nicole gave me a pump for my bday, ever since i had been looking at the best way to mount it. putting it on a brew stand would be ideal but with brewing in the garage and storing in the basement we needed something portable, that is were the pump tool box comes in. i surfed the homebrew forums and found tons of different designs but ultimately one stood out more than the others, i liked the quality look and pump arrangement. from the info i've gathered, having a pump setup to flow water through in a vertical (bottom in, top out) position and installing a purge valve on the out is preferred. i ordered a couple disconnects from mcmaster carr #6739k59 and #6739K68, and the rest of the parts from bargain fittings. only took a couple hours to get everything drilled, mounted, and wired (thanks again for you help with the wiring steve!). still need to cut a hole for the extension cable to come out the top but other than that i think we are ready for brewing.







-bake

took a sample of the hefe, gravity was at 1.010, as soon as i cracked the valve i felt like i had been punched in the face by bananas and bread... it was amazing. easily the best tasting sample i've ever drank. i also took a sample and refractometer reading on the stout, its current at 9 brix, which translates to 1.018, out of curiosity i put the hydrometer in there as well and it read 1.024. i'm pretty sure our hydrometer is bullshit.



-bake

yeast just won't stop doing work. after 6 blow-outs i decided to hook up some blow off tubes. hopefully they don't clog up and explode.

-bake

woke up this morning to the sound of yeast doing some serious work. the hefe is in the fermenator, sitting at a smooth 70 degrees and bubbling away. the stout on the other hand is being a pain in the ass. one of the buckets had a blow out. i wiped it up, cleaned and refilled the airlock. about an hour later the other bucket had the same problem. apparently kris knows how to make some kick ass yeast starters.









-bake

we brewed up 20 gallons worth of beer this afternoon. 10 gallons of a cherry stout and 10 gallons of the blood orange hefe. we also got a chance to try out some new equipment, including the mythical therminator which is fucking amazing, and a frackin' refractometer. we weren't able to use the pump, but we were able to rig an awesome gravity setup and watched 10 gallons of wort drop to 68 in less than 10 mins. amazing stuff.

cherry / cacao stout 16 brix = 1.066 og, mashed @ 149 - 60 min
blood orange hefe 13 brix = 1.053 og, mashed @ 149 - 90 min

cherry stout mash


continuous vorlauf








thru-mometer ftw


blood orange hefe




sweet orange chunks and wheat




30 seconds of pure adrenaline


merrill's personal yeast stash




-bake

Brewmaster's finally got around to sending out our order, complete with a march pump and refractometer for Bake's B-Day!





I made some starters again- the stout is getting split into 2 batches, so it gets 2 starters of Safale S-33. the hefe is going into the ferminator, so it gets one big ass starter made from 2 packs of Wyeast 3068 Weihenstephan Weizen.



According to most of the things I've read about yeast starters, you shouldn't really see a lot of activity in the bottle, but check this out...



we're planning on our first double brew session on saturday, hopefully we don't get too drunk to finish the second one...

-kris

I opened an El Dorado Golden Ale today that was bottled back in september. Still good carbonation. Tasted really cidery, not good...but if I remember right, it tasted like that when it was fresh. I wouldn't say it's undrinkable...but I didn't drink it.

Ordered the ingredients for a Blood Orange Hefeweizen (jefe de naranja sanguina-"the blood orange boss..." mmmaybe), and a Black Cherry Stout (la bête noire de cerise- "the black cherry beast"). Hopefully brewmaster's will get these out on time to brew next saturday...but I'm not holding my breath. If anyone reads this and is wondering, black cherries are native to Quebec- that's why it's got a french name. And "jefe" ("hefe"-weizen) is spanish for boss... though it sounded good...



Also, cupcake is turning 16 or something this month, so I might have picked up a little something for him too. exciting.

-kris

(2 posts in one day, recognize!)

Today, I cracked open one of the Kimosabe Red's I have archived from a little over 2 months ago. I wasn't sure how the brew was going to keep being bottled like this, but I was very pleasantly surprised. It still tastes awesome, has a good maltiness, not sweet at all, didn't pick up any rubbery flavor that we've had with some of the bottled brews, and was still plenty carbonated. I have several bottles from the last 6-7 batches left still - the oldest being the double IPA extract brewed last summer.



I also opened an Abominale's Revenge last weekend so I could send the bottle in to BYO for the label contest. It's got a lot of the butterscotch/dark chocolate flavor that the Peacemaker had, which was weird, but still nice and smooth. It didn't have any heat or off-flavor from the high alcohol content, but it was definitely still there.



It's nice to know that the brew's are holding up over time.

-kris