Snow Day Brew Day

Trying out a Dunkelweizen kit from Great Fermentations. This is batch #5 of my homebrew career, first batch of 2015, and first Dunkelweizen.

Flavoring grains steeping.


Assistant Brewmaster FUZZ* watching some CatTV while the kettle comes to a boil.


Almost there!!!


Chilling the wort! WINTER IS AWESOME!


Ok, chilling the wort outside took a lot longer than I thought it would. Shoveled my driveway and it was only down to 140F. Shoveled my sidewalks and my neighbor's sidewalk and it was down to 120F. Went inside, watched Iowa State get their 20th win of the season. It took about 3.5 hours for the wort to get down around 75F.

Into the fermenter:

Easily the darkest-looking beer I've made so far.

Assistant Brewmaster Smokey* says "Hurry up and pitch the yeast so you can get my supper!"


My previous beers have all fermented in the front closet, but I'm leaving this one in a bathtub for easy cleanup, as I know from experience this yeast knows how to have a good time.


And the sun sets on another successful brew day.


* All my beers have a "less than 1% cat hair by weight" guarantee.

Wordless Wednesday

Beer and Cat

Smokey guarding my FUZZbräu from its namesake.

FUZZbräu is the beer I make. This is my second attempt, a German-style wheat I call Fuzziwheat. My first was a Belgian wit style I called FUZZiwit (my German beer-drinking expert pronounced it "süffig" which I believe translates to "I did not go blind"). Currently in the fermenter is a second German-style wheat I will call FUZZirazz after I add three pounds of raspberry puree.

OK, naming things is not my best talent, which is why FUZZ named himself. OTOH, I am good at slogans. "FUZZbräu! Taste our disdain!"

[Obligatory promise to blog more instead of just tweeting.]

Caturday

Today is National Margarita Day (break while I lol at this sort of thing needing an "official website"). Also the first warm sunny Saturday of 2014. So of course, I spent it at work, after working long past beer o'clock last night.

But this is a bragplain; my stuff is righteous, my boss brought in lunch, and I scored an afternoon off in the middle of March, date TBD, when unlike today it's not too muddy and floody to do anything. Bwahaha.

Jetzt...trinken!

Caturday

"What's a vacuum? Don't tell me; I don't care."

Beer and Cat

Not my cat...and I was going to say "not my beer" but I've swilled this one at baseball games.

 Don't judge me!