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!

3/4/10 - Consolidation...

When we moved last June, it was under less than optimal conditions. Recall that we were actually homeless for about two weeks while we waited for our new place to close. While it was really more like camping than being truly homeless, but we didn't actually have a home during that time... This unexpected turn of events led to a less than organized move - we had stuff squirreled away everywhere: my parents', my in-laws', three storage units. When we finally got to move into our house, we put most of our stuff into the garages.

The first garage to get cleaned out was the spare - the "shop". This was mostly because it was where the overflow went, and most of that was stuff that needed to go into the house (the main garage was full of yard tools, bikes, wagons, shelving units and stuff from our last garage). This is a bit of a sore subject with my wife: her Volvo is still parked outside, while all 4 motorcycles and my Landcruiser are in the spare garage. Hey, it just worked out that way, right?

Since Christmas, I have been gradually moving brewing stuff from the main garage into the spare, which will be a combination shop & brewing space (which my wife is calling my "man cave"). A couple of weeks ago, I inventoried most of my empty glassware an organized that onto shelves. At the same time, I reorganized all of my brewing bins, and got them stacked up neatly. And I cleaned out my kegerator (a converted chest freezer with a condensation/sweat problem - that will be another post entirely! ;-), and made a spot for it as well. Last weekend, I temporarily mounted the dartboards (one for adults and one for boys) on the back of a set of wall lockers.

I have been using the main garage for lagering, cold crashing, and conditioning my beers this winter... This is mostly because it is more convenient since I've mostly been brewing on my deck, and it has been chilly and I'm a bit lazy. And I have been using it for the cool storage of my drinking supply (also out of convenience/laziness). My wife would really like the treadmill and her car in the garage - which is totally fair (it would be a bit embarrassing to have lived here a year and not have her car in the garage). So tonight, I got the last of the beer stuff out of the main garage.

While the boys threw darts, I borrowed a wagon from them, and began carting stuff over. First, I moved 3 carboys (1x Classic American Pilsener, 1x American IPA, and 1x RyePA) and a couple of 1 gallon lager starters - that was 2 trips by wagon! The kids thought it was hilarious (I was muttering under my breath, because the wagon didn't turn or maneuver very well with all that heavy beer in it)! And they kept pretending like they were going to hit me with darts as I wheeled by.

That actually turned out to be the easy part... My "beer shelf" was full of a combination of beers and empties, and the floor around it also had quite a bit of beer. I found quite a few six packs that I've been aging (like 5 years worth of Sierra Nevada Bigfoot, 4 years of Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale, and several of my own homebrews). I organized my empties, and got them over - but I didn't want to mess up my inventory, so they're off to the side and not shelved. At this point, I realized that I hadn't checked the dinner - I ran in, and things were OK!

I tackled the beer from on and around the 7' shelf next, which took about 4 or 5 trips. There was quite an impressive pile around my kegerator... But it was time for dinner. We all took a break and headed in... After dinner I did get the shelf moved over, but I did not get it loaded up with beer because I need to move a few boxes of language materials first...