It was a good day

I went to the GABF today. I met John Palmer and got a book signed, drank a lot of good beers, and finally got to meet James Spencer. Andy Sparks and Brian Warren were with him, and I have to say they are a great bunch of guys. We had a really good chat and passed ideas and thoughts back and forth. Meeting James and crew was the best way I could have imagined to wrap up the GABF.

Back at the ranch, the Brown Ale is ready to transfer. I'll probably keg it and let it condition in the keg. The Espresso Porter krauesen has just fallen in but it's still fermenting. That one still has a bit to go before it's ready to rack. That'll give me time to pick up another keg.

It's Worse Than That, She's Dead, Jim

First, the good news:

I got James Spencer's Espresso Porter brewed. The OG came out to a staggering 1.066. I think I used too much extract. Oh well. It'll just be a big porter. Yum! I pitched a couple of tubes of yeast just to be safe and it's fermenting like gangbusters.

I also got the parts to finish out 2 faucets for my kegerator. It's all hooked up, and I tested a keg with sanitized water. Everything flows just fine!

Now the bad news: I think the freezer is dead. Yes, I've had it plugged in for nearly 24 hours and I think the temperature inside has dropped a whopping 3 degrees. Maybe. If it doesn't improve by Sunday I'm going to look at couple more freezers I found on craigslist. *sigh*

Missed him by THAT much

I went down to the Brew Hut today to pick up ingredients for James Spencer's (from Basic Brewing Radio) Espresso Porter only to find out James had been there just 10 minutes earlier! Bah! So close. Oh well. Perhaps I'll get to meet him at the GABF on Saturday.

Anywho, brewed the Espresso Porter today with real Starbucks Espresso. Went very well.

Was going to pick up some kegerator supplies but they were out. Kevin had meant to take delivery of some more stuff this morning but got too busy (James and crew, I suspect). I'll pick the stuff up tomorrow.

Kegerator Mods Almost Done

The Kegerator is almost complete! Thanks to a trip to Home Depot and a borrowed hole saw bit from a neighbor, my faucet box is built and mounted on my freezer! Okay, so it's not pretty, but it's 95% the way there, and for a guy who hasn't so much as drilled a hole on over a decade, I think I did pretty well.

I mounted the box on the left corner to allow easy access to the taps and to allow the box to miss the shelf above the freezer.I built the box out of 2x6's. The lid is made of 2x2's and a thin pice of particle board on top. I also put down some weatherstripping between the box and the lid. The lid allows me to seal of the box (holes in the lid of the freezer and all) but have easy access to the internals to add faucets, etc. I mounted a simple latch on the right side to hold the lid in place when closed and a hinge on the left that allows the lid to open. I drilled three 1.5" holes side by side in the lid of the freezer which are inside the box (duh), allowing for the beer lines to run through. I attached the box to the freezer with liquid nails then caulked all around the bottom of the box.

 

 


 


 

Got my starter keg equipment

I picked up a 20# CO2 tank, cornelius ball keg, party despenser and hoses and fittings, etc. This setup will let me get started in kegging in preparation for my big kegerator build.

Speaking of, Keith from Brew Hut confirmed an idea I had been tossing around. Most kegerator conversions involve either drilling into the side (can't with my freezer) or building a collar to fit between the freezer and the lid. While I like this idea, my freezer has a complicated tension spring bracket setup for the lid that I really don't want to fool with. Instead, I'll build a box to put on top of the lid. The beer lines will feed through a hole in the lid, and I'll drill holes in the lid to mount the faucets similar to the collar setup.

Looks like my next trip will be to Home Depot, once I have the dimensions figured out.

First all grain a success!

 
Here is the result of my first All Grain batch of beer, John Palmer's Oak Butt Brown Ale. I hit the 5 gallon target just about dead on, and I hit an OG of 1.051, a little higher than the book's 1.049, but I'm not complaining! I am SO STOKED! It's not as dark as it looks in the picture; it's really a nice clear dark brown and it'll look lighter in the glass.

