Rairdog's Grow and Beer 2017

LocalFart · Mar 12, 2017

Nice setup you have there. incredibly jealous.

Rairdog · Mar 19, 2017

tsurrie said:
Nice looking plants and also love the beer and the dinner pics... congrats!
Will be following.

LocalFart said:
Nice setup you have there. incredibly jealous.

Thanks!!

Brew day today...cause it's in the tittle

Heat 7.5 gal to 160

Meanwhile measured out my grains

8 # 2 row
2 # Wheat
1 # Munnich
.5 # C-60

And run through the crusher

Pour in the grains, cover and time it for 60 min. Brew Timer app is awesome

Measure out the hops. 1 oz Cascade @ 60, .5 oz Galena at 30 and .5 oz Galena @ 5 min

Here's a look at my fermenter. Its a cabinet face frame on an insulted ply box and will hold 3 - 6.5 g buckets. It has a inkbird with hot and cols plugs to regulate temp. My shop never gets to hot or cold so I needed just a little boost in the off months.

Hooked to the back is a coleman DC cooler which easily keeps it in range. Whats nice is the DC is reversible so it can either run cold or hot by lining up the red or blue dot. I also have to swich the DC adapter into the hot or cold plug on the inkbird.

Gotta go stir

Rairdog · Apr 7, 2017

Some random shots of the GH

Toms

Supers

Trimmed the hardy kiwi a couple weeks ago and put the stems in the growbeds. They were just showing signs of budding and have really taken off. Gave a tug and they're rooting...hope they will transfer to dirt which is always hard from AP.

One of my bees packing the pollen sack

Make way..heavy load incoming

Tulips are starting

Peace out!

LocalFart · Apr 9, 2017

Your pollination rates would be amazing with all those bees around

Rairdog · Apr 16, 2017

LocalFart said:
Your pollination rates would be amazing with all those bees around

I see the native bees mostly working the veggie garden. The neighbors peach, persimmon and others fruits really exploded since I had the honey bees. The do seem to like the pole beans.

Just some more pics from today. My peppers are getting stressed and need to hit the dirt. It would be 2 weeks early and they haven't bees hardened off yet...way to windy this weekend.

Toms are coming along nicely....glad I held off starting them too early.

Sage and thyme

Oregano, thyme, basil and parsely

Pepper bed is ready to roll. Onions are coming along.

I counted 20 worms in a random scoop. This was the raised hugelkutur I started a couple years ago. Best garden I have ever had. I think it will continue to produce with just topping with wood chips every year. I also put most of the beer grains in there. The worms love it.

This old bed is gonna be lasagna layered this year and topped with 6 in. of 2 yr of leaf compost and topsoil blend. The soil is good but compacts too much. I have mended it with compost for 10 years and it never grew peppers like the hugee, It will be toms, curcubits and probably left over peppers that don't fit in the other bed....lol

Hit one of my morel spots. I kept waiting on the rain but it kept missing us....f it lets go Missy. They were getting burnt and I should have gone earlier in the week. They are a week or 2 early. I am usually lucky to find them on my b-day 4/22.

Missy counted 88

Who doesn't like blue bells

Tulips are prime....and a beer!

My lawn is more weeds than grass but the bees love the dandy's, clover, violets and dam creeping charlie. Peace out!

Rairdog · Apr 21, 2017

The shrooms were within 300 yads of the road kill deer loin....Yum

PaulG · Apr 23, 2017

Venison and morels, can't do much better than that!

Your brew set-up is awesome, and the greenhouse
is money - good job, my friend!

Rairdog · Apr 23, 2017

PaulG said:
Venison and morels, can't do much better than that!

Your brew set-up is awesome, and the greenhouse
is money - good job, my friend!

Thanks Paul!

Took the kids out for a run and put up the shade cloth today to give the greens some relief. It's supposed to drop to 40 tonight and then min of 50. I plan on taking a day or 2 off this week to get everything into the beds.

Potato leaf toms

Lanky peppers

Bok grows fast in AP...kimchi

Kegerator went out Monday...Neighbor came by and beer was warm. I had another fridge at the boss' shop that I took out a month ago....and some black corian tops.

The best part is the bottom wood shelf I made fit in the new fridge..just a lil gap in back

Ground control to major

Rairdog · May 6, 2017

Happy National Brew Day. Lil damp around these parts to brew today but all is well. Just another day on the river for us...

Bar is closed....unless you have waders..no problem

I got 5 in the keg, 5 cold crashing and 5 in the fermenter so I can skip a brew day I guess

All is well...we are used to it. I will get the plants in over the next few weeks.

Bees swarmed this week...caught them in the pouring rain and put them in an extra hive. It was an easy grab.

I needed a good reason to clean the shop...will power wash in a couple days and all will be well.

Peace, RD

Rairdog · May 13, 2017

Ok....the river is down and time to get to bidness.

New HellFire burner to go with the Spike.....did I mention I love my Spike

Menards had this wire shelving on sale for 60 bucks....dam...another 36 bucks in wheels. It was not exactly what I had in mind for a potable brew station. I looked at welding one up myself and parts....this will do for now.

New Anvil small scale. I bought a Blichmann brewision only to find out it was iOS only.

Meanwhile I get a Hefeweizen going on the new setup and put the sweets to the ground.

