Brew Day Video

At long last, I filmed shots of brewing an all-grain batch of a Honey Double IPA and strung the clips together into an 8-minute video on YouTube.  It illustrates all the steps involved in brewing a batch of beer from milling the grains through pitching the yeast.

The beer turned out great and the honey flavors really shined through.
Cheers!

Kegerator 2.0

Our newest project is to keg more beer!  I have a new Blichmann Beer Gun that I need to get in the practice of using.  In upgrading the kegerator, I am going to move the CO2 tank and regulator to the outside of the refrigerator, drill a hole for the air tube line, silicone seal around it, affix the gas distributor to the inside of the fridge where it will be easy to access, and have extra room for a fourth keg to condition or possibly a carboy to cold crash on the inside.  I will also shorten the extra gas tubing as it typically gets all tangled up and confusing for what goes where.  It will also be a good opportunity to clean the beer lines and faucets as well.

One recent issue I have been having is hop debris from dry-hopping clogging the dip tube and post, causing a blockage in the flow.  To combat that, I thought of cutting the dip tube, but decided to test out just bending the tube so it is not touching the bottom of the keg.  So far, so good on that experiment as I rescued a half-full keg of Rye Pale Ale leftover from our last big party.  We carefully transferred an IPA and an Amber Ale into kegs and they are awaiting a place in the newly configured beer fridge.

Note: Accidentally drilling through the electric line and having to splice a copper line makes this project a lot more difficult!

Tank on the outside:

Kegs on the inside:

Snake in the yard:

Cheers!

San Diego National Homebrew Competition Entry

We packed and shipped the IPA to the National Homebrew Competition Finals! Judging is 6/11 and the awards ceremony is 6/13. We are hopeful for the best!



The IPA has Rahr 2-Row Pale, German Cara-Red (20L), Crystal 10, and Carapils malts with Amarillo, Cascade, Columbus, Centennial, Citra, Chinook, and Crystal hops.  We were pleased with the batch that used GigaYeast GY054 Vermont Ale yeast as it had less attenuation, but gave a brighter color and aroma than the Safale US-05 American Ale and White Labs 001 California Ale yeasts.

Batch Moving Day + Ginger Ale

Today was batch transfer day.  We had 10 gallons of Pale Ale and 5 gallons of IPA that finished in the primary.  One Pale Ale went directly in the keg with a sock of Ahtanum hops and the other went into a secondary fermenter.  The IPA with an original gravity of 1.064 went into the secondary fermenter at a gravity of 1.011, which equates to about 7% ABV with 70 IBU.  In addition to the three transfers, we made a 5 gallon batch of ginger ale with fresh ginger, lemons, sugar and water.  Here are a few shots of the action.

Dry hop Ahtanum:

Pale Ale transfer:

Washing bottles with recycled cleaning water:

Racking Pearl Malt IPA:

Ginger Ale:

Cheers!

O Rye Ale Bottling Day

Today is the bottling and kegging day for our Rye Pale Ale.  Check out our snazzy new labels.

We have 10 gallons of this Rye Ale with half on Safale US-05 American Ale yeast and half on Safale S-04 English Ale yeast.  Somewhat surprisingly, both finished with the same Final Gravity of 1.014.  The Original Gravity was 1.058, which puts this at 5.8% ABV.  The grist was Pale US 2-Row, Munich, Vienna, Rye, Biscuit, and Honey Malt and the hops were Columbus, Fuggles, East Kent Goldings, Cascade, and Amarillo, which should play well with the malts.  This will be a great beer for tailgating at the Braves home opener on April 10!

Racking to keg below:

Bottling via bucket:

Sanitized bottles:

Hop shrapnel:

Crowned and cased:

49 longnecks and 2 bombers:

Packed for competition:

Cheers!