May 10th, 2012 by admin
Ok, in part 2 of The Doghouse Brew Rig Build we are going to discuss the different components of the gas system and how it all goes together. The first thing you should know is ALWAYS BE SAFE! Putting the gas system together is not difficult but if you are not completely comfortable tinkering with gas lines you may want to get some assistance. This posts assumes that the main frame and the burner mount frame has already been assembled. If not, refer to back to part one of The Doghouse Brew Rig Build here.
The gas system is made up of components that will transfer the gas from the tank to the burner. Sounds simple right? Well, not exactly but, if you keep that thought in mind it helps you visualize how things need to go together.
Now that you have decided to tackle the gas system you need to decide whether you are going to use a combination of High pressure and Low pressure OR just use all Low pressure. This system utilizes furnace valves to regulate the burners and these furnace valves only operate under low pressure. I used both high pressure and low pressure (high pressure for the boil pot and low pressure for the others) on my system. I wanted high pressure on the boil pot so I could get it to a boil faster. If you use an all low pressure system some of the components listed below are not needed. I could get into the differences between high and low pressure systems but I’ll save that for another post. You just need to decide which one you want to use. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Brew Rig, Equipment, Gas, Propane
Posted in Equipment, The Doghouse, Uncategorized | No Comments »
April 14th, 2012 by admin
So it’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to spew a little madness. I have been busy building what my wife affectionately dubbed the “ Doghouse”. What is the Doghouse you ask? Well…it’s a single tier brew stand based loosely on the Brutus 10 and like the Brutus it is a fully automated system. This post is the first of a series posts discussing the entire build. I do want to acknowledge and thank everybody that helped throughout this whole process. Plenty of ideas and help came from the folks at www.homebrewtalk.com.
I had several design goals in mind when I started. First, it needed to be fully automated (duh…). Second, it needs to be fully self contained when stored away. Third, it needs to be maneuvered easily. Forth, it needs to fit in my truck. And lastly, it needed to have adjustable burners. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Brew Rig, Equipment, keggles, welding
Posted in Equipment, The Doghouse | 1 Comment »
August 7th, 2011 by admin
Today’s brew session has a little twist. Several weeks ago my wife decided she wanted to try her hand at all grain brewing. Not just helping me brew. She wanted to brew a batch all on her own. I guess this shouldn’t have surprised me as she is an a
wesome cook and brewing wouldn’t be a big leap. Hopefully, if all goes well, she can take over the brewing gig and I can just sit back and enjoy the fruits of her labors 
.
She will be brewing a Berliner Weiss. Partly because it’s one of her favorite beers and partly because it is a fairly simple beer to brew. As the name would suggest, this style beer comes from the northern regions of Germany. It is a great summer beer as it is very light and quite dry. It can be somewhat sour and have a fruity character depending on its age. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: all grain, Berliner Weiss, fermentation, Mash-tun, Recipes, Sparge
Posted in Berliner Weiss, Recipes | No Comments »
June 19th, 2011 by admin
Well, when it comes to homebrewing, the last few weeks have not been great. It started off well enough with three well packaged bottles of my black IPA being sent off to San Diego for the final round of the American Homebrewers Association’s National Homebrewer Competition. So far, so good. The submittal deadline was June 6th. I sent my bottles to get there on June 3rd. 
The delivery date arrived with no delivery confirmation. Nothing the next day either. June 6th rolls around and still nothing. I have been on the phone with UPS for several days at this point. They had no idea where the package was. All they could tell me was it made it on the truck for delivery. At this point I’m thinking that whoever mistakenly received my beer had paired it nicely with a nice fat juicy steak. I contacted AHA to let them know what happened all in the hopes that they could tell me if my beer actually arrived. I was reaching for anything at this point. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: AHA, Black IPA, NHC
Posted in Blck IPA, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
May 10th, 2011 by admin
Well, I sent in a one of my black IPA beers to the American Homebrewers Association National Homebrew Competition. This is the first competition I’ve ever entered and I did it at the insistence of my wonderful wife. I did it in hopes of getting some helpful tips on how to make the beer better. When I received my score sheets last week I was very pleasantly surprised to find out that I had advanced to the final round. I guess in the back of my mind I thought it would be nice to move on but I kept it in the back of my mind. Go figure…
The recipe was basically the same recipe I posted a while back with a few tweaks due to the ingredients I had on hand. Once I compile the comments from the score sheets I will make some adjustments and see where it goes.
Anyway, there was nobody more surprised than I, but… I have been grinning from ear to ear ever since I found out.
One last thing…I’m very proud to be a part of the James River Homebrewers Club which managed to advance 5 beers from 4 different brewers. Way to go guys! Woot!
