What are you doing with homebrew today?

I think I’ve decided to start a new brew bench build so I can do my brewing and fermenting out in my shed. That will let me brew in inclement weather and also means I won’t be climbing stairs with full fermenters. The shortest flight is out front, and that’s still 9 steps. 14 if I use the basement access or the deck stairs. I’m still working on my bottling plans for the now. I already have a work bench that I cobbled together with a 6x3 table top from a restaurant. It’ll easily hold four 5 gallon buckets under the work surface. Don’t think it’s quite tall enough for the conical, though, which means adding a chamber on one end so I can brew and start fermenting without moving the fermenting vessels. Maybe put some metal frame on the other end to mount the dragon a bit higher than the factory frame. Gunna be a big bugger, though.
 
Brewing Herm's Azacca Wheat while listening to Experimental Brewing podcast.

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Brewing Herm's Azacca Wheat while listening to Experimental Brewing podcast.

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What size is your kettle? Looks very similar to my Brewer’s Best 8 Gallon, but a bit smaller. The only problem with the 8 gallon kettle is it takes nearly 4 gallons of wort or water to immerse the thermometer probe. I do some extract recipe brews that only need a couple gallons, so wind up using a separate meat thermometer. Your burner is probably a bit more appropriate size. I call mine Firaxes. Sounds like a 747 taking off when I turn it up to full burn. It’ll get 5 gallons of water hot QUICK.

I see you have similar problems with wind on your burner.
 
I have a 10 Gal Spike Brewing kettle. It is a very well made kettle. I love their slogan "Your liver will fail before our equipment does!". The burner is a standard Dark Star 2.0 from Northern Brewer. Yours burner sounds like a 747? Maybe you should call it Fire Excess instead. :)
Didn't really need the windbreak today as the winds were light. In fact the weather was darn near perfect. It's just a leftover piece of a heating duct that I flattened out and folder in half. One of the benefits of being a bit of a pack rat.
 
Brewing Herm's Azacca Wheat while listening to Experimental Brewing podcast.

View attachment 22017
Merrell is the approved brewing (and hiking, walking) shoe for Herm.

I eagerly await the day when I can once again contribute to this thread and forum with posts of my own home brewing.
 
Merrell is the approved brewing (and hiking, walking) shoe for Herm.

I eagerly await the day when I can once again contribute to this thread and forum with posts of my own home brewing.
Soon enough. Patience and priorities. Unpack the beer glasses first...
 
Cyhristening the new house after a year with my first full size batch. Mash is in right now, I'm doing a split, 4 gal to a Special bitter, and 1.5 gal to a mosaic IPA.

https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/1306287/redcap


My water here is super hard, it's okay for drinking after using a Brita but theyve been known to mess with the water profile drastically and often contains chloramine.
So I went with RO, added some salts. Got a couple weird looks at whole foods, pushing a cart around with 2 kegs of water lol.
 

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Cyhristening the new house after a year with my first full size batch. Mash is in right now, I'm doing a split, 4 gal to a Special bitter, and 1.5 gal to a mosaic IPA.

https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/1306287/redcap


My water here is super hard, it's okay for drinking after using a Brita but theyve been known to mess with the water profile drastically and often contains chloramine.
So I went with RO, added some salts. Got a couple weird looks at whole foods, pushing a cart around with 2 kegs of water lol.
Hell yea Mark! Can't wait to hear how the brews turn out :)
 
Took far too long, but normally I had every prepped in advance. 7 hours, 45 minutes from turning strike water on, to everything is cleaned and put away.

Pitching yeast in the morning, wort was chilled to ~90F then put in the keezer to chill the rest of the way to 67F.

Opened the yeast, made a starter with 50B cells ~40mL of the packet. The rest went into an empty, cleaned and sanitized spice jar (perfect size btw) to be pitched tomorrow morning.

Long brew day, I think I might skip sparging going forward to save some time but mostly to save some cleanup. Think I used every pot I had in the kitchen between sparging and transferring the grain bag to drain and collect somewhere.


Everything worked out, hit my gravities and volumes. Nothing leaked, transfers all went well, and I didn't spill anything more than a couple drops. But definitely need better ventilation, the humidity is real.
 
Took far too long, but normally I had every prepped in advance. 7 hours, 45 minutes from turning strike water on, to everything is cleaned and put away.

Pitching yeast in the morning, wort was chilled to ~90F then put in the keezer to chill the rest of the way to 67F.

Opened the yeast, made a starter with 50B cells ~40mL of the packet. The rest went into an empty, cleaned and sanitized spice jar (perfect size btw) to be pitched tomorrow morning.

Long brew day, I think I might skip sparging going forward to save some time but mostly to save some cleanup. Think I used every pot I had in the kitchen between sparging and transferring the grain bag to drain and collect somewhere.


Everything worked out, hit my gravities and volumes. Nothing leaked, transfers all went well, and I didn't spill anything more than a couple drops. But definitely need better ventilation, the humidity is real.
Welcome back. I am looking forward to my first post-move brew session.
 
Merrell is the approved brewing (and hiking, walking) shoe for Herm.

I eagerly await the day when I can once again contribute to this thread and forum with posts of my own home brewing.
@Herm_brews I don't have any Merrell shoes, would you recomment Wolverine boots or Sketchers flip flops?
 
Mostly selling and teaching. If it gets slow, I'll bottle a Pinot Noir I fermented with Wyeast LAmbic Blend.
 

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