I was able to barter myself into a 16gallon keg to convert into a brew kettle. This is going to be pretty fun, I have a couple ideas to begin with. A progression, if you will.

First I’m going to try my dremmel, then I’ll move up to the angle grinder with a jig someone sent a link to. If those don’t work, I’ll go on to the recip’saw.

On the brewing front, I still have two kits I need to cook up. Things have been kind of crazy in the brewdad house with the flu, pneumonia, sick dog, replacing a car and buying a boat in the last few weeks. Its all fun, but makes blogging a bit more dicey!

I will be documenting the progression of the conversion here. I also need to write up the drip tray build. Lots of things to do, now to find the time!

Cheers,
Tony

My in laws were over last night after my daughter’s dance recital. At one point my father in law asked why I only had one beer on tap. I said “What?!? Both should be up.” Sure enough the ESB wasn’t pouring. Not even a gasp or gurgle came out of the faucet.

It was pretty obvious what was wrong once I opened the kegerator door. When I put the Furious clone in, the beer line for the ESB got tucked behind the keg, right up against the cooling plate at the back of the fridge. A foot or so of frozen beer. Nothing is getting by that until it thawed. Thankfully with a little persistence, we were able to get the beer flowing again.

The lesson learned this time around is watch where the beer lines are!

Cheers,
Tony

I was recently asked what is involved in getting  a stout faucet running with beer gas. Unlike standard faucets that simply pour beer out and rely on the tubing for restriction of pressure, a stout faucet has a restriction plate and flow director inside. Length of tubing just doesn’t matter when using a stout faucet with beer gas. This is a great feature considering I certainly wouldn’t want to switch out tubing whenever I want to put a keg on with the stout faucet.

There is less overall gas inside a cylinder of beer gas than in a regular CO2 cylinder, and it is more expensive. I like to pre-charge my keg with 10-15psi of CO2 for a couple of days before switching to the beer gas. This will result in finer cascading more quickly. Yes, simply connecting the beer gas to the keg will give the same end result, but it will just take longer. I’m all about getting it done quickly.

With my system, I like to put the beer gas pressure at 25-30psi. This pushes enough CO2 into the beer and makes for an amazing creamy head coming through the faucet.

There really is less to worry about using the stout faucet: no balancing pressure to flow!

Cheers!
Tony

I wrote about the time waster that is My Brute last week or so ago. As an update, my main brute, Farkler, has started a clan. The Naptime Warriors!

This is such a fun, time wasting game if you haven’t tried it yet, you should!

Incidentally, and this is actually beer related, I stopped at Midwest this morning to pick two more kits. It was supposed to be a recon mission to cipher on going all grain, but instead I bought an Irish  stout and a lemon coriander weiss.

Cheers!
Tony

Imagine my surprise when my keg of IIPA gurgled at me just now! That’s right, the beer that only I would drink found itself drank. This has to be a record for my beers though, as this one lasted well over a month.

Its a good thing that Surly Furious clone is ready to go!

By the bye, the watered ESB isn’t as bad as I thought. I may add a bit more, actually.

Cheers!
Tony

After much pressure I have added half a gallon of water to the keg of ESB to try and get it more drinkable. I may add another half gallon depending on the results.

This unfortunate turn of events may be precipitated by my not strictly measuring the resulting volumes of my beers. It has been happening that the keg doesn’t look as full as it should be after racking out of secondary.

Has anyone else had to add water to a finished beer?

Cheers,
Tony

The only thing this has to do with beer and brewing is the fact that it has taken up some valuable writing and drinking time playing with this site. My Brute is a quick little “battle” between a brute you create and another person’s brute. It is completely random both what attributes they get and how the battle goes. There is no way to control the brute once it is in the arena.

Regardless, it is a fun time waster and I am trying to get my two brutes up to an experience level where I can start a clan for all the Stay Home Dad’s out there as well as the brewers!

Click either link or both, create your brute and see how it stands up to Farkler and Brewdad!

Enjoy, I sure am!
Cheers,
Tony

I kegged my ESB two days ago. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to put it on the stout facuet with beer gas because my fridge is too small! Now I know I have to drill a hole before the winter stout season is upon us.

The Maibock that it replaced was a big hit. The family reunion saw quite a few pints poured. Strangely enough, most of my wife’s family didn’t like the IIPA. I don’t understand it, but that was ok, it just means more for me!

The Furious clone is still sitting in secondary. Can anyone venture an educated guess on how long to leave it with dry hop?

Cheers and Thanks,
Tony

This last weekend my wife’s family had a reunion. Our house was the landing spot for both Friday and Saturday evening. I was ready for the impending horde with two kegs, an IIPA and the Maibock. No one had more than two sips of the IIPA, so my hop monster was kept to myself. The funny thing, though, was the popularity of the Maibock.

Everyone who had one cup ended up with two or three cups. It never occurred to me to warn the “Macro” drinkers that homebrew tends to be a bit stronger. It also slipped my mind to let folks know that Maibock is a higher gravity lager that tastes pretty tame but packs a whollup.

As imagined, there were good times had those evenings, many interesting stories and some long faces the following morning! Thankfully there was carpooling and responsible spouses to ferry them back to the hotel safely.

All in all, it was a fun weekend and everyone enjoyed “the one on the left!” All the more hoppitude for me!

The maibock fried earlier this week. Next up is the ESB on the stout faucet with beer gas.

Cheers,
Tony

I have had, as my grandma used to say, an interesting couple of weeks. A lot of my free time has been going to home improvements. We have prepped and painted our entry way and family room as well as the back hallway. If I were to be honest, we painted the entry way twice because we didn’t like the first two colors we picked. That solution is better off at Dad on a Dime though…

While the paint was drying we tore up the old linoleum in the entry way and I installed a parquet floor. Putting down the big tiles was relatively easy, but cutting up the little buggers probably doubled the total time! It looks good now though. Here is a picture of it when I was almost done:

Then disaster struck.

My wife and I were stricken with suspected food poisoning. The end of last week was MISERABLE. We both spent most of the day in bed. She bounced back quicker than I, but I am finally feeling well enough to get back to the topic at hand.

Beer.

Last month I wrote about Summit introducing a new beer, a hopped up Red Ale. I opened one about ten minutes ago, and it is definitely hoppy. I don’t know if I’d go out of my way to drink it, but since it is in the fridge I’ll drink it. Especially since I’m not up to trying unfiltered homebrew considering my weekend afflictions…

There we have my update, I’m looking forward to writing more often again in the coming weeks. My newly assembled kegerator is in dire need of a drip tray, and I just happen to have the parts to assemble one. I bet that will make for a great couple posts, making a home made drip tray!

Why spend the money on commercial steel or aluminum ones when you can make one for MUCH less?

Cheers!
Tony