Cheers,
Clay
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
May 8th, 2011 by admin
If you came here looking for The Weekend Homebrewer you’ve come to the right place. I ran into a little confusion with me my local homebrew store The Weekend Brewer. I thought that might happen at some point. I’d been kicking around the idea of changing the name of the site and removing some of the affiliate links and now was as good a time as any. The guys at The Weekend Brewer have become friends of mine and I don’t want this site to have the appearance of competing with them in any way. Hence the new name and look. Hopefully, you will continue to find value in this site and continue to stop by from time to time.
I know it’s been a while since I have posted anything. Sorry about that. Things have been crazy here lately. There’s been plenty of brewing and a pile of new knowledge absorbed. I will be getting things organized and posted up very soon. Thanks for hanging with me. Check back soon.
BTW- let me know if you like the new look.
Cheers,
Clay
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February 13th, 2011 by admin
I’ve had the idea of building a kegerator for a while now. I’ve had a couple scenarios bouncing around but I could never get my head around any of them. The problem was space. We did not have the space to put a kegerator in our kitchen and after spending a fair amount of money renovating the kitchen my wife wasn’t wild about shoe horning another appliance in her space. As luck would have it, I found a small refrigerator that would fit in nicely into a small nook and would not (in my humble opinion) stick out like a giant wart in my wife’s beautiful kitchen.
The refrigerator stated as a Whirlpool 4.4 cubic foot dorm style unit with a faux stainless door. The first step was to remove the inner lining of the door to make more room for the kegs. This was simple to do and only took a couple of minutes.
After removing the magnetic rubber seal from around the liner you will need to secure the seal back to the door. Before you do that you may want to insert a panel to take the place of the liner and cover up the interior of the door. I used aluminum flashing I picked up at Lowe’s. I used the old liner as a template and cut the new liner out with tin snips. I marked all the screw holes with a marker and punched holes at those locations with a nail. I fit the magnetic seal around the new panel and reinstalled it on the door. Be careful not to cut yourself when handling the flashing. It will be very sharp. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Equipment, Keg, Kegerator
Posted in Equipment | No Comments »
January 17th, 2011 by admin
Sunday’s brew day started out with the best of intentions. My wife and I invited a fellow brewer and his wife over for a day a mashing grains and swapping recipes. I guess I should start by mentioning that Sunday’s brew day was supposed to be Saturday but due to life getting in the way we opted to delay it a bit.
I went to The Weekend Brewer on Saturday afternoon and picked everything I needed to brew another Black IPA. You might remember in a previous post that this was the first recipe I brewed when I switched to all grain brewing. And although this session went smoother it was not without incident. As it turns out one of our dogs picked that morning to go exploring. So, we spent several hours tracking her down and saying bad words. Once she was back safe and sound it was time to start brewing. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: all grain, Black IPA, IPA, Mash-tun, Recipes
Posted in Blck IPA, IPA, Recipes | No Comments »
December 12th, 2010 by admin
Last week my wife Corinna grabbed a couple bottles of my black IPA to use in her beef stew. It was more or less a test batch to see what kind of effect the homebrew had. The black IPA can be described as a combination of a stout and a standard American IPA. It has a very strong taste and will thoroughly surprise your palette. This particular batch of black IPA holds a special place with me as it was my first attempt at all grain brewing (as read about here). Well, the test batch turned out great. It was very tasty with just a hint of the homebrew that was noticeable. I’m thankful she used the bold flavor of the black IPA as opposed to a somewhat milder 
red ale or pilsner.
Today is another nasty, gloomy, cold day and begs for another bowl of Corinna’s stew. Thanksfully, she has obliged! And since she is sharing with me…I will share with you. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: beef stew, IPA, Recipes
Posted in Food, Recipes | No Comments »
November 20th, 2010 by admin
Well, the second attempt went much, much smoother. Having the right equipment makes all the difference in the world. In my last post (see here) I talked about some snags I ran into while brewing my first all grain batch of beer. Mistake number one was trying to save a couple bucks and put together my own mash-tun. I searched high and low to find a tutorial and came up with a fairly simple design. Now, I feel like I am a pretty handy guy but I absolutely botched the straining device in my mash-tun. I used a 12” braided hose with the interior removed. 
For many folks out there I’m sure this method works just fine. For me…not so much. After about a gallon of sweet wort runoff the wort slowed to a trickle. After I cleaned the mash-tun I realized that I had opened a hole in the side of the braided which let the grain in and quickly clogged the flow.
After that debacle, I broke down and bought a false bottom and spigot assembly that was made to go in the bottom of my mash-tun and when I mashed my grains today it went off without a hitch. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: all grain, hops, Mash-tun, Methods, Recipes, Sparge, Wort, yeast
Posted in Methods, Recipes, Rye Ale | 2 Comments »