From the start of the mash I got some bitter aromas coming out of this. I'm guessing that's coming from the chocolate malt. The only time I went near 170 degrees was for the sparge water, which I used a sparge arm to do a continuous sparge which, to my surprise, didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would. I used a 10 gallon rubbermaid drinking cooler converted with a false bottom and lautering pad.

I mashed with 5 gallons of water, added .5 gallons on that to bring the temp up to 152, sparged with 3.5, gathered a little over 6.5 gallons of wort.

I'm not going to panic about the taste yet. Plenty of time for that later. There's a lot of trub at the bottom, but I let a bunch throug that I probably shouldn't have. Oh well. Not going to worry to much about it.

It's sitting at just about 80 degrees. When it hits 75 I'll pitch the yeast.
 

I can't stop myself

I found a chest freezer on craigslist for $100. It's 60" long, 27.5"
wide and 36" high. It's a Montgomery Ward Signature Series Deluxe 23.
I guess that means it's 23 cubic feet. It's huge, though.

Now I gotta figure out how I'm going to convert it.

Email blogging and The Man

This is a test post I'm sending via email. I hope it works.

It seems that my company has decided to block more and more Internet
sites. Why do I bother putting this here? Well, you know that
wonderful label I posted here? The photo hosting server at Blogger is
listed in my company filter as an online storage site, and is
therefore blocked. So, I can see my blog, I can see my post, but the
picture doesn't show up. Nifty huh?

*sigh*

Mead Label

 
This is the mead label I came up for. This is for the dry mead that I bottled on the 19th and primed with the Coopers prime tabs. Mystic Mountain is my "personal brand" that I will release all my homebrew under. Who knows? Someday it might become a real brand name. Maybe.

Anyway, if anyone reads this, let me know what you think. 

Current Brews - Inagural post

Greetings all! I started this blog to help keep people up to date on what tastey brews I have lined up in my brew room. Here's a quick rundown:

Bulk Aging:
5 Gal Fall's Bounty Cyser - Clear very tasty early on. Dark brown color in carboy. 39 Days.
3 Gal Dry Blended Mead - Clear and very dry. Very light straw color. Originally a 5 gallon batch, now 3 gallons bulk aging, the rest bottled and primed (19 bottles). 41 Days.
1 Gal Dark Mead Experiment 1 Batch - Original experiment, this batch fermented with dark DME. Not too sure about this one's taste. 35 Days.
.5 Gal Japanese Knotweed Mead - I have no data on this one other than it's clear, amber in color and semi-sweet. The honey is rare and was all I had left. It's probably been fermenting close to 60 days.

Brews Fermenting:
5 Gal Sweet Clover Mead - 1.5 gallons of clover honey in 5 gallon batch. 43 Days.
5 Gal Strong Alfalfa Mead - 1.5 gallons of alfalfa honey in 5 gallon batch with champagne yeast. 42 days.
5 Gal Hefty Braggot - Group brew from www.brewboard.com. Vigorous fermentation blew out the airlock. 4 days.
1 Gal Dark Mead Experiment 2 Batch 1 - Steeped debittered black malt for this one. Very promising. 10 Days.
1 Gal Dark Mead Experiment 2 Batch 2 - Steeped chocolate malt for this one. Early results are encouraging. 10 Days.
1 Gal Agave Nectar Wine - made with 3 pints of Agave Nectar. Totally experimental. 15 Days.

Upcoming Brews
Oak Butt Brown Ale - My first attempt at an All Grain beer. Using the John Palmer recipe. Should be brewed this weekend.
Starbucks Snob Espresso Porter - Using James Spencer's (of Basic Brewing Radio fame) Espresso Porter recipe with real authentic Starbucks Espresso. Next weekend.
Apple Butter Cyser - Another group brew from the brewboard, this one is schedule for the second weekend in October.

Click this picture to see a few shots of the results of my Braggot Blowout:

Braggot Blowout

Sep 20, 2006 - 4 Photos

Plenty to keep me busy. More later.