Brewdays after Labor Day [wedding brews]

[Clinton Ebadi]

Steve Killen <steven.f.killen at gmail.com> writes:

> Greetings, gentle brewers,
>
> So to wrap up the month of August, we brewed four (4) beers. Four! We are
> getting an excellent handle on repeatability, at the very least learning the
> areas we need to learn in. I have full confidence that the porter and saison
> will be giggle-worthy.
>
> We must pause for the week, and that concerns me because our timetable shows us
> a bit behind. My next available brewday is Sat 10 Sep, and that is worrisome
> indeed. We may need to bottle the saisons or porters independently, especially
> if it's just me and Clinton (as has rather often been the case), which I can do
> during a weekday if I can get caught up on schoolwork.

Step one: tell work you need to go part time now and stop letting them
push you around. It's pretty obvious that you don't have time for work,
school, and the rest of this project so one is going to have to
give. Eight weeks notice is really absurd to give just to go part time,
and it looks like you are sacrificing school AND the brewing project to
a misplaced sense of loyalty.

Either that or skip Dragon Con.

During the week I am unavailable Tuesday and Wednesday for the
forseeable future, and it's probably a bad idea for me to commit to
either Mondays or Thursdays -- it's basically an "I'll know that week"
situation with the other contract.

> Even if we do that, I am looking at brewing two beers the 10th & 11th to give
> the ESBs fully 3 weeks to condition in fermenter and bottles. As long as you're
> ok with me running the rig solo, Clinton, I can do it.

Kristen and BPT live here as well so you need to clear that with them
too since brewing /does/ dominate the kitchen and creates traffic
through the shared living space.

The problem I forsee with this is that "running the rig solo" still
involves around an hour of clean up for me the next day ... (putting
things away, the inevitable "this was left out", fermenters to check,
&c. 'Tho I guess I only have to do the extra cleanup once...

Note that we CANNOT have two active fermentations currently -- even with
two trays that worked (down to one) -- we only have one fan which
appears to be ineffective now. From what I can tell the reason the fan +
tray method worked was because of the small size of the closet (->
easier to create a fast air cycle). This is no longer the case and the
current cooling method has not been really effective (porter never got
below 68F despite attempts at moving the fan around various ways).

We might be able to build a fancy box around the fermenters with some
kind of pipe (pull air out of the front of the box, have a pipe around
the top to pull air in from above the fan...). That's getting a bit
crazy at that point, and we have that fridge so...

So, you'll need to get a temperature controller (assuming the fridge
works), and then if one beer is more active than the other... (I'd say
not an issue with the same beer and yeast strain).

Also be warned I suspect the tank will kick during this dual brew
weekend so we need to find a refill station and get the empty one topped
off.

> Also, I shall come over for bottle scrubbing duties as my studies allow. I'm
> not about to leave it all to you, Clinton, and I am grateful for the support
> you have given thus far. I probably work Tuesday, so can come by then for a bit
> if that works for y'all.

The bottles are at my Grandmother's and I was under the impression you
intended to get them and do this at your apartment.

I would prefer none of the dirty bottles come here. The utility room is
already in need of a massive clean up and we haven't even been here for
a week, everyone is still moving in, the floor can be damaged more
easily by water, we have no way to wash dirty towels effectively
&c. Having six cases of dirty bottles and a trash can filled with
percarbonate water sitting around is not going to work for now.

If Rebecca won't let you clean the bottles at home you might need to
bite the bullet and buy some bottles.

-- 
"Karen loved animals. Unfortunately the cheetahs betrayed her trust,"
Libot said.
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