Wednesday 17 September 2014

Saturday 11 September -- Double Brew Day Trouble

We hit the brewery today in good spirits and a full house. Luke had come over and was brewing up a small batch of Brown Ale while we were getting a Red Ale going. We also needed to move the Hop Hog Clone into some bottles. Oh, and there was bollox to talk, sausages to pork, and knives to fork.

We heard back from a brewery about the idea of going up a notch. Brookes Beer, up in Bendigo, came back to us with a proposal. They'd help us make 3000 litres of beer for the tidy sum of $18,000. I did some maths, and that worked out to $2 a bottle, but it meant having to sell 375 slabs. Anyone wanna buy a slab? Maybe 370 slabs? We've shelved this idea for a while. We thought we'd focus on hops again.

The pots are on. That's Luke's cool set-up in the red vest
Get the grain in
Check my Bridge Road Hat 
Nice amount of grain today
Mash in
Look at that colour 
Next stop, Beechworth
Stir it up, Michael
Crazy-eyes Luke had some grain to add as well.
He thought he'd tip his in from the 50 metre line
He lines up, and kicks ...
The umpire checks ... 
Goal!!
Some geezer gave us a massive collection of VB screw top stubbies. All the labels were off, and they were well clean. We'd thought we'd use them once -- for the Hop Hog Clone. 
Time to mash out
This vest makes me look fat. Better take it off.
Our knotmanship (is that a word) is not that great
But we got the bag out
Brewery Selfie
#hashtag
Luke is a smart man -- a scientist no less.
His idea to do this.
Use both lids to squeeze out the wort back into the boil.
Time to move Luke's out
His voile is quite dark from repeated use.
Sweet set-up he has. His pot has a nifty stand with a heating element built in. Didn't stop him from screwing up all throughout the day forgetting to turn it off or on.
Looks like the Twin Towers
Hop additions. 
The bottle tree is the best invention in the world 
Eerie!
Ben came back! And went straight to the fridge for one of our ESBs
Luke told us a story ... 
of what happens in prison 
with the barbed wire and the rubber hose!
I bought the snags ... 
But it wouldn't be right if Ben wasn't on the grill.
Hi Lucy!
Oh, and Pippa!
quick, jump up ...
and smile for the camera!
Checking the levels
How does it look Ben?
Ahoy! 
Fish hook!
Took a while for Luke to get the boil going
Nice paddle
Nice beer!
Nice socks!
We dry-hopped the Hop Hog with everything we had.
Including Michael's work socks.
No use trying to sanitise them now, kiddo!
Hop Hog looks good
Hop Hog feels good. 
Hop Hog smells good
Hop Hog tastes good
Get it in the bottles
Get bottling, hipster 
Get capping, old man.
Lid on
Crank that, soulja boy!
They look great!
All the same size and no labels. Bless you, VB drinking sir!
And we made Luke label all the lids 'cause he's a sucka!
And in the fridge they go
Maybe Ben had a bit too much to drink!