Thursday, May 27, 2010

Played hooky from work, things really moved forward today with getting the new brewery up and running. A few more things need to be taken care of, but some good progress today.

Meanwhile, will be brewing a batch of the Beached Blonde this weekend on the ol' ten-gallon Sabco.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

I finalized the purchase of my new 3-barrel system back in January, but I still do not have everything I need to it fire up and start brewing. With apologies, it is looking more like my beer won't be available until late June at the earliest, but more likely July. My frustration levels are high.

Some things may be happening this coming week to get the new system finally in working order, however. Once it is, I'll be getting out some of the Beached Blonde as well as the Hellsmoke Porter.

In the meantime, I have been testing and refining some new recipes on my old ten-gallon system, but 2009 proved to me that the ten-gallon system is not sustainably practical for regular production.

Saturday May 15 2010

No brewing, bottling, or heavy lifting today. Laid up with a bad cold, so working on some paperwork and label design between naps and sips of tea. Here is the latest iteration of the label for my Grodziskie-inspired wheat-smoked-over-oak offering, "Vlad the Inhaler"

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

While waiting for the rest of the parts of the new three-barrel brewery to be delivered, I brewed another test batch of the Long Island Potato Stout on my old ten-gallon system Saturday. Used Russet potatoes this time, had used the Yukon Gold variety last time. There should be more sugars available from the Russets, I'm aiming to get a similar level of dryness in the finished beer while using fewer potatoes (which have to be cleaned, boiled, and mashed before adding them to the brewery mash).

Transferred and took a reading of the Grodziskie test batch, hit about where I was targeting at 3.6% ABV. This promises to be an interesting sessionable beer. Will be bottling it up soon, with fermentation to occur in the bottles. I'm planning on bringing these to the Bellport charity beer event that Dave of Bellport Cold Beer & Soda is having on June 10th.

Over the last few days, a number of boxes arrived from the manufacturer of my new system: The new mill is finally here, along with various clamps and hoses, etc. Will be taking another inventory tonight to be sure I have everything, and finally start setting about hooking up the new beast.