What's Brewing & Doing - October Edition

I've thought about it, but brewing tends steal the funds when I've accrued enough money. She is placating me by saying that when she officially starts her new job she'll let me get something like "The Big Green Egg." That's 2 years away...and I'm sure she'll come up with a reason to extend it!

 

Not a perfect solution, but I just BBQ in a standard Webber Kettle grill. Super cheap and can keep a consistent if not perfect temp using the minion method.

 

I used to do this, too. It definitely works well.

I got my first smoker a few weeks ago though. My Sunday mornings are almost pure ecstasy now; Smoking, Brewing, & Football.

 

Old wood stove with 6 feet of smoke pipe going into the previusly mentioned smoke house. Smoke is cool and I use green apple. Meat comes out brown with smoke while I swill homebrew and make more, like this weekend.

 

@LakesideBrewing could probably offer up some BBQ start-up suggestions. He may be modest about it but that dude competed against and continuously beat the best the BBQ teams New England and NY had to offer. He won many a State Championship and qualified for the big boy comps down south. World class Q!

 

Bottled my dubbel on Wednesday - think I'm ready to take a break from bottling for a while! Accidentally got a bit of trub in the bottling bucket, like a chump.

Kegged the APA IPA last night, using CO2 to push the beer. Had some issues pumping the beer in using the liquid post, might have to revive the CO2 racking thread to ask about them. There was so much hop matter in the carboy that I only got about 4 gallons into the keg! Smell was great, and the hydrometer sample tasted pretty good too, though with a gritty, unpleasant aftertaste. Probably because I got some trub in the keg, like a chump, and that got sucked up when I poured the gravity sample that I later drank. Hoping that all the grit will come out in the first pour or two once it's had time to settle in the fridge.

Now all that's left is to get my manifold set up, because this is my first time running two kegs simultaneously and I only have one CO2 line at present. I was too tired to deal with that last night, so I just hooked the IPA up to start carbing, since that's the beer I want to be ready first. Today or tomorrow I should be able to get the rest up and running.

 

Where did you get those bottles? All from 2nd use? What size caps? I'm looking to bottle my first sour and love the 750ml format size.

 

I've currently got the mash going for an ESB: Maris Otter (89%) with the remainder comprising crystal 15, 55, 75 and Victory. First Gold and homegrown Cascade. Yeast 1098 (British Ale). Fingers crossed I don't run out of propane, but I will likely need to make a run to get a refill. Cheers!

 

If by standard you mean Weber Charcoal grill then look into a Smokenator 1000. I have one for my Weber Kettle and it works great.

http://www.smokenator.com/

 

I've got 10 gallons of my Xmas Ale in primary right now, split between two carboys. One with 3787, the other with 3031 + Bootleg Biology Funk Weapon brett.
I'm brewing an IPA next with half of the batch being bottled with brett. After that, I'll be doing a dark sour that I'll hit with ECY Bug County, And a Sour Red that'll end up on a 2nd generation ECY02.

 

Hey @Jesse14 , thanks for the kind words! I'd be happy to talk BBQ with anyone. If anyone have any specific question feel free to PM me! Jesse, did you compete? What team?

-Mike

 

They are all reused bottles, mostly from The Bruery. 29mm caps.

 

Going to mess with blending None More Black and my Bluebs blueberry lambic tonight (None More Black and Blue) in prep for Darkness Day next weekend. Figure I have 3 bombers of still NMB that I can dole out there so might as well do something fun with it. Probably do a red wine blend as well (None More Black and Red).

Fun experiments when the the blends are going to be near 30% still.

 

Big brew day for me - batch #400! Just mashed in a gingerbread wheatwine. Wanted a bit more conditioning time, but this will be served over the holidays.

 

Brewing an AG Robust Porter,
using 1# Molasses this time
WLP005 for the yeast.
Cheers

 

Busy morning...brewed a red IPA with Simcoe and some freshly picked Cascade hops, dry hopped an Equinox WLP644 APA and washed and saved some wild yeast I harvested from wild blackberries off of a batch I bottled.

 

Brewed a Saison this morning. Got a few kegs cleaned up. Finally getting the brewery up and running again after a couple of months off.

 

Today I drop hopped my IPA... Unfortunately, all the hops I grew and then dried and froze had an off aroma to them, quite grassy and lost the nice hop aroma they had when I dried them before freezing. I only used like 5% of what I planned to dry hop with that I grew, but thankfully I still used store-bought Mosaic and Simcoe (3oz total) so all should be find in aroma land. Still a bummer, though!