Busy Brew-Related Day!

Wow... Not much to report in 2011 for my brewing - until yesterday!

The garage has been a mess, the weather has been miserable, and most of my gear was in dire need of a good cleaning. The obstacles that I needed to clear in order to get brewing were going to take longer than the brew day itself. Not exactly a recipe for motivation.

I knew that left to my own devices, a brew day would be a long time coming. A bunch of us have been talking about a group brew day, especially since I missed the one over the long MLK Jr. weekend back in January. So we put it on the calendar: my place, 4/17.

Since I finished the super-shelf in the garage a little over a month ago, and it has warmed up a bit now, I started to load it up! Of course, I did nothing all week long leading up to the weekend, so I had a bit of a scramble to get prepped. After going to the District Pinewood Derby with my sons, I spent about six hours pulling boxes and bins, then heaving them up the ladder and up onto the shelf. I did take a bit of a tumble off the ladder with a foot locker, but I managed to avoid the emergency room. Getting a lot of stuff up and out of the way helped make room for some organization.

I had been hopeful to get an early start on finishing things up on Sunday morning, but shopping with the family and a trip to the dump ate up a big chunk of that time... Fortunately, nobody was planning to arrive until mid-afternoon. Once I got home from the errands, I just set to work, chipping away at cleaning up the garage and brewing equipment.

I am embarrassed to admit this, but I had way more dirty brew ware than clean - and I haven't brewed since January. Buckets, carboys, kegs, pots, mash tuns... It was all filthy. Not to make excuses, but we have had freezing weather off-and-on right up through April, so I have not even had faucets uncovered or hoses connected outside yet this year - which makes it kind of hard to clean stuff. Now, I could have hooked things up temporarily to get the cleaning done, but I have used the chilly weather as an excuse, and now it was time to pay for my neglect.

All I can say is, "Thank you OxiClean!" I do have PBW, and it does work a bit better, especially in cold water... But it is quite a bit more expensive, so when I use the PBW, I like to recycle it. I have some OxiClean (non-scented) for the bulk cleaning of the really nasty stuff, when I am not concerned about re-using the cleaner. I think my laziness is self-evident in this post - that's what I love about PBW/OxiClean... Just dump it in, fill it up with water, and let it soak! Of course, it works quite a bit better if you don't let stuff dry and turn crusty.

All told, I cleaned 2x buckets, 2x kettles, 4x carboys, 6x kegs, and assorted smaller brewing bits. I was not quite done cleaning the equipment when the guys started to arrive. In fact, it was still soaking. But the garage was presentable! I finished the cleaning and we got to brewing! I brew alone so often, I had forgotten how much I enjoy brewing with other people!

Kris brewed up a batch of Cream Ale; Robert brewed up a batch of Bavarian Hefeweizen; and I brewed up a batch of Imperial Red Ale. Here are links to the three recipes:
>Cream Ale
>Bavarian Hefeweizen
>Bruise Brothers Redwing (Imperial Red) Ale
We drank quite a bit of good beer, including a few homebrews, while we brewed, and we were alternately entertained by my kids and throwing darts.

I am going to get my equipment cleaned up and try to brew a couple more batches this week... And I am excited to schedule our next group brew day!