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.

Working My Other Job

I have still been brewing regularly but have been slacking on the updating posts since this is a busy time of year at my other job.  I think I have got exactly what I am looking for with my Porter, Wheat and Honey Wheat and they will be ready for the next judging.

I have have been talking with my father about setting up our own bee hives for honey production, and getting wood kegs for the secondary fermentation to mellow the flavors in the craft beer.  These are the exciting times when I am changing the setup to prepare for the next level.

Another Attempt at the Porter

After all of the issues this past weekend with the new mash tun I decided to switch out the false bottom with the kettle screen and try the Smoked Porter again.  This time everything went as planned.

Sprage Cooler on Top, Flowing Through Tun into Wort Pot

This also was the first time I could try out the new sprage cooler that I purchased which after a couple of tweaks worked perfectly.

Nice Even Flow - Wish it Fanned Out More However

I was able to keep a constance flow when fly spraging compared to the uneven flow of the spoon method that I was using before.  Plus using the cooler allowed me to keep the sprage water at a more constant temperature.  I would suggest this purchase if you can afford it.

Kegging, New System & Mash Lock

This weekend I made my first attempt at kegging my beer.  I read the instructions and even watch a couple You Tube videos on the process before I started.

Transferring was a breeze and I decided to try my hand at force carbonation instead of the sugar bottle conditioning that I have been trying.  With this method you need to cool the fermentor down before applying CO2. 

Then once finished with the transferring you place the whole kegging system into the fridge at 10 psi for a couple of days then test. 

I have recently purchased a new mash and spraging system but the two batches I have ran through it so far have led to grain lock.  This last time was so bad that I ended dumping the entire batch.  Need to figure out the problem with my set up.

Brewing, Bottling and Transferring Over the Weekend

Over this past weekend I had to transfer the Kick Ass Sassafras into the secondary, bottle the Smoked Gobbling Porter and use up some older grains in the extract based Touch of Everything.  The Touch of Everything was a way of using up some extracts I purchased a while back, some older grains and the last of the hops in the freezer.  This batch will also be my first attempt at kegging beer with forced carbonation vs bottle conditioning.

Barely Can Walk Through

I am running out of room quickly in the breakfast nook but Sharon says I can't have anymore of the house.  I may have to create storage out in the garage just so I can move around more easily than now.  Sadly, it is so much easier to have everything in one place ... oh well.

New Equipment

This week was one of purchases:  I bought a refrigerator for the kegging of the beer and a 10 gallon mash tun and spraging cooler to better extract the grains during mashing.  I tried the mash tun just the other day on the new batch of Kick Ass Sassafras but thanks to a smaller false bottom and my vigorous stirring in the grains, the bottom slightly lifted thus allowing grain under it.  This led to a sprage lock and I had to hand dip the wort.  Lesson learned.

New Fridge and Mashing Equipment

Got the results back from the contest ... the porter fared excellent but needs to be smokier, the Smoking Wheat had a slight metallic taste ... unsure the cause but will find out, and need to be even more smokier, and lastly the Sweet Sharon still isn't fairing very well in the contest, but everyone that tries loves it.  I will change the base recipe the next time. 

Slowly Taking Over the Kitchen -- It's Mine, All Mine

All of the judge's notes have been taken into consideration and adjustments have been made to the recipes to improve their flavors.