New Testingstan

With a bit of adjustment and reinforcement you could even turn those into ramps for lifting the car if you keep driving forward, make it easy to work on it (if you do your own maintenance)

I don't, but yeah, that would be fairly easy. Off the top of my head: add a couple more of the "spacers" to serve as ramps and use another landscape timber as a cross section in the middle to reinforce them.

Maybe... now that I'm trying to visualize that it's not quite working... maybe add to that an extra timber to what's currently the top so that it's higher up and angles the spacers/ramps when I flip it over to serve as the lift.

o
ooo____o___

I can't describe it very well in ASCII, but something like that and then flip it over for the ramp. Might need to add some more reinforcement along the length of the ramps (think T-beam. Sorta).

I'd cut the timbers out of the middle so you can actually get in under the car. 2x10s with a checker grip pattern cut in as the top face, ramp goes up extra timbers arranged in steps. Might want to cut top layer of timbers at angles to fit better.

Yeah, if I were to actually go about making it I'd have to play around with the arrangement to get it to work right. Get out a pad and paper and make a little isometric and then sort it our while I built it.

Even better, I could model it with software, but that would require I use company resources for personal reasons. They generally frown upon that.

I'd probably also have to make it into two pieces. One for each tire, obviously.

As it is, I'm thinking about making some sawhorses or a long bench to sit on out of the remaining timbers, but I'm not sure I have enough straight ones. If so, I may do that next weekend if I have time. This weekend is a brewing weekend.

Just poured a batch of Joe's Ancient Orange Cinnamon Clove Mead (Google it, it's easy) into the fermenter. This is the mead I mentioned waaay back when I started the thread and that I basically drank all of already.

I've scaled it up to a 5 gal batch though. I'll know in a couple months.

Also started a batch of Cherry Wheat using a recipe I came up with from scratch; my first try doing that.

I just racked it to the secondary fermenter with a can of cherry puree and then I'll rack it again in about a week and then bottle a week from Sunday. I'll know how it turned out a week later.

I hate waiting...

Here's all the fermentations I've currently got running:

Starting from the left, the darker one is the first of the maple wines. Above that is the fall spice mead with the second batch of maple wine to the right of that. The big nasty looking one is the 5 gal batch of orange cinnamon mead. In the bucket marked with an 'I' is a Kölsch and the other one is an Irish Red ale. The bottles you see at the bottom right have the cherry wheat I'm trying to develop. I've not tasted it yet.

It's like a window into the 1920s.

Yeah, I think you could make wine and cider at home for personal use even then.

I vaguely recall that a former beer brewery would sell ingredients with instructions not to boil the grain, nor cool it and add the yeast, nor allow it to ferment because it would produce an intoxicating beverage. Though I might not be remembering quite right because it was from a History or Discovery channel show from, hell, probably ten years ago.

Not sure if anyone would have made mead though. Not sure if it had been on the scene since colonial times. Or if it was even drunk in America prior to the later half of the twentieth century... Not really up on its history.

Then there was the bathtub gin...

But then, I don't have a still. And wouldn't make gin if I did.

Cherry Chocolate Pecan Bread!


It's great. It's not overly sweet; just a touch. And the texture is just as good as the other breads I've made. It would make a good breakfast bread though.

I've also bottled the Irish Red I had in the fermenter and made a batch of Hefeweizen. The Kölsch I'll bottle later as it's not quite finished fermenting.

On top of that I've made another batch of spiced mead. The recipe I used is called Royal Metheglin and it's a good name considering the amount of herbs and spices that went into flavoring it. Relatively cheap these days, but in the days of widespread mead consumption, well, only royalty could have afforded.

Oh, I tasted the cherry wheat. It sucks.

It's drinkable. That's about the best thing I can say about it. As a fruit beer I can't taste hardly any fruit because it gets overpowered by the wheat beer flavor. And as a wheat beer it's just sort of 'meh'.

Back to the drawing board.

I made a couple more batches of that balsamic onion jam so that I have enough to eat myself and share. I've also started a new batch of sauerkraut; maybe this time I'll get it right. The first time didn't have enough brine, the second had too much salt; fingers crossed.

For football season I got a leg up and put up three batches of beer: The Irish Red Ale turned out, the Kölsch will be tasted tonight and the hefeweizen will be ready on Saturday.

The Kölsch turned out!

Now if the hefe is good... I've not had good luck with them for some reason.

Durandel found this: http://m.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/09/01 ... eer-recipe

Thought you'd like it.

Cool, I was wondering when they were going to release those.

I'll have to try to fit those in somewhere in the schedule. I'm actually really interested in that porter...

Hey Spartan, how much does it cost to get a decent beer brewing setup? And how much does it cost to make a good batch of beer? Is it usually cheaper to buy ingredients online or in person? (There's a brewing store sort of near me but I'm afraid it'll be pricey.)

Red keeps suggesting I brew my own beer, and it sounds hella fun.

(Apologies in advance for rambling on, but I love when people ask about brewing.)

The start up is kind of expensive, but on a per batch basis it's actually quite cheap. Ingredients for a batch are typically around $40-45 dollars from my brewstore and I typically manage to recover four and a half gallons or so out of it. Which is the equivalent, volume-wise, to two full cases of beer. Which is roughly what you'd pay for crappy mass produced beer only what you get to drink is awesome. Not crap. Usually...

