Looking Into Expansion

I have now been brewing in the breakfast nook for over a year and have my eyes on the horizon for expansion.  There is no room left inside the house thus the garage is the next logical area for this upcoming expansion  ... but there will be a cost involved.

A few years back I had water routed into the garage to support a whole house water softener which necessary due to the high levels of Ca in our local water supply, but now I am looking into installing a stainless sink with both hot and cold water, and of course a drain.  Next week I will be speaking to a plumber to discuss options.  I also have been looking at stainless steel sinks since they can be easily sanitized but I will tell you that they are not cheap.  A friend suggested looking into use restaurant equipment which I am and I have noticed a reduction in price of greater than 50%.

I figure with the expansion including getting a professional grade beer sculpture that the total cost will range about $6 to 10K by the time of completion ... and sadly I still cannot sell even one beer to cover the cost.

But first things first.  Looking into the expansion what steps need to be taken to be best prepared and ready once everything is purchased to start brewing.

     1). Get natural gas to the site of sculpture and for the hot water heater for the new sink.  This has to be professionally done for safety and dead headed until next step.

     2)  Purchase stainless sink (double and deep to clean pots)

     3). Have a plumber install, include small hot water heater for hot water and connect to sewer.

     4). Purchase sculpture and conical fermenter.

The first steps aren't sexy but necessary if I want to brew after getting all of the new shiny equipment.

Wood Keg

Yesterday I went to my local beer supply store in Riverside to pick up ingredients for the next four batches of beer and also a couple of extra items.  Among those items was a oak keg for the secondary fermentation of my two stouts -- Maine's Moose Musk (an sweet apple milk stout) and my newest addition a oatmeal stout (not name as of yet).  Additionally, I picked up a book on yeast culturing to self teach myself how to grow my own yeast and keep the strains still going.

Also yesterday I purchased five species of hops from Organic Garden Seeds (or egardenseed.com) to test in Maine to see if it is possible to grow our own hops for some of the beers.  Have to wait until next spring to plant but looking forward to the empirical data glean.

The past week I started working on my Sour Lemon Drop by working on the base recipe.  The original recipe which by accident produced both a slight tartness and lemon flavors I wanted to make more prominent ... thus the new batch I added organic lemon grass, and the upcoming batch afterwards will include the bacteria along with the yeast to "sour" it even more.  Results still pending.

Added recipes include the oatmeal stout, the sour lemon, and now a IPA which will be named Rocky Point IPA ... such a simple name for which I hope to be a complex double IPA.