CNYBrew.com: Jackpot!

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Jackpot!

So last night on my way home I figured I would make a few stops, one by the redemption center to get some Chimay bottles for my Tripel Nipple and second by Harbor Freight for a wire brush to clean my burner.

I couldn't find the redemption center, so still on a mission, I stopped by my old faithful. Now for the sake of the place, in case their distributors give them a hard time about this, they will remain nameless. Anyway, I go to my super secret location and ask about Chimay bottles, but they have none. However, they do have a "ton of Grolsch flip top bottles" so I ask to have a look. It turns out they also have a ton of Schwelmer flip top bottles as well (amber glass and 11.5oz each as opposed to the larger green Grolsch bottles), 35 to be exact.



I of course volunteered to take all those bottles as well as a Budweiser Brewmaster's Select flip top bottle (you will suffer no more my poor innocent awesome bottle) for the awesome price of $7.50! (To make things better, I get them home and they are CLEAN!!! Nothing inside any of them. All I did was de-label them and they were ready!)

In a good mood, I continued onward to Harbor Freight to get my wire brushes for cleaning my burner. While there, I stumbled on an awesome pack of "pipe cleaning" brushed for $4. I can now lean every crack and crevasse of my beer stuff with a whole variety of tools (yes, it was not an accident to link the word tools to it's definition).



Now as if things could get any better, I got home to find that my brand new refractometer had arrived!!! WOOO-FREAKING-HOOO!!!(my wife thinks I am crazy about being fired up about this, but I don't care, it's bad ass)



So I spent last night de-labeling my clean bottles, playing with my refractometer (contrary to belief, playing with your refractometer too much will not cause hairy palms or blindness, however it will cause awesomeness) and cleaning my burner. For all the stuff I did, it was a pretty easy night.

In other news...

As noted in the picture below, I have some over pressurization on my stout bottles. I don't think that bottle conditioning in growlers is going to work. It's just not been a very good experience to date. I will see how the others turnout, but I think it's a failed plan.

This weekend we are going to be back on schedule and brewing our Sam Adams Boston Lager clone. If anyone knows of a recipe for this one, we are all ears. While there are a lot of clones out there, none of them are alike. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

6 comments:

Adam said...

Heheh..heheh...you said refracto..meter...heheh..heheh...

1 said...

Travis

My experience with growler is the opposite. I've found that they don't hold pressure as well as a bottle.


K

Kevin LaVoy said...

Did you kill Monday Night Brewery's website? Or did the hamster wheel operators that supply electricity in the south go on strike?

Travis said...

I wouldn't worry about it, I'm sure they have Georgia's best and brightest working to fix the problem...

Jonathan said...

kevin, i have no beef with you. you best step off quickly and quietly. or come join the proverbial jedis in georgia.

travis, i think one of your links is broken. "tools" points to our website, and while i thank you for the shout-out, i think it should point to your profile.

cheers!

Kevin LaVoy said...

And I have no beef with Monday Night Brewery, or the South. Although, my experience with the South, like my experience with Barley Wine, is thin. I do love grits, though. At one point, I ate grits for breakfast every day for probably a year. I just enjoy having a bit of fun, and am more likely to have it at my own expense than someone else's (see my post on my excellent immersion chiller that I'll be posting soon). I couldn't resist in this case.

However, I am generally unconcerned with veiled threats of any sort. I come from a long line of deviants with neither shame nor scruple.