So no self respecting home brewer should be without a kegerator in his garage.  I had a chest freezer that I converted into a four-tap kegerator back in April. Nothing better than having four beers on tap at any given time! 

May Brew

Some recent pictures of our May brew day.  20 gallons of American Pale Ale and 20 gallons of a bastardized Vienna. No better way to spend a Saturday in Oregon...Beervana!

                                             Chris and I posing for the camera

                                          Brewzilla!

                                                    The wort recirculating in the mash tun

                                                     A close up

                                                   Another close up

Gravity check and too much beer

I sit here with a slight hangover from too much barley wine last night. Chris and I sampled the Noggin Floggin from HUB and one from Green Flash Brewing out of San Diego, CA. Both very big, well hopped and pack with flavor...and alcohol-both weighed in at 11% ABV. Oh well, someone has to do it.

Any way, the reason for this entry is to let you all know how the fermentation from last Saturday's brewing is coming along. If you recall we brewed a Dortmunder which is similar to a Pilsner but with a bit more body. Any how the OG was 1.054 and it's down to 1.014. That's pretty impressive for a lager in one week's time. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the yeast starter and the yeast I captured from the Pils I brewed with Frank in December. The barley wine is down to round 1.032 and still fermenting. I'd like to see the terminal gravity come in at 1.020 or so. I plan to dry hop today with 4.5 oz of Mt. Hood or Willamette or both. We'll just have to see what mood I'm in later.

Cheers!

I made it over to Glacier Tanks yesterday after work to pick up fittings to make the conversion to Tri-clover fittings for the home brewery. Damn their nice...nice and expensive that is. But Brewzilla is well worth it. I got home last night with a box full of fittings and three new butterfly valves and just geeked out over them. Check out some of the new pics:

New Year's Brew

Well its been a while since my last posting...too long. I guess life gets in the way sometimes. I've been planning our next brewing session which will take place on January 28th. To start off the new year we're going big! We've never brewed a barleywine so we figured this would be as good a time as ever. We'll be brewing a 15 gallon batch among three of us and will definitely bottle this one so that it can develop and mature over time (and not tie up precious keg space). Because of the 2012 Mayan calendar this one is named The Apocalypse. With a name like that it's got to be big and bad ass. Hoping that it will come in with an OG of 1.105 and finish out at around 1.020 or so. Thats around 11% ABV...yea baby! Just in time for a first sample around Christmas 2012 (if we're all still around). The second batch will be Damon's Dort (Dortmunder that is). An easy drinking beer that goes down well any time of year.

I'm pretty excited because I'm going to spring for a Blichmann beer gun. I've always wanted to be able to fill bottles from my keg and bring it to parties. I'm also looking at converting the brewery to tri-clover/clamp fittings...just like the big boys use. I'll make sure to post pictures of brew day.

Thats all for now.

Me and one of my daughters as we watch the beautiful dark wort recirculating in the mash tun. A future brewer in the making!



The pictures above show the underside of the brew stand for those interested in how it was put together. I purchased a stainless steel restaurant kitchen prep table and converted it into the Brewzilla. Works great at a fraction of the price.

I'm finally getting around to posting some pictures of our last brewing session on May 28th. Above is a picture of the brewing setup.

May Brew Session

On May 12^th several of us home brewers had a Belgian Tripel tasting in my garage with 3 commercials and one home brewed sample. This was the inspiration to last Saturday’s (May 28^th) brewing session in my garage. As is always the case when brewing at the Garage Alchemist you need to produce two batches back-to-back. Usually a "light" beer and a dark one....so we decided on a Bravarian Dukelweizen (dark wheat). Brewing two batches tends to take the better part of our Saturday but it sure beats golfing. The original thought on the wheat was to produce something that would be easy to drink for the wives but after tasting the initial wort I’m not so sure I want to share.

Our Tripel had an OG of 1.075 and the wheat came in at 1.052. Both in line with BJCP guidelines, not that we really follow that. But it sounds good. We pitched the yeast on both brews with very active starters and by later that evening we good signs of active fermentation.

I did a gravity check on both yesterday evening at the Tripel is down to about 1.022 and the wheat is around1.014…not bad for a week’s time. Check in later and I’ll have some pics of the brewing system and another gravity check. Cheers!