Badges?  We don't need no stinking badges!

(Says the guy with over 270 badges)

Brewing a pale ale today. 

Hops from the garden pic:

awesome tinnt! frienda coming down from Portland, ME today, anxiously await the suprise Allagashes

Wet hopping with the garden hops. 

Master badge (200 unique brews) acquired!

Woot.  I'm getting closer and closer to 500.  Had to cut off for a week or so, but I'll be back on the sauce tomorrow. 

It's pumpkin beer season!

oh my god, no it's not.  'put pumpkin in it' has to stop.

NEVER!

I'd just like for the pumpkin beers to not be pumpkin pie flavors.  Use the pumpkin as a fermentable.  Ditch the nutmeg and other crap.  That's the more traditional form of pumpkin beer. 

I checked in over 20 beers in a night a while back.  A bunch of them disappeared in Untappd.  I have no idea what happened. 

i made a pumpkin beer last year.  not proud of that.

what i found out is, the pumpkin doesn't add a lot of flavor.  it's mostly the cloves and nutmeg that make it taste like pumpkin.  the actual pumpkin only makes a mess, so a lot of people leave it out of their pumpkin beer recipes.

southern tier pumking - like eating yo mama's thanksgiving pumkin pie at 8% or more in alcohol.

i know a few of the people who post in this thread brew their own - who are you?

I just started my first (intentionally) fermented alcohol. 4 x 1 gallon batches. 1 cider, 1 cider with raspberries, 1 mead, 1 mead with blackberries. they are already bubbling and I'm way too excited, especially since it will all likely taste of rubbing alcohol and sugar.

Some day, I expect you'll see legalized home distilling.  Took a while for homebrewing to get all their regulation fixed.  

I brewed 10 gallons of my brown porter last Friday.  I've been acquiring new equipment lately.  So every brew has been plagued by issues figuring out the new equipment.  Turned into a 7.5 hour brew day.  I was not happy. 

I brew and I have distilled in small quantities.  Just brewed last week...been awhile, hard to do when it is 100 degrees outside.  

Can't say I'm into mead, but the ciders sound good.  

john, what kind of rig you running to do 10 gallons? 

if you could distill alcohol, you could make your own ethanol.  lots of money will be thrown at preventing you from getting real alternatives to the gas pump

you can distill your own alcohol.  lots of plans for diy stills.  easy ones can be made with a pressure cooker

You can't legally do home distilling.  I think there is one state that has some leeway, but still, it's illegal federally.  People can distill water, but in some states, you can't even own a still.  Most of those states are also the ones that have state run ABC stores.

For my ten gallon batches, I am using a 10 gallon SS Brewtech pot as my HLT.  Then two kegs as my MLT and Kettle.  For 5 gallon batches I just do BIAB in the Brewtech.  I am having burner and chiller issues for the 10 gallons.  So, those are probably my next two upgrades.  

i think my state is the one that has some leeway.  anyway, you cant drive over the speed limit either.  it's illegal.

i use igloo coolers for mash tun and hlt.  from what i can tell, plate chiller is the way to go to reduce the time to get your beer down to fermenting temp.  i don't have one, but definitely something i'd like to try.

SJB - i'm using a sink full of ice to get my boiled must down to temp. Your set-up sounds pretty nice.

Father-in-law is an organic chemist by training. I think he has a distillation column from his lab days. May try to borrow it to make some applejack. So much of spirits is ageing so I'm not quite as excited for distilling as I am brewing.

Both batches i put berries in overflowed their carboys... yeast got a little excited.

I used campden tablets for the cider and one seems to have not kicked off 72 hours later. Add more yeast?

I home brew. By that, I mean my husband does the brewing and I watch. Too much math and physics. ;)

Anon, I did two sink chilled brews... in the same evening.  Was a Friday.  I thought my wife was going to murder me.  They were the first to brews I'd been a part of since I was a kid (I did make some bad ciders in college).  I had no idea how long it was going to take.  For the sake of peace at home, I made a 25' immersion chiller.  It ended up costing me almost as much as it would have to buy one.  I have no idea where people on the interwebs are getting their supplies that results in a $35 chiller.  I couldn't find it.  

I am thinking about getting a small aquarium pump and recirculating an ice bath through the immersion chiller.  I can usually get down to 140 or so at reasonable time with water.  But the last 70 degrees takes forever.  

On your cider, you could pitch more yeast.  You could build a small starter first if you want to make sure the yeast is alive and kicking.  

