Happiness is...

   / Happiness is... #31  
dmccarty said:
... Except for the money issue. ... Later,Dan

One can make kegging as expensive as one wants really.
Kegs should be found for ~$20 (may require cleaning and gaskets, cheap).
If you have a MIG welder, you have the pressure system. If not, you can naturally carbonate in a keg and use a CO2 bicycle tire inflator w/ food grade CO2 thingys to push the beer out ... it takes very little pressure. (This setup works great for travelling with your keg.)
I don't use "taps". I'm too cheap. I use the little plastic party taps ... ~$5.
As for refrigeration: The idea is to keep beer, etc cold ... that shouldn't be too tough to do in the winter without a frig :cool:
Again, though not stylish nor accepted in some social circles, 2 liter PET plastic bottles make great brew containers ... only 10 for 5 gal batch and they fit anywhere for storage.
 
   / Happiness is...
  • Thread Starter
#32  
I only have one, but I did make a major score a few years ago... I have a 10gal corny keg! It was used as part of a portable eye wash station. Where the typical fittings were, there was a extension tube that went to the little eye wash shower heads. It was full of saline solution, and used Co2 to dispense.

I use the party taps too. It is nice though to have the regular tap...

My buddies used to have the brew store here in Folsom; they found some 2.5 gallon corny kegs... That was a while ago though.
 
   / Happiness is...
  • Thread Starter
#33  
HomeBrew2 said:
Kegs should be found for ~$20 (may require cleaning and gaskets, cheap).

These kegs were a little more expensive. Not sure if you saw this setup in an old thread here. My gravity feed system.
 

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   / Happiness is... #34  
Very nice system Robert!!! I hadn't seen your's before but have seen some of Henro's. I'm strictly an extract brewer mostly due to laziness and attention span issues.

That 10G corny was indeed a score!
I used to buy kegs and parts from RCB Equip near Citrus Heights ... website shows he's in Kansas now (?)
 
   / Happiness is... #35  
OK, Robert, I'm impressed. Attached is a pic of my little cider maker. With the Nottingham yeast it blew quickly. As usual, I figgered it didn't do much. Wrong, as usual ... my FG (finished gravity) was 1.010. With an OG of 1.050, that's 40 points = 5.2% alchy !!! I shotgunned what I extracted for the measurement, maybe half a cup. Felt it in just few minutes (after many beers).
Ok, flavor: Minimal sweetness and minimal apple flavor ... perfect for me!!!
Nose: Slightly yeasty (@70°) ... but no yeast taste.
I'm all over this! Will have to see what girlfriend thinks before i get too serious about it :rolleyes:
 

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   / Happiness is...
  • Thread Starter
#36  
HomeBrew2 said:
Attached is a pic of my little cider maker. With the Nottingham yeast it blew quickly. . With an OG of 1.050, that's 40 points = 5.2% alchy !!! I shotgunned what I extracted for the measurement, maybe half a cup. Felt it in just few minutes (after many beers).

Nose: Slightly yeasty (@70°) ... but no yeast taste.

Remember, dont' worry, relax, have a homebrew... :D Get that in a few bottles and let it age a little; it should lose that yeasty character.

Mine is slowing down. It is fortified, and as I mentioned honey brews have just taken a long time to ferment for me. Complex sugar chains?

The cider is fun, since it is so much simpler than beer.

We have to do some tasting one of these days. I want to get a beer going in the next few weeks. I'm going to go with a 5gal batch though, just to get started back up again.

In regards to extract beer, and the picture of my setup, one thing I will note is I started doing full volume batches before I had this system in place. A propane burner with my modified keg worked well, and made things easier on the kitchen stove. I think the batches turned out better too. 5.5 gallons of wort boiling is an awesome sight, whether all grain or extract :)
 
   / Happiness is... #37  
RobertN said:
Remember, dont' worry, relax, have a homebrew... :D Get that in a few bottles and let it age a little; it should lose that yeasty character.

"What, me worry?" :D Man, I don't see this brew lasting the weekend!!!

RobertN said:
The cider is fun, since it is so much simpler than beer.

Yeh, I OWE YOU ! That was the easiest 5% I've heard of that tasted good :cool:

RobertN said:
We have to do some tasting one of these days.

I'm in! I'll have to check w/ my BX but I think I can slip out when she's sleeping :p

RobertN said:
In regards to extract beer,

Nothing I do is all that pretty or impressive but for the record, a few pix:
Pic 1 is my brew pot while chilling the wort. It's a Costco SS turkey fryer that I drilled a hole in near the bottom and brazed a cobbled faucet.
Pic 2 is a wild stout that had no respect for the blowoff system I made.
Pic 3 is kegging. A small mess but mostly under control.

Cheers!
 

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   / Happiness is...
  • Thread Starter
#38  
I have had a few fermentations blow like that. After one, I always made sure I had a pan under the blowoff bucket. It does make for a gooey sticky mess :eek:

I see you are doing a full gravity boil. Thats awesome. I was glad when I moved from the stove top. I had a friend in San Diego that got in to brewing. Him and his buddies did a bunch of beer on the stovetop; the concentrated heat of so many batches trashed the wiring inside the stove. They just were'nt made for over size pots and hours of heating/boiling wort.

I tried an expieriment a few years back. I had a wort chiller for 5gal. When I got my 10gal stuff set up, I got a bigger chiller. We tried putting the small chiller in an ice bath, and then running that cooled water through the chiller in the wort. I think it helped some, but not sure if it was worth the effort.

On my all grain system, I have done double batches. It takes a while to bring the mash water to temp, mash, and laughter. During that time, I have done an extract batch on the lower burner. Since I have a Cajun cooker/jet burner for the mash/laughter water, I'd fire it off first thing, and then run that direct to the lower keg. Only took a short time to have the extract batch running. Then, the all grain batch could start.

You would have like this... For my wedding we lined up two systems. We did two all grain batches AND an extract batch one each system. We brewed like 60gal of beer that day! Used to be 5 of us had systems like this. We always talked about getting all 5 together and doing a 150gal day, but alas, it never happened...

My setups look the same when they are running; controlled chaos :D
 
   / Happiness is... #39  
Oh, yes, always full gravity boilovers :eek:

A 60 gal brew for your wedding !?! Now I know I'm dating girls from the wrong part of the state :eek: ... umm, the only prob with that enterprise is that you can't drink it on the special day that you make it :( 'I am told' that there are other alternatives for producing and consuming beverages on such a special occasion :rolleyes:
 
   / Happiness is... #40  
So, here's where we're at this week: My research indicated that buying cheap, pasturized apple juice [from concentrate] would produce rotten apple juice before it would produce fermented hard cider. WRONG! Attached is a pic of a racked batch that produced 4+% alc. The juice cost $1.89 for 96 oz. I'm in heaven ... and many thanks to you Robert. ...oh, pay no nevermind to the jug near the cider in the pic ... it's for "company" only :cool:
 

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