Bottles and Kegs, Oh My!

I finally got my new Last Straw bottle filler working perfectly yesterday, and I was able to bottle everything for Bluebonnet that I have ready as of now.  Got 6 bottle of the saison (3 for entry under Saison, and 3 for entry under New Entrants) and 3 bottles of the quad, which is now just under 6 months old.  I was also able to squeeze out 3 more bottles and about half a growler out of the keg for personal consumption!  I had one of the bottles last night, and man is it good.  I almost wish I hadn’t entered it into Operation Bravo, so I’d have some left to age even longer.  I got some good feedback from people who had it there (including the judges who didn’t get to try the entry bottles), so it was worth it.  I can’t imagine how good it will be in another 6 months.  I’ll try to save at least one bottle that long.  I’m going to have to brew another batch and not touch it for at least 9 months.  I think I’ve said that before, though, so we’ll see.

Anyway, back to the bottle filler.  They advertise that it’s able to fill bottles directly from kegs at serving pressure, but I’ve found that to be totally inaccurate.  Even with pre-chilled bottles, at serving pressure (8-10 PSI), it was almost all foam.  I lowered the keg pressures down to under 5 PSI and purged the head space, and there was only a very small amount of foam.  I was able to completely fill the bottles, then cap on the small amount of foam that came out, leaving the perfect amount of head space in the bottles.  Hopefully they have enough carbonation in them, but I can’t see that they won’t.  A couple of hours later I opened one of the quads, and it had a good amount of carbonation.

Here's the quad after the head had dissipated some

I also kegged The Chestnut Troop (my British best bitter) last night, and I have it on CO2.  Since it’s such a lightly carbonated beer (0.8-2.0 volumes of CO2, compared to around 2.3-3.0 for most "regular" beer styles), it shouldn’t take long.  I also bumped the temperature in the fermentation chamber up a few degrees yesterday before I left for work, so that the yeast in the dark mild can finish cleaning up before kegging this weekend.  I’ll try to force carbonate that one pretty quickly so I can get it into a few bottles, so David and I can meet up and do a quick blind taste test and decide which one we like best, and enter that one into Bluebonnet.  Entries are due by the 28^th, but since I’m out starting on the 24^th, I’m going to have to get my entries in before then.  Shouldn’t be a problem.

Speaking of the dark mild (named Steel Main, a combination of our brewery names), David has his recap of our brew day up, along with some really cool stuff on Dr. Jekyll’s Beer Lab down in Arlington.  They’re a homebrew store with 40 craft beers on tap, and David is working with them on building an awesome in-house brewing system.  For a small fee (plus the cost of ingredients, of course), you’ll be able to brew a batch in the store, then take the wort home with you to pitch your yeast.  Sounds like an awesome way to get into homebrewing, or, if you’re currently an extract or partial mash brewer, to move up to all grain without the up-front cost of upgrading all of your equipment right away.

Moving forward, I’m about to have 2 more than half full kegs, and 2 completely full kegs (I have to double-check the saison and the dunkelweizen, to see how much is actually left in those), so I need to have a beer-drinking party soon, maybe.  I would like to be able to do a brew day for a new batch of the quad so it can get to aging.  It would then be 9 months old at Operation Bravo, and almost a year for next year’s Bluebonnet.  After that, I’ll work on a beer every couple of months or so to keep the pipeline full.  I’ve been batting around several ideas for new recipes, and also returning to some old favorites.  Some of the new ones include a Rye IPA, a Schwarzbier, and a Helles Bock.  Returnees will probably include Killer Junior and D30.  I might also try some small batches and experiment with ingredients.  I’d also love to try my hand at a sour beer, maybe a Lambic of some kind.  Those take patience, though, and an extra set of fermenting gear just for sour beer.  Of course, I will also take any suggestions in the comments on the blog (which I never seem to get) or on Facebook (I do get some of these).

Unfortunately, we did not win the Powerball drawing last night, so Steel Rain Brewing will stay a homebrew operation, and Erin and I will have to keep our day jobs.

I'm working on adding more recipes to the section on the right, I'm still hoping to eventually have everything I've made on there (serves as a good backup in case I lose my data), and keep it updated as I brew more and more.