The rim of the pot is a little high for my liking but it makes an easy dump into the ferment bucket.

All cleaned up for the day. Missy is the bomb when it comes time to clean. I keep debating building a stone platform for a permanent brewpot station whare the cart is sitting. Then I add up the costs of a hood and fan. I will wait til I get some more scraps for free for that build.

And its more Iris' this week

grantmichaels · May 13, 2017

Looks good ...

Cheers! :cheers:

moruga welder · May 13, 2017

all looks great ! :party:

GhostPepperz · May 14, 2017

Beer, mushrooms, peppers, deer meat, man I need to come hang out at your place rairdog!

Rairdog · May 27, 2017

grantmichaels said:
Looks good ...

Cheers!

Thanks Grant...good to hear from you.

moruga welder said:
all looks great !

Thanks Frank. Your probably having the same crappy cool wet weather. My pepper aren't the best color but they should come around

GhostPepperz said:
Beer, mushrooms, peppers, deer meat, man I need to come hang out at your place rairdog!

Your welcome any time. It would have been a lot easier to visit when I lived in Gardner....but I couldn't grow peppers as well and the canned beer kits weren't as good.

Brewing a PA similar to Bells Two Hearted today but with Galena hops. I'm still working on the hop schedule and I have never dry hopped. I don't see it as necessary and I like to do 40 to 50 IBU's with a 2 week turn around.

I started off with 10 bottles of Oberon bottle slurry and 2/3 cup DME and pint of water for 2 days. Then I added another same mixture of DME/water for a day. The chunks of Bells house yeast/protein are strange looking to me so I was a little worried at first. This is what it looks like this am. I plan on saving the slurry for an Oberon style wheat next.

Wheeled the brew cart up to the sink and added 7.5 gal. The new cart saves a lot of lifting and water hose work.

Love the new Hellfire

The grain bill

9 lbs 2 row
1 lb Munich light
1 lb Wheat
5 oz Carapils
5 oz 60lL

Meanwhile some garden shots. The cherry toms.

Peppers

Aji Mango

The infamous Hair Pepper...from Fionna

Jamaican Red Mushroom

Brazillian Starfish

Some flowers from the last week or so

Still learning on my new phone/camera...it seems to bleach the greens

I need to get busy on hop schedule..mash is almost done. Beer ON!

Hop schedule

1 oz Cascade 60 min
.3 oz Galena 30 min
.7 oz Galena 5 min

Est IBU 42

Pretty simple but I get a lot of citrus kick out of galena so I have been backing off a little....or I just need to let them age more

"Honey, what do you want me to use on the Spike....

grantmichaels · May 27, 2017

Looking good ... I'm planning to brew a lot this Summer, starting the week after next, after the burger TD ...

Have done all of the build work for both the mash tun and kettle, just need to cut some lengths of silicone tubing and assembly some taps for the keezer at this point, really ...

:cheers:

tsurrie · May 27, 2017

Nice peppers and flowers. And the beer.... damn you got me thinking of maybe homebrew someday... the beer looks fantastic. Cheers. :cheers:

Rairdog · Jun 18, 2017

grantmichaels said:
Looking good ... I'm planning to brew a lot this Summer, starting the week after next, after the burger TD ...

Have done all of the build work for both the mash tun and kettle, just need to cut some lengths of silicone tubing and assembly some taps for the keezer at this point, really ...

Patiently waiting....lol

tsurrie said:
Nice peppers and flowers. And the beer.... damn you got me thinking of maybe homebrew someday... the beer looks fantastic. Cheers.

It's as easy as brewing a big bag of tea if you have access to the parts and ingredients. Thanks for checking in.

HAPPY FATHERS DAY!!!

I did some brewing, trimming and drinking. Took tomorrow off. Kid is at her dad's and sent me a sweet text. GOT the day to do as I please.

First off...my AC to DC converter burnt up to the themoelectric Coleman cooler this week. I could spend another $20 for a new one that only lasts a year or find a cheap mini fridge. Scored a $40 1988 (built a lil better ) mini at St. Pauls and swapped it out to the back of fermenter chamber. It was and easy 1/2 hr of cutting, screwing and caulking.

Here is whats on tap. Both made with captured yeast from Oberon bottles. Left is a Wheat Ale (WA) and right is a PA. The PA is awesome. The WA isn't quite carbed. I fermented it around 70 to 72 to pick up the orange like Oberon but so far it's more grapefuit...probably from the Galena Hops.

Here are the yeast cakes from each beer. WA left and PA right. I will be using the PA for today's pitch. I generally decant the liquid, swirl and let come to room temp. Then I pitch 1/3 to 1/2 and discard the remainder. I always have too much yeast so I got to get rid of some....kinda like culling seedlings and you got too many.

Hot break.

Cold break

Some peppers...

Allepo

Peppadew

Aji Mango

Aji Amarillo

Brazillian Starfish id loaded

Jamaican Mushroom Red...oops...that aint right. IS is mislabled or crossed..we shall see

Dances with Smurfs....why am I excited for these..never grown them...prob taste bad....

Thyme is flowering

Parsley and sage looking good

Basil looks like crap...as usual in my dirt

Agastauche...sp?

Cones

Peace and passion!

mpicante · Jun 19, 2017

Nice pics and garden.