A New Beer Thread

http://assets.academy.com/mgen/80/10045980.jpg?is=500,500

Mrs. t_b_f found this on sale at Academy last week. I put some heavier casters on it and ran some (criss-crossed) wire across the back for some added stability. Gonna be a nice addition to T_B_F Brewing Company.

Brewing a Belgian Dubbel on it tomorrow. I'm using Mt. Hood hops to bitter and Centennial at flameout for another fruit layer. I think the citrus from the Centennial will go well with plum and raisin flavors from the trappist yeast.

 

Nice!
What yeast did you use?
Just did a Dubbel myself on Monday (I used Safale-33 and Hallertau), a Nut Brown today (Maris Otter/Dark Chocolate malt and Special B/Nottingham yeast) and I have the goods for a Imperial Cream Ale (I used cracked corn & 2-row instead of flaked maize) on Monday. Wife froze the assets or I would have gotten stuff to make my Blonde Hard Lemonade Ale as well.

 

Using WLP500, but my starter's been going since last night with no activity, and I'm starting to get nervous. I'm out of DME, so if one of my buds has some yeast, I'll have to use some of my final runnings and use them for a starter.

 

The krausen of my nut brown is insane! I was dumb and used my 5-gal carboy to hold...well...5 gal.
I should have taken a pic...it was fantastic. Smelled good also. The floor was a mess though. haha

 

Do you use a blow-off tube?

Looks like I was nervous for nothing. Starter is taking off now.

Just a wee bit under my OG. Hit 1.065 and was shooting for 1.068.

 

That's not even wee, pretty damn spot on!

No, no blow off tube. I'm stupid. I should have used my 6-gal carboy, but grabbed the one in front without thinking after my fermentation pail's cover was being used and I (for some dumb reason) only have 1 cover for two buckets.
This, of course, goes back to my dumbass move of transferring my dubbel into my priming bucket and not realizing it at the start.

So I'm full of win this week. LOL

 

I am intimidated by home brewing.

 

If you can make tea, you can make beer.
It can be as simple or as complex as you would like.
But once you start...you never want to stop! LOL It's a lot of fun.

 

Man, I'm not brewing nearly as much as you.

I have a Maris Otter/Citra SMASH on tap now. A buddy and I brewed 10 gallons and split it. I used Pacman and he used Conan, and we did a Pacman v. Conan Challenge the other day. The Conan was way better; Pacman was clean, leaving the Citra to fruit over the English character of the MO. Left a very hefe character, which was pretty cool.

The Conan brought out the MO, and was pretty good, as far as SMASHs go.

Just finished an amber for a local comp. A guy in our club gave our president a bunch of grains and hops. He split the stuff and built eight recipes. We all brewed at my house on the same day. The guy who donated the grains judged all of them at our annual anniversary bash. Pretty good fun.

spike is right. Brewing is so, so easy. You can get into it for as little as, what? 100 bucks? Depending on what you already have at home, all you need is a couple of buckets and some sanitizer, etc. Any homebrew store sells pre-made kits with all the grain/extract, hops, etc., you need. The best book out there is here: http://www.howtobrew.com/intro.html . This is a much earlier edition, so the current book has a little updated info.

If you can make macaroni and cheese, you can brew beer.

 

I believe I will brew batch No. 10 or so (don't have my notes here at work) this year....so about once every 3 weeks or so, but I wanted to get a bunch done for county fair competition in July/Aug. I actually should have started in late May since I don't think my dubbel will be ready. Going to check gravity when I get home. Hope it's around .020-.015 by now. We'll see.

Here is my new toy that I hope to get this week:
<img src="https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/t1.0-9/s600x600/10489641_10100721191613427_7394498479714928800_n.jpg">
An 8-galloner with ball-valve/built-in thermometer.
Only took me 3 years to upgrade from a 4-gal enamel canning pot! Happy birthday to me!

 

I got lucky when I started. Years ago we bought a 15-gallon crawfish set up that we've carried for the last five moves without using. I finally put a ball valve and sight glass in it three batches ago. Works well, but wort keeps boiling out of my sight glass. I'm going to have to make some sort of rubber stopper to fix it.

Checked the gravity on my Marzen yesterday. Down from .058 to .039 yesterday. Hopefully, by the time I'm back from the long weekend, I'll be ready for a diacetyl rest.

 

Built one of these babies this weekend: http://brokenglassbrewing.blogspot.com/2011/05/pump-projekt.html

Gotta find someone to help me wire it, though. Wiring scares the shit out of me.