All sorts of fun at Broken Helmet Brewing this weekend!
Don't know if this is the brewer's equivalent of a lightsaber, but I mostly finished the build on my stir plate this weekend. Here's a little before and after. I still want to put a bottle cap knob on it and I may put a Broken Helmet Logo on the center. Still debating that though.
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| Step one - gather stuff. |
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| Step 2 - make it look good. |
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| Step 3 - test. |
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| Step 4 - smile pretty for the camera! |
After that little bit of fun, which did include some headaches from using a sub-par/ancient soldering gun and getting a could of not quite right parts, it was good to see it working and be able to move on.
This weekend's brew is my first swing at a Belgian Dubbel. Despite being very busy all weekend, I did what I could to make things work Saturday...though I didn't think to take pictures right away. I was once again reminded that I am very lucky to have a somewhat patient spouse and family. Despite the good weather, the boil took forever and it just seemed that my little stove couldn't cut the mustard. I ended up moving it inside to finish after a good 30 or 40 minutes of watching the gas burner struggle. This served as a HUGE reminder that I REALLY need to get a bigger burner soon.
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| Just starting to get to boil time |
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| First hop addition |
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| NOW we're boiling! |
In the end, the dubble finished out more like a tripel..and a dark one at that. OG came in at 1.080. I pitched about half a bag of Wyeast 1214 and it was percolating along very well the next evening. It's running a bit warm at this point, but since I have to work, I could just stick it somewhere cool since I couldn't be there to keep it from going too low. Hopefully, between the additional yeast and the additional warmth, that will help things attenuate past where most calculators expect it to stop
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| Tasty! |
If you haven't seen it yet, my Cascadian Dark ale turned out great...though I think I may actually dry hop it the next round. Yes, this non-hophead is planning on dry hopping something..
I also picked up some additional educational material this weekend. Started on the Porters and Stouts book, which is a lot of history - some more interesting than others. I'm really looking forward to Designing Great Beers though - between the reviews and my admittable knowledge gaps in the brewing game, it just seems like a good and timely read.
Last, and most certainly not least, I FRIGGIN SCORED this weekend! Found a guy locally that was moving some bits and pieces. Grabbed an unused 5 gallon cooler, a 1/2" ball valve setup, over 30lbs of grains a scottish ale kit (for fun since it's not my recipe) and a few other little bits for a pretty nice price. The grains are milled, but I think they shouldn't be too bad off since they've been in their original sealed bags the whole time. If not, oh well - it was cheap and the next round will be better!!
Last, and most certainly not least, I FRIGGIN SCORED this weekend! Found a guy locally that was moving some bits and pieces. Grabbed an unused 5 gallon cooler, a 1/2" ball valve setup, over 30lbs of grains a scottish ale kit (for fun since it's not my recipe) and a few other little bits for a pretty nice price. The grains are milled, but I think they shouldn't be too bad off since they've been in their original sealed bags the whole time. If not, oh well - it was cheap and the next round will be better!!