Getting back into beer brewing

[MaryB]

Oh my days of wrenching are over. Most I will do now is swap a tire... brew days leave me a pile of pain for the next 3 days too.

[MaryB]

Brew stand is completed as of 6pm today! Tomorrow I put 6 gallons of water in the boil kettle and see how much boils off in 60 minutes and 90 minutes. And burn the paint off the new burners. I added casters under the lower shelf to help with the 80 or so pounds a full kettle will put on it. All burners have brackets strapping them down so they can't shift.

[44man]

Wonderful setup!
I ran a batch yesterday and played the devil getting the big beer keg on my stove with about 12 gal of liquid in it. I need a bobcat with forks.
I have a turkey fryer stove and it is high. I can't fill or get the seal back on when on the stove.
Use your imagination for what I made.

[MaryB]

A mess? lol Lifting the full pots is what led to building this! Now all I have to lift is spent grains and the 5 gallons to the fermenting fridge. I may use the cherry picker and make a sling for the pot handles to get it down onto the cart. A friend wants the spent grains for her chickens so I will dump them on a tarp and spread it to dry if she can't get them right away... maybe have her leave a 55 gallon barrel, we can always use the cherry picker to lift it.

[44man]

I have about 105 proof and feel no pain.
But I have to smoke ribs today. Need your cherry picker to move me!

[MaryB]

Bottled 5 gallons of Phat Tyre Ale today. One of my go to beers! Decided to skip the secondary and just ferment in the bottling bucket to start with. 4 weeks in the same bucket and it came out great. I am using hop bags now so no hop sludge in the fermenter to deal with. When I get around to saving my own yeast this will really help cleaning it.

[44man]

Carol ruined another switch. Fan in the family room. Yank the chain, good thing I made it right or the fan would fall. She shuts off water in the sink so hard the sink bends. What the hell is it about a woman? Need 2000# pull to turn a fan on. Yank, Yank like there is no tomorrow. I am sick of fixing.

[MaryB]

Hey! Not all f us are that way! I have to fix whatever I break! A friend used to turn my faucets off so hard that I needed a channel locks to turn it back on. Plastic faucets so I chewed butt to put a stop to it.

[MaryB]

New burners broke in(burned off the paint, what a stench!) and tested the boil kettle loss rate(steam...). Looks like I lose 1.25 gallons per hour. First test run coming this Sunday!

[44man]

I never seem to have water to add if the pot gets a little low. I use a beer keg with the top cut out and it is hard to mark so I made punch marks but at times it gets too low.
I like to have 5-1/2 gal at boil end.
I can't drink for a while, need to get a physical for cataract surgery.
I dread this stuff but can't see for beans.

[MaryB]

Little more work on the stand today. Added a shelf for the propane tanks, still need to make a strap for it. I also built a copper sparge bar for the HLT up top.



Broke in the new barley crusher and ground 12 pounds of grains for brewing tomorrow or Monday. Took 8 minutes total and I kept the drill speed down.

[44man]

Wish I had room in my garage!
I would like to see a picture of your crusher.

[MaryB]

Not my pic but it is the same model next to the one with the extension hopper(I am making my own extension!



Brewed today, equipment worked perfectly, operator not so much! I am rusty doing all grain and way overshot my mash in temp... came out okay original gravity wise though at 1.064(on the nose for this recipe). Fermenter is in the fermenting fridge to do its thing or not! Wort was sweet, no harsh tannin from being to warm.

[44man]

Great, thanks, prime candidate to motorize. My beer store has one under his bench and will run the grain for me free, he has a motor on it.
Only thing is I buy extra grain and don't like to store crushed grain.

[44man]

My coffee grinder makes a lot of dust so I always held the shop vac nozzle near.
Now I prop a bucket under it and cover with a plastic bag.

[MaryB]

This sits on a bucket and very little dust, and the handle is optional, I use my cordless drill on low speed.

[MaryB]

Bottled 5 gallons of Phat Tyre last night(this one is my go to always in the rotation beer). Judging by how the hydrometer sample tasted this is going to be my best batch yet! Came in at 6.3% ABV too so packs a punch!

[MaryB]

Checked weather today, storms are headed NE.. sweet I can brew. 1 hour into brewing Caribou Slobber brown ale I get hit with severe thunderstorms... granted I am brewing inside the garage but I have to crack the overhead door open a foot so carbon monoxide doesn't build up. 65mph gusts and horizontal rain coming under the door.. I spent most of the brew session sweeping water back out the door.