Yesterday was Gay’s birthday. After going to Havana’s parent-teacher conference, we went out to lunch at Sam’s Tavern and had beers and very good burgers. Tonight, Gerene stayed with the kids and had Hudson’s friend, Preston, and Havana’s friend, Cameron, over while we went to Ballard (via Uber). We put our name in at The Walrus And the Carpenter for a 2-3 hour wait and walked down the street to The Noble Fir, then to Urban Family Public Houseand then to dinner back at The Walrus and the Carpenter.
My Dry Irish Stout carbonated just in time for St. Patrick’s Day. I made it 4 weeks ago, a simple classic recipe but with 7.5% chocolate malt. It came out as a dry bitter coffee-ish and roasty stout, quite good to me. The OG was 1.044 and the FG is 1.010 so it’s a session-able 4.46% ABV, perfect for International Drinking Day.
I’ve brewed 12 times on the new brewery now. I’ve been tweaking the setup over the batches and ended up switching from a plate chiller to a counterflow chiller rather than fight the losing battle of trying to filter pellet hops, I added a valve to the boil kettle so I can recirculate the wort while it’s chilling to do whirlpooling before transferring it to the fermenter, added a quick connect to the hose in the mash tun to make it easier to remove for cleaning, shortened the hoses as much as I could and put 90ยบ elbows on some valves to prevent hoses from kinking (and to make it more ergonomic to connect and disconnect them). The process and cleanup is becoming smoother for me.
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Kegging 4 beers today: Doppelbock, two IPAs and a pale ale.
It’s Havana’s week to be “The Big Cheese” at school. She shared information about herself, she made her big board of photos that tell her story and got to sit in the special chair all week. Families are invited during the week to meet the kids and for the kids to learn about us. We took Hudson and Eva with some cupcakes and after they “interviewed” us, Gay read the class a book.
I finally got to brew on my new brewery setup today. 4 months ago I decided I didn’t want to brew outside anymore, I didn’t want to haul all the equipment outside and back inside, I didn’t want to stand around in the cold and rain and, most of all, I was convinced I’d never be able to brew the same beer twice with the equipment I had.
Moving everything into the basement was a great option except I didn’t feel comfortable using two 70,000+ BTU burners inside the house for 4 hours and worrying that the carbon monoxide would kill the wife and kids or, worse, me! To compare, a high-end residential kitchen stove gas burner is 25,000 BTUs, “normal” stove burners are more like 15,000. I also wanted to brew more than 5 gallons at a time, which was about the maximum for my equipment. Time to upgrade!
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The home brewery is finally finished. Or, finished for the time being as I’ve already figured out that I will be changing and improving things as I find what doesn’t work well. After the last update, I installed the backsplash. I cut 4 inches off one of the table legs so that it could fit against the wall. It took me 3 days to install the ventilation duct and inline fan to vent the heat and steam outside the house. That was the hardest part of the job, I built it all twice! I tend to follow the carpenter rule “measure once, cut twice”.
I mounted an electrical box with a fan control and switch to control the speed of the vent fan to keep it quieter when I don’t need it to be 100% power, which is loud. Then I punched a bunch of holes in the kettles to install valves, a temperature probe and a coil of stainless steel tubing in one that acts as a heat exchanger. I mounted the pumps underneath the bottom shelf of the table. I drilled a bunch more holes in the wall to mount hangers to secure all the electrical cords.
After assembling all the pipe fittings and testing for leaks and making some hoses, I was done by Thursday, Valentine’s Day. I had wanted to be done by Tuesday and to brew a Chocolate Cherry Porter on Valentine’s Day, but I missed it by 2 days. Oh well. I ran through a trial brew day with just water to get used to controlling the system and was ready to brew my first batch on Saturday.
Hudson’s friend’s mom skates for the Throttle Rockets. We went to Key Arena to watch the bout tonight.
The plumber removed the old 3-compartment cast iron sink and plumbed in the new sink yesterday. He still has to come back on Monday to run some more plumbing that I need.
The ventilation hood is built and was delivered this morning along with a 4′x9′ sheet of stainless steel that I’ll use as a backsplash. I installed lengths of unistrut on the ceiling and hung threaded rod, which suspends the ventilation hood. I was reminded of how hard it is to drill in the old-growth 100 year-old wood joists in this house!
The control panel I ordered from The Electric Brewery in November finally arrived today. My favorite builder, Schuchart/Dow, let me borrow their hammer drill so I could drill some holes in the concrete wall. I mounted unistrut on the wall and mounted the control panel to that.
I still need to install the backsplash, install the ductwork for the ventilation hood, modify the kettles and install the electric heating elements and plumbing in the kettles and do some other minor work. I hope to get all that done this weekend and then after the plumber finishes the plumbing, I’ll be ready to brew!
