Here I sit with two more beer kits to brew and the itch to get them done. Two weeks ago my loving wife saw a three pound bag of cranberries and said I really needed to do another cranberry wheat. Of course, in “these rough economic times” I snatched up that bag of cranberries and headed to the beer store the next day to pick up a corresponding wheat kit.
There they sit, that hop scare IPA that I am still planning on tossing my home grown hops into and the wheat recipe just waiting to brew.
One of these days.
Of course, I also said a few kits ago that I was going to jump into all grain after these kits are done and gone. See how well that turned out.
I just poured my second pint of stout from the newly drilled fridge. Funny enough, the beer is newly kegged. Sure, it is still cellar temperature, and yes it might be slightly under carb’ed. But it IS beer from my sorely neglected kegerator.
I took gravity of the lemon coriander weiss and it was still higher than I’d like, so I’m going to leave it for another week or two in hopes it might not be done yet. I know, I know, the books and pro’s recommend checking the gravity three days in a row and if there is no change it is done.
Well, so? What’s wrong with leaving it another week or two? Nothing.
By the bye, the hydrometer sample tasted quite lemon-y and good. I’m certain my “it would be better with lemon in it” mother in law will even like it!
I finally got a chance to pick my hops today. Unfortunately the rain kept me from getting to them sooner, so more than half are unusable. Still, I should have enough to toss into my IPA tomorrow as I’m brewing. They will just supplement the hops that came with the kit, anyway.
It is really hard waiting for the two beers in secondary to finish. It has been a long time since I’ve had beer on tap.
I racked both my beers to secondary last weekend. Now I have to find some internal control to keep me from kegging them before they are finished and cleared. It has been a long time since I’ve had beer on tap, I’m very much looking forward to getting it flowing again.
First I have to drill through the fridge wall and get the beer gas ready to go. Can’t use the stout faucet without having the mix in there. My fridge is just too small for two kegs and two cylinders.
Incidentally, I added the zest of two lemons to the weiss instead of just one. I’m hoping it will age nicely and still have that lemon essence.
I pitched an activator smack pack from May that didn’t swell into my stout that I brewed on Sunday. On Monday morning there was still no activity in the carboy so I went back to Midwest and bought a newer smack pack. In fact, the date on it was Sept 09.
That thing puffed up nice and when I checked the carboy the next morning there was krauesen coming out of the airlock! Now that was some fresh yeast! I can’t wait until that one is ready. It has been years since I’ve run a stout properly.
With the start of school season and cooler weather, I’m hoping things will slow down enough that I can make some time to tackle that all grain project I’ve been planning. As I posted months ago, I picked up a 16gal keg that I will cut open and use as my kettle, I have a large cooler that I will convert into my mash tun and I should be rolling right along into all grain, batch sparging soon.
Those two kits that I purchased last spring finally got brewed this last week, I did the lemon coriander wiess on Wednesday and the Irish Stout yesterday. I have a little over a month to get the beer fridge drilled for the stout gas to sit outside and I’ll be in business.
My planned project time is when both kids are in school, our youngest has preschool for 2.5hrs twice a week. That should give me enough time to get the holes cut, get the keggle made and finally finish the drip tray I started three years ago!
Hopefully that will keep my blog going for a while and maybe even get more readers. Thank you to those of you who are still out there. It was a nice respite!
I was cleaning up my brewing stuff and putting things away, stuff that has been sitting out cluttering my laundry room, and I looked carefully at my siphon hose. It has gotten discolored and hazy at one of the bends. Time to replace it with a new one. What I should have done was buy a new hose when I bought the new autosiphon.
Its a good idea to go over all the brewing equipment to make sure everything is in working order. I’ve written before about one of my five gallon carboys that has a hairline crack in the shoulder. I need to re-find that one and get rid of it.
I was able to barter myself into a 16gallon keg to convert into a brew kettle. This is going to be pretty fun, I have a couple ideas to begin with. A progression, if you will.
First I’m going to try my dremmel, then I’ll move up to the angle grinder with a jig someone sent a link to. If those don’t work, I’ll go on to the recip’saw.
On the brewing front, I still have two kits I need to cook up. Things have been kind of crazy in the brewdad house with the flu, pneumonia, sick dog, replacing a car and buying a boat in the last few weeks. Its all fun, but makes blogging a bit more dicey!
I will be documenting the progression of the conversion here. I also need to write up the drip tray build. Lots of things to do, now to find the time!
My Surly clone spent two weeks in the primary. When I checked the gravity last week there was still a bit of cap and the gravity was about 1.030. I’m finally racking today to secondary. No, I haven’t checked the gravity, but the cap has gone down and frankly, even if it is way high I want to get it off the cake in the bottom of the primary.
Three ounces of hops go in the secondary first. Three ounces! That is the most I’ve dry hopped with, ever. This one should be pretty darn good!
