Everything but the …
Yup … Kitchen Sink :). So today I brewed a beer dubbed the Fool Circle Kitchen Sink Dark, I know, super descriptive and right to BJCP style guidelines.
So in the last post I talked about brewing the Kitchen Sink Amber, well today I brewed the Kitchen Sink Dark. Both of these batches were intended to use up all of my ingredients and still make drinkable beer, though not stylistically accurate. They did their job, the only ingredients I have left right now are about 90 pounds of base malt, 2 pounds of malted rye (which was ordered in “extra” for the R3 and never used), and 1 ounce of Cascade hops for dry hopping the KS Amber. So now it is time to re-up for some freshy-fresh batches, maybe say, … 6 batches worth, so again if you have suggestions let me know, I’ll be ordering soon.
Anyway, today’s brew day went pretty good. I was finished in about 5.5 hours without any major set backs but a few minor glitches. For example, I ran out of propane after collecting the wort but prior to achieving a proper boil, no problem that’s what the spare tank is for. I also couldn’t cool the wort below 80 degrees, again not too big of a deal, did the wet towel/fan trick the last two batched and it worked out marvelously. I suppose the biggest problem, which had nothing to do with making beer, is I have determined I am not a plumber. This is the second or third time I have tried to solder copper tubing for different brewing applications and I have never done a good job. It always takes me two or three attempts, it looks sloppy afterward, and typically I am unhappy with the outcome. Well today I was trying to put together some copper for inside the HLT to help siphon the water out without me having to tip it, a pick-up tube essentially. First my soldering sucked and second, I didn’t have enough pieces (realized after the fact) to make it work properly. Guess what that means? Another $5-10 bucks on stupid copper fittings and another hour of me struggling with the torch and solder. Oh well, I suppose that’s how we learn things.
Also, sorry about the lack of pictures for the KS Amber and Dark and the cleaned up brew room etc, I let Robert borrow my camera for a little bit so that we can document his hairy life here: Roby vs. the Razor. I actually had forgotten, but there was a similar bet in the movie Knocked Up where his roommates bet that he couldn’t shave or cut his hair for a year and the loser pays the other roommates rent for a year, now that’s a hefty bet!