My long draw beer tower is complete!

check out the full post here: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/long-draw-salt-water-chilled-beer-tower-271578/

I will post up more info later when I am not taking a telepresence course. Needless to say I love having beer on tap in my house.

6 Tap Tower Build

the top part of the tower is done, mounted and the lines connected. The 6 line run has been insulated and wrapped and Rylan helped my run it through a hole in the floor behind the cabinet. Its ready, and I drilled a hole in the fridge downstairs to prepare for running all the lines tomorrow. Tomorrow night I should be pulling beer from three taps. Now I need to order 3 more taps!

DIY Roof rack cross beams

So we have a honda pilot - that we just got back from the autobody shop after a run in with an out of bounds box truck - and while big it barely seats the 7 of us. It seats 8, so we have an empty seat but as the kids get bigger we find room more and more scarce. So when we planned a vacation with all of us we had to consider where we would put all of our junk.

Enter a Thule roof rack from craigslist I snagged for less than half price of retail. It requires crossbars to install- which we lacked until tonight.

Here is a parts list:

2x 1 inch wide by 4 feet wide steel square stock
4x 5/16 U bolts
8 - 5/16th acorn nuts/cap nuts
8 lock washers
3/8th inch vinyl tubing


Fit the bars across the top of the running bars, align the Ubolts and mark where you need to drill

drill holes and fit everything together.

I got the inspiration for this from an Instructables guide sheet, so the credit goes there: http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Roof-Rack-Ford-Freestyle/

We tested it out tonight with the roof rack on and there were no weird sounds or vibrations even at 80 miles an hour. I took off the empty Thule box and willow took it to a friends baby shower, she said there was a whooshing sound but nothing annoying - I think its the open ended tubing, something duct tape will fix.

The Dangers of Pitching onto a recently active yeast Cake

I brewed up a honey belgian beer a little while ago, and being the thrifty brewer I am decided to pour it directly into a recently emptied carboy with a very healthy supply of yeast from the last brew. So I lifted the kettle, put the tubing on and let it run into the carboy, after it filled I realized I had no airlock so I scampered inside to find one. This is what I found when I returned.

I filled it to the 5.5 gallon mark, and the yeast did the rest...very quickly. A bung and a blow off tube solved this issue but I learned that I should just make a starter from a previous batch and be done with it instead of trying this kind of trick again.

Mead Clarification

I brewed up a batch of Mead about 8 months ago, its was a straight mead with just honey and water, I didn't boil the mead and since it was my first attempt I kept poor records. The only thing I have written down goes something like this:

15 pounds clover honey
fill carboy with tap water
add yeast nutrient
add yeast

I know the age is around 8 months and I know it has fermented out because i took a refracotmeter reading(not really accurate at the end of fermentation). But tasting it it was dried out and pretty good. It tastes like it needs some more time to age out but I will do that in the bottle.

The point of this post is that the mead never cleared out. Never. Its been in a 33 degree fridge in the basement for over a month and is as cloudy as it was three months ago. So tonight I started the clearing process with a chitin based clarifier called Super-Kleer KC. Its a chitin( a shellfish derivative)  based clarifier that binds to the gunk(technical term) in the solution and drops it into the bottom of the fermenter. The instructions claim 24 to 48 hours will give you crystal clear results so we will see. The picture below is of the mead when I added the first part of the combination.

I think I will be bottling this in wine bottles and corking them, I was tempted to keg it and have it on tap but I don't think it has aged out enough and I need the fermenter for cider. I want to be able to check the bottles every few months or so until I know I have great simple mead.

Update: around 14 hours or so later the mead is really starting to clear, I will grab some photos tonight around the 24 hour mark and see where it has gotten to. Very impressed with the clearing agent so far.

Fall doldrums

As my school semester begins and Fall slowly carries away the hot days of summer I find myself in a bit of a blah period. I am up to date on my school work, we are planning a trip to Nags Head in a week or two and I have enough projects to keep me busy for about two months.

But here's the thing: I don't really have the motivation to do any of it. I could blame the constant rain or the beginning of another school year but honesty the truth is far more simple. I have been sitting on my ass far too much. It is hard, not impossible, to stay active when you have small children around. I haven't gone running any distance since our 5k with Coral, and I haven't lifted weights or done sprints in longer than that. Why? I put one foot in front of the other and - just in the wrong direction.

Willow and I went for a walk with Finn and Maelle tonight, Maelle lasted almost the entire time without getting upset: thanks to Finn singing and playing with her in our double stroller.

I suppose this means that i have to start running again. At one point I was up to 10 miles at a clip but I have fallen off the wagon. I don't really lose my distance abilities from what I have seen, I just get really slow. Time to start High intensity interval training otherwise known as run super fast for 1 minute jog for another minute repeat until near dead.

Pumpkin Pie Ale with Whipped Cream Vodka

That's right, I am adding vodka to beer. So is Willow. The beer, an attempt at a Southern Tier Pum King Clone, clocked in at around 8% alcohol on its own, adding a shot of this makes it a powerhouse of a drink.

The taste is great, its like drinking a slice of pumpkin pie topped with whipped cream - I would like to say I came up with it myself but that distinction lies with someone who works at the Henlopin Oyster house in Rehoboth Beach. 

Give it a shot, there are some great pumpkin beers out there and its a great excuse to try them!