And Now....Back To The Beer!!!!

Well, it finally happened.....I finally got everything together...well almost...and ready for my "kegerator". I found an old fridge and 6 corny kegs on Craigslist, bought the tank, and regulator on ebay, and the odds and ends, beer line, disconnects, etc. at Siciliano's.



The beer being transfered into the keg is my scotch ale that was brewed back in February. It has had a nice long secondary fermentation, and had a wonderful aroma coming out of the carboy. I tested a little of it and it had a really nice "warmth" to it, along with a nice sweetness, with just a faint hint of "pine" from the simicoe hops.












Here is the finished set up....well again, almost complete. I'm going to be putting two or 3 spouts in the door of the fridge. Right now, with the one keg, I have just a simple "cobra" or "picnic" tap for serving. The bottom line is it's still kegged beer on tap. After getting it in the fridge, I force carbonated it, setting up the keg with 30psi of CO2 for about 3 days, then turned it down to about 10psi for serving. Worked out pretty well. I have a hefeweisen in the basement still in secondary, and in the next few days or week, I'll get that kegged up as well.

Vacation Time

Once again, it's been a while since I could update this thing, but there are some interesting things going on. First is the wife and I took a wonderful vacation to northern Michigan and Mackinac for our anniversary. We toured both forts, and spent a good full day wandering and exploring Mackinac Island. This is a picture taken at Fort Michilimackinac. You can see the Mackinac Bridge, which connects the Upper and Lower Peninsulas of Michigan, in the background. It was pretty amazing to see, hear and feel a 6 pounder being fired.




Here is a view of inside the fort looking over the parade grounds. Every hour they had two "interpreters" who talked about life in the fort from a soldiers perspective, and fired their muskets. They had two dressed as period soldiers(1750's-Revolution), a working blacksmith, and a "family". They actually do baking and cooking there using period tools, etc. I picked up a really neat cookbook called The History of the Hearth, which has recipes from the time period.





And here is a picture of Cathy and I outside of of the visitors center. We had this goofy thing we did of taking pictures of ourselves outside of pretty much everywhere we went. This picture is outside the welcome center at Fort Michilimackinac on the Lower Peninsula side. The Bridge actually runs right over the welcome center. You can feel and hear the cars going overhead.







This is Fort Mackinac, which on Mackinac island which is located between the Upper and Lower Peninsula's of Michigan. The only way to reach the island is by plane or ferry. Interesting story about this....it is built upon a limestone cliff on Mackinac Island. At the onset of the Revolutionary War, Fort Michilimackinc was dismantled and burned to the ground while this fort was being built.










This is a view from the ramparts of the fort, which you can see from the above picture, overlooking the harbor. During the war of 1812, the fort was retaken by the British without a shot being fired. Inside the fort are some really interesting displays. One is a diary of one of the lieutenants stationed here, along with letters he had sent to and received from his family in New York.






We took the carriage tour of the island. Neat thing about Mackinac island is that motor vehicles are not allowed. If you want to get around, you either take a horse or bicycle. Here are Huey, Duey and Louis, our faithful transportation for the day.

Been A Long Time...

Wow....I can't believe I haven't posted here for so long. It was a very hectic fall and winter for me. Work was unbelievably busy, and I had some medical issues that kept me from brewing for the remainder of '07.

One perk of the time off is my last brew, a classic dry stout sat in secondary for about 3 months. I bottled it in early January. After three weeks in the bottle it was awesome! By far the best brew I have done. Well, that was until I was moving some bottles around in the basement and found 5 bottles left of a Russian Imperial Stout that I brewed in the summer of '06, just before getting married. It has a nice warmth, with almost some wine-like notes to it. I hid two of the bottles...one to try this winter..the other in the summer of '09.

Ok...enough of the old brews....In February, I hit the ground running starting off with my first attempt at a Scottish Ale. I have to admit that I was a bit rusty after being out of the brewing loops for so long. It was my first chance to try out my keggle (15.5 gallon beer keg with the top cut off). It was the brew day from hell....1) After mashing in, I was trying to figure out why my mash was so hot...i was shooting for 158, and I was at about 165...after adding in cold water, I realized I didn't put all my grains in...Doh!!! 2)I ran out of propane halfway thru my boil. So after a trip up to 7-Eleven to switch out my tank I was able to resume my brewing.

It was well worth the problems though. After taking 3 1/2 weeks to ferment out (White Labs Edinburgh Ale Yeast....who knew it was such a long fermenter), it now sits comfortably in secondary. Hydrometer samples were wonderful. It had a nice "warmth" to it, nice sweet maltiness, and just a hint of piney bitterness from the Simcoe hops.



Shortly after doing my Scottish Ale, I wanted to brew up some more stout, so I did. I tweaked the recipe a bit, and after brewing in the middle of a snow storm. Yes, I was outside, in the snow tending to my boil keggle. It finished out fermenting in about 2 1/2 weeks, and I should be bottling it this week. Depending on how it tastes going into the bottle, it will probably be entered into Siciliano's HB contest.