After many attempts to chemically clean the inside of the kegs, good old-fashioned scrubbing got it done. Some assistance from various power tools assisted as well.
Hole was drilled, bulkhead fitting and false bottom were attached.
Also some improvements to the stand were added. Wind shields for the boil side were fabricated and installed.
A Sunday brew day awaits us. It will feel nice to have that extra room in the BK for. We need it.
Repeats of the American and Euro_trash blonde ales next.
While one of us was skiing in the Sierras, the other was hard at work, brewing a weiss beer.
60% efficiency and another stuck kettle were hallmarks of this single handed attempt. The result (now only half fermented) is tasting damn good.
It was decided that half the 10 gallon batch would be racked over cherries. As cherries are out of season, we found some frozen cherries to put in one fermenter.
We bought two kegs from a small brewery to upgrade our rig. First cut is the top.
We are hoping to replace our boil kettle with something bigger than the current Guinness 50 liter keg with an American 15.5 gallon keg. This should give us an extra 20% of room in the kettle.
We also are thinking of replacing our HLT as the current one is bashed up and our pick up tube is a installed an inch and a half too high (we usually can get all the water out if running continuously, but if we stop within the last few gallons, our pick up tube starts sucking air into our pump).
We may reuse the Guinness keg as a fermenter. More to come on that.
Today’s brew is an American Brown Ale. Our recipe is based off Janet’s Brown in the Brewing Classic Styles book.
Hops in the mash makes this one novel for us.
Mash in was a couple of degrees above our 154 target, but with the lid off, it quickly cooled to perfection.
We got the parts together for our Blichmann Beer Gun and have given it a try.
We got eight 22 ounce bottles cleaned and sanitized. We put them in the fridge to bring them down to the same temperature as the beer.
We used 3lbs of pressure to push four bottles of American Blonde and four bottles of IPA into our clean, chilled bottles. Capped them off with some color coded caps (green = IPA) and put them back in the fridge. We shall see how it works out.
Who says it never rains in L.A.?
It has been pouring for two days. That’s not stopping brew day, however.
Another lager is being born. This one is a Bitburger style.
We hit our temps this time pretty well. Hoping this one comes out right.
We kegged the lager after a long primary. The temperature was always a bit too low. At least until we got our fermentation heater. I think we could cut at least a week off of our ferment time now that we can raise as well as lower the temps.
We added an aquarium “under tank” heater in an effort to bring our fermenting chamber temperatures up to target.
We shall see how it works…
We brought out Blond American and American IPA to a fund-raiser at Verdugo (verdugobar.com)
We got some good tasting notes from Ryan Sweeney (owner and Cicerone). Looking forward to incorporating his input into our next beer (for which we bought ingredients earlier in the day).
We served two of our beers at a charity event this Saturday. The blonde (American yeast) and the IPA (also American yeast).
They seemed well received. We have our serving set-up pretty well squared away.
We have another event in a couple of weeks. We might serve the Belgian blonde and Belgian-American IPA beers then. This event is being held at the Verdugo Bar in the Glassell Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. It is known for serving the best beers in the city. In fact, the owner is LA’s first Cicerone so the bar is set very high.
Los Angeles Brewers 