's a relief to finally have it in a serving keg.

Lastly, I did a bit of cleaning up of my Brewsmith files from this past winter, spring, and summer. I recall that some of you got a kick out of my Great Beersmith Cleanup from a year or so ago and my tendency to write pithy tasting notes. So here's a tasting note from a beer that I brewed this summer that featured some seriously soft water that was meant to validate my drift over the past two years toward ever chunkier water in my lagers:

"You designed this beer fail and it has. In the future, focus more on making good beer and less on methodological rigor. Methodological rigor makes for five gallons of !($*%$ beer."
 
Both of my marzen kegs kicked at my friends' Oktoberfest over the weekend. So last night I finally cleaned those kegs, and the line. Also I decided I had enough of the roggenbier, so I put the rest of that in a growler so I could put 2 new beers on tap (have another party this weekend, so need to get them carbonated anyway). A couple of messes to clean up along the way, but 2 fresh kegs are on and everything that needed to be cleaned has been. :cool:
 
A Happy Day for sure! What's on the menu?


my first attempt at homemalt lager since i modified my oven, got the fridge down to 51f, two outdated packs of S-23...which is what motivated me to do a lager, they've been sitting in the fridge for many years.

and now that i got a cheat to keep the kegs full making hard seltzer, can spare one of my fermenters for a fews weeks to ferment with the coveted temp control! set to the max! ;) :mug:

just all 'base malt' haven't even checked to see what hops i have to add yet...
 
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It's always something, and if it's not something, it's something else . . . . . Been there.
That's an excellent title for a homebrewing book.

I've been fighting a slow, years-long retrograde battle with the beer stone in my kettle and decided to escalate the violence with this stuff. I've made a bit of headway with it this evening, but it's no miracle cure. I'll give it another shot tomorrow.
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That's an excellent title for a homebrewing book.

I've been fighting a slow, years-long retrograde battle with the beer stone in my kettle and decided to escalate the violence with this stuff. I've made a bit of headway with it this evening, but it's no miracle cure. I'll give it another shot tomorrow.
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If you spray it on your computer, does it protect you from social media?
 
Well, I tried to brew outside, but the wind kept blowing leaves onto the patio, so I had to move everything into the garage as if it was winter or something.

Anyway, got the grains milled, mashed 'em, boiled 'em, hopped 'em, cooled 'em, decanted 'em into the fermenter, measured 'em for gravity, and then I yeasted 'em and put 'em to bed in the garage where the ambient temps will fluctuate but will remain much cooler than inside the house this week.
 
I had planned to clean kegs, and keg a beer today, but the husband put the kibosh on that; mortgaged our mortal souls (not really but spendy for nosebleed seats) and we're going to our very first baseball playoff game today. Baseball has always been a big part of our relationship (our first year of dating we went to six games, I think) and we cannot pass up the opportunity. Also T-Mobile has my favorite Bodhizafa on tap, going to be a great day. Sorry to be trendy and all but #SeaUsRise!!!!! Go MARINERS!!
 
well i was going to post this in what came in the mail today. but this was in my alerts so it's going here instead, i opened a package with my new brewing america hydrometer calibrated to 155f for taking mash run off readings! AWESOME! i think this is way better then an iodine test to tell when it's 'done'....

(not that i actually need an acurate SG for it, just still slick! :mug:)
 
*now posted in the "correct" thread.....*

Although they lost (after 17 SCORELESS INNINGS OMG) I still love my Mariners, as I have since 1979 when my dad took me to my very first professional baseball game. At least now we know we have a playoff-caliber team. That was by far the longest game I've ever had to sit through. Today kegging off my WF lager, after learning from past mistakes. I use a pressure transfer lid on my fermonster; last kegging it just kept stopping, had to blast out the dip tube with co2, and was just a hassle. Tried something new today (that my beer-infused brain should have known from the get-go), sprayed starsan on all the posts, fermonster and keg. Beer ran into the keg faster than lickety split and no issues. I hate it when I forget the obvious stuff. Issue was the pins on the black disconnects kept getting stuck, gee I wonder why starsan helped that. Kicking myself a bit this morning.
 
i too am curious?

Apparently, lubrication of the posts. I don't put keg lube on the posts, just went on my merry way thinking they would be fine just sitting out in the air drying off. Spraying starsan helps them connect better, and keeps the poppits from getting stuck. For clarification, I have a dedicated 5lb co2 tank with regulator that I use for kegging; regulator is one of my old ones that isn't completely reliable, but it works. Jump line from the fermonster to the keg gets completely cleaned after every use, at least the line does. Last few kegging sessions have been exercises in start-stop-start-stop-clean-swear prolifically-start-finally finish. Going to start taking the connectors apart every time and cleaning them with a small brush. Just another chapter in the long book of why sometimes I'm not the semi-advanced homebrewer I think I am. Nothing like a bit of karma to take my ego down several pegs.
 
*now posted in the "correct" thread.....*

Although they lost (after 17 SCORELESS INNINGS OMG) I still love my Mariners, as I have since 1979 when my dad took me to my very first professional baseball game. At least now we know we have a playoff-caliber team. That was by far the longest game I've ever had to sit through. Today kegging off my WF lager, after learning from past mistakes. I use a pressure transfer lid on my fermonster; last kegging it just kept stopping, had to blast out the dip tube with co2, and was just a hassle. Tried something new today (that my beer-infused brain should have known from the get-go), sprayed starsan on all the posts, fermonster and keg. Beer ran into the keg faster than lickety split and no issues. I hate it when I forget the obvious stuff. Issue was the pins on the black disconnects kept getting stuck, gee I wonder why starsan helped that. Kicking myself a bit this morning.
My old army buddy and best friend had to pull police duty there last night. Capt on Seattle PD.
 
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