Tag: Brewstand

Well, the last Brew Day went remarkably well. Beer was brewed, so the important part was taken care of… Additionally, lots of people came over, and the whole event turned into a barbecue/potluck sort of thing. I’d say a good time was had by all… I was able to introduce a couple of people to mead, which is always entertaining; I’m proud to say that the response to my brews was overwhelmingly positive.

In other news, the next Brew Day will be on the 24th of May. I’ll probably be following that up in quick succession with a Brew Day early in June. I need to clear out a couple of kegs to move some of the things currently aging; I should be able to empty one or two at the Barony’s event at the end of May (On Target), so that should keep me in business for a while.

Progress on the HERMS upgrade continues. I’m waiting on some temperature sensors that I hope will work–I had absolutely no luck with the LM34’s. I’m sure they’re wonderful sensors (and I’d love to be able to get Fahrenheit temps without conversion from Celsius), but I just absolutely couldn’t get the things to work. Hopefully the DS18B20’s will do the job. I’ve got the relay working, and the LCD figured out, and I figured out the I2C interface last week for the clock and data storage. I’ve got to figure out the addressing for the EEPROM yet, but that shouldn’t be a big deal. Otherwise, it’s mostly just programming, with a little hardware to put together. Woohoo!

Last weekend’s brewing went well. I brewed my follow-on to the French Pale Ale (this one with Carawheat), and Sorcha brewed a wit based on the last one I did. The ale came out well, but I’m concerned about the wit–I couldn’t get a gravity reading on it over 4 Plato, which is exceptionally low. I suppose about 5 lbs of DME could be added; basically a “re-do” of primary fermentation, but I don’t think it’d be the same. Ah, well…

The Perry was bottled, as well. Initial taste tests indicate that it most resembles a cheap white table wine. This is not a bad thing–just not where I had expected it to go. I meant to bottle the Lambic, but that will have to wait until next time. It’s got a lovely wood flavor (from the oak table leg) under the tartness. There’s a flavor to it that I’m not completely fond of, but it’s not off-putting, and will quite probably age out as it sits.

I’m continuing to amass parts for the HERMs build. Apparently, if you ask nicely, many electronics manufacturers will send free samples! So, a couple of parts may arrive before horribly long (I hope), and drop the cost of the build by a couple of dollars. Every little bit helps!

Well, it’s around the corner. I’ll be doing the follow-up to my SMaSH brew from last month: the same basic recipe, swapping out a pound of the base malt (which was all there was, last month) for a pound of specialty malt–in this case, I’m thinking some of the Crystal Wheat that I’ve got. I’ve had it for a while, and have been wondering what to do with it; without that, I’d likely go with a dark Munich malt or something similar. I’ll be using the yeast cake from last month, as well–it seemed like a good yeast, once it finally got going.

The parts collection for the HERMS upgrade is moving along, as well. I’ve got the microcontroller, the temperature sensors, and a few other miscellaneous parts; there are a few things that I’ve ordered recently that aren’t here yet. I think the biggest part of the actual HERMS upgrade will be a second pump. Moving up to keggles will be a “3.1” upgrade somewhere further on down the line. In all, I don’t figure to have the rig switched to HERMS before August at the earliest, maybe September–although things have a tendency to leap ahead when I least expect them to.