SJB, yeah - having built several CNC fabrication machines i tend to prefer buying professionally-made already completed tools. Not that diy doesn't work, but its more expensive if you consider your time as worth anything at all.

I am going to do my first beer this weekend. I have an extract kit and a beginners grain kit. I'm thinking of jumping straight to grain - it seems like brewing with extract would be exactly like making mead or cider - essentially set it and forget it. What do you think?

doesn't the campden stop the yeast?  i would toss in a new yeast starter or a smack pack, as suggested.

curt - yeah it stops everything. I crushed the tablet into my must and let it sit for around 30 hours before adding yeast. maybe that was too soon. I added a bit more yeast last night to see if that helps.

the other gallon that is identical except for the addition of blackberries is going gangbusters.

campden kills wild yeast and bacteria - it is added prior to primary fermentation so the yeast strain you pitch isn't competing with wild yeast and bacteria on the fruit.  archanon - did you check your original gravity?  there might not be visible signs of fermentation, but it could be fermenting anyways...I would check your current gravity and see if it has dropped.  

John - I have that exact setup - a pond pump from home depot that recirculates ice bath water through my immersion chiller - takes 2 large bags of ice and 45 mins to get 6 gallons down to 70F.  Personally I wouldn't use a plate chiller - my concern here is not ever knowing if you have cleaned it out or not.  If there is any trub at all left in the thing, there is a huge change for infection - especially since it is a cold side transfer.  

You may have a wild yeast on the blackberries if it is going wild.  But maybe not.

I didn't like extract brewing.  I did an all grain with a friend and decided that was far more fun.  Much more expensive in terms of equipment, but BIAB does save a bit.  I tried a partial mash after doing that brew with a friend.  Even that was irritating.  I've just gone all grain and never looked back.  

I highly recommend the brew in a bag thing.  Its not much more complicated than extract brewing.  You get all the control of all grain, with less equipment, less time, and less clean up.  

everything proceeding smoothly again. Also cracking open a funky lambic. what i aspire to make.

I just bought a bunch of sours yesterday to use the dregs.  I'm souring some of my porter and eventually going build up enough to do a solera method sour.  

So, I have a lovely sour sampling day coming soon:

Bruery: Tart of Darkness and Sour in the Rye

Lindemans: Cuvée René

Boulevard Love child No. 7

Avery Twenty Three

Dr. Fritz Briem 1809 Berliner Weisse

Brouwerij Alvinne: Sigma (actually has a pellicle in the bottle.  May not be a good thing.)

Allagash: Little Brett Ale

Ichtegem's Grand Cru

But tonight is an oktoberfest at a nearby brewery.  Polka and a brewery that is too obsessed with hops.  What can go wrong? 

damn you and your good beer list....401 bottles of beer on the wall, 401 bottles of beer, take one down, pass it around, 402 bottles of beer on the wall.

99 Bottles Of Beer On The Wall

let's keep our priorities straight

Tankard - Die With A Beer in Your Hand

I miss drinking brews. Going to have to live vicariously for the next several months... :)

Pregnant tintt?

curtkram gets the smartest archinector badge!

I keep getting cut off while we're trying for such things.  Apparently, some study says beer is not helpful. 

So, I have an apartment full of beer I can't drink. 

Beer IS helpful.

woot!  grats!

scary time to bring new people into the world, but i suppose we've been doing it for many generations.  have you considered 'balkins' as a name?

Thanks ck! I'm not scared though. I live in a new economy state and among some of the smartest, most generous, and best educated Americans there are. And no, that name is not in the running. :)

congrats tintt. I hear a half brew once in a while is not a problem... my mom drank a small amount and i turned out real good!

designated driver for 9 months! congrats tinnt.

so when my wife was pregnant the 2nd time i would bring a case of beer and some hard alcohol to backyard kid parties for our first kid. dads with multiple kids understood. one time we got so out of hand we had to go for a beer run at a 2 years old party. how else shall we dudes deal with the estrogen rollercoaster?!?! orange tic tacs at 12am, why, why, why...

I think all kid parties have alcohol. How else do you get people to come? Thanks Olaf and archanon. I would sip a half a beer but it doesn't even sound good... craziness. Orange tic tacs do tho.

since the Allagash House Beer is not on Untappd (you can only get it at Allagash, so I bought a case), I'm posting that check-in here.

I ended up sipping a 1/3 of a beer last night but I can't check it in because I don't need the judgement there. You guys won't judge me, right?