Non-Brewing Brew Weekend

Summer is a busy time with my children on swim teams, but now that the summer swim season is over, I’m finally getting the chance to get back into the swing of things. The wife and kids were out of town this weekend so I thought I was going to have the opportunity to brew. I’m planning to brew a Flanders Red, but I couldn’t get my hands on Wyeast’sRoselaire blend, so I decided to postpone that brew session until a later date.

Although I didn’t brew, I did a number of brewing related activities that I had been putting off.

I bottled my saison that I brewed back in April (yes, the summer is busy). My original plan was to bottle half of the batch straight and add some Brett C to the other half, but when I took a gravity ready it had attenuated all the way down to 1.000. I’ve had meads do that, but I had never had a beer get that low, and with a notoriously lazy saison yeast too. Needless to say there aren’t many sugars for the Brett to chew on, so I called an audible and decided to bottle the entire batch straight.

I kegged my Hopslam inspired IPA (brewed the same day as the saison). Even after 4 months, that thing is super hoppy. I can’t wait to keg hop that bad boy once it is ready to serve. My yield ended up being 5.75 gallons, so I racked the extra into a growler and added a slurry of Brett C. Hops and funk – yum!

I also had a small batch of Citra pale ale that was fermented with Brett C. I went ahead and bottled that this weekend too. It was a lot more funky than I thought it would be, but I think I like it.

I’ve had a lambic sitting in the fermenter that I brewed 10 months ago and I wanted to get a gravity reading and sample it. It has attenuated down to 1.001 but still not very complex. It is a lot more sour than it was a few months ago but the funk really hasn’t taken off. I pitched a few ounces of Brett C slurry into it to try to funkify it a bit.

I also did some kegerator cleaning, and this is where I shed some tears. I had some liquid down in the bottom of my chest freezer so I pulled all of the kegs out to clean it. Among the kegs was a hefeweizen that I kegged about a month ago that I had drank 1 pint. When I heaved the keg it was completely empty. It had emptied onto the floor of the kegerator. Needless to say several 4 letter words were uttered. I can’t understand how the keg could have drained but my bottle of CO2 didn’t keep pushing gas until it emptied. Once I dry my eyes, I’ll post the tasting notes from that one pint. I did the tasting alongside a bottle of Weihenstephaner and the homebrew compared very favorably.

A Lead on a Kegerator

I posted a while back that I planned to soon get into kegging. I’ve been looking for quite some time for a used freezer, but haven’t been able to find what I wanted. I was talking to my Father a few weeks ago and I asked him if he knew anyone that had a chest freezer that they didn’t use. Lo and behold, he has a chest freezer sitting in the garage of his river house that he doesn’t use. Once we make sure the thing still works, I’ve got the makings of a kegerator. Based on the dimensions he gave me, it looks like it’s about 10 cubic feet. I plan to attach a wooden collar to put my taps through. I think I’d like to eventually have 4 taps, but that really depends on how well my stuff fits in there. Hopefully in the next week or so I’ll have it at home and can start planning my kegerator upgrade.

Kegging

A while back I saw an ad on Craigslist for corny kegs. During Thanksgiving week I met the guy and ended up purchasing 9 pin lock kegs. I already had 1 ball lock keg along with the fittings, but with ball lock kegs in such short supply, I think making the switch to pin locks might be the way to go. I also have a 5 lb. CO2 canister, but the thing I really need is a chest freezer to convert to a kegerator. I’ve been on the lookout for one for a while. I hope to find one between 10 and 15 cubic feet. I’d like to have enough room for 4 to 5 kegs plus a 10 lb. C02 bottle. I’ll probably have taps for 4 kegs plus a separate setup for carbonating a 5th keg. If I get a freezer closer to 15 cubic feet I'll have some lagering space. My plan is to build a collar and run the lines and taps through the collar. Hopefully I’ll acquire my kegerator in the next month or so. It’d be nice to put bottling in the rear view mirror. I’d probably brew a lot more if I didn’t have to bottle.