If you have a large (like 3 or 4 gallons at least) stainless pot (or other non-reactive pot; particularly not aluminum) then the start up might run around $150-200. If not, your store will likely have a starter kit with one in it that would run around $250. (Mine has several different kits with different options available.)

What I would recommend is getting a kit that has two fermenting/bottling buckets and using one as a fermenter and the other as a bottling bucket. You can use a carboy (basically a 5 gal water bottle) to ferment, but I've always found getting a siphon going is a much bigger pain than sanitizing a spigot and tubing and then opening the tap.

So here's what you'll want:
-Starter kit like I mentioned above (more info in the videos below)
-Big stainless steel pot
-Enough bottles for at least one batch of beer
-ingredients for one batch
-5 gallons of water (you can use your faucet if you have good water, otherwise see the videos below)

As a rough estimate, expect to spend between $200 and $300 before your first batch and $40 or $50 for every batch after that. Until you start doing stronger beers or add things like spices that run the cost up. (Like my holiday ale or a vanilla bourbon porter I made)

Here's Alton Brown's beer episode to give you a brief intro and let you get a look at the setup for basic extract brewing.
Part one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vlv1wBy7Z5w
Part two: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7jQ6Wwnqk

I use a hybrid of his method and my brewstore's instructions. Mainly I don't use ice, I refrigerate three gallons of water and use those to cool down the wort after I strain it. I also don't use the flip top bottles anymore, because I had problems with flat beer from using them.

The only points that I disagree with him on, now that I have a few dozen batches under my belt, is that he didn't sparge (rinse) his grains and he didn't measure the specific gravity to see if the beer was finished fermenting, he just depended on the bubbles in the air lock. That won't usually hurt you for small batches, but it's technically wrong because you won't catch problems, like stuck fermentation.

As a plus like most hobbies you can then go crazy and do things like buy/build a kegging set up, an all grain set up, a fermentation chiller, etc, but with you can still do great things with just the basic set up.

Also, you can use this gear to make mead, if you're into that.

Obviously, your brewstore's prices might differ, but my store's prices are what I have to go on and they'll be broadly similar so it should be in the ball park.

No, don't apologize, this is good! This is what I wanted.

I went to the brewing store's website and they were prominently selling some fancy ass setup for like $2k and I sort of freaked out, that's why I asked. $200 is an okay entry price. I don't have a big pot, though. Can I just get a cheapo 16-quart stock pot or is it important for it to be high-quality?

Also I'm with you on not using the bigger bottles, I know they tend to let beer go flat. Does a typical brewing starter kit (I assume these are a thing) come with equipment to get the bottle caps securely fastened on? Can you buy loads of bottle caps at brewing stores for cheap? I bend beer bottle caps whenever I open them, to the point where they're unusable.

Whatevs, I think I'm gonna go to the brewing store once I get home from vacation. They should be able to help me out.

What are the most successful beer recipes you've tried so far?

The pot doesn't have to be expensive, just make sure it isn't aluminum. You can find (relatively) cheap stainless pots at restaurant supply stores and the brew store should have pots that will work that aren't ridiculous in addition to ones that are for when/if you get into all grain brewing (at least, mine does).

It's not so much the bottles as the flip tops. I use 22 oz bomber bottles normally and that's what I've gone back to. I also just got a kegging setup but I've not used it yet.

A starter kit should include a capper and the store should have caps for cheap. They're never reusable because they get crimped onto the bottle by the capper and then bent by removing them (you can't use twist caps in homebrewing).

Here's a link to a basic kit (cheaper than I remember them...) http://www.midwestsupplies.com/brewing- ... t-kit.html

It looks to have everything you'd need less a big pot and bottles. I'd also get some extra tubing because it's nice to have extra around as well as an extra airlock. Get some wider tubing as well, so that if the beer manages to back up into the airlock you can switch over to a blowout method, which has a hose leading to either a small 1/2 gal sealed jug or into a gallon jug filled with water and cleaning solution.

(And here's a link to that site's deluxe kit just to give you an idea: http://www.midwestsupplies.com/everythi ... kit-2.html)

The ones that have worked the best for me have been a variation on a Kolsch that I got out of a book, my brewstore's clone of a locally brewed amber ale, a vanilla bourbon porter and my holiday ale. You can't have the recipe for my holiday ale because it's mine. The other three I'll detail in the next post.

The Vanilla Bourbon Porter
5.5 oz British Medium Crystal Malt
15.7 oz German Medium Crystal Malt
11 oz British Extra Dark Crystal Malt
13.8 oz Chocolate Malt
1/2 tsp Burton Water Salts
8 lbs Dark Dry Malt Extract
1 1/2 lbs Amber Liquid Malt Extract
1oz Columbus Hops Pellets
1/2 oz Kent Goldings
1/2 tsp Irish Moss
WLP001 California Ale Yeast
2 Vanilla Beans
1/2 cup honey

-Heat 1 1/2 gallons of water to 165F, stir in the water salts and then steep the grains in it for 30 minutes.
-Sparge the grains and bring the total volume to approximately 2 gallons.
-Add the malt extracts and bring to a boil. When it reaches a boil start the timer.
-At the five minute mark add the Columbus Hops (watch out for boil over!)
-Boil for 45 minutes and add the Kent Goldings and Irish Moss
-Boil for another ten minutes.
-Cool down
-Add to fermenter, bring volume to 5 gallons and pitch yeast
-Once initial fermentation subsides (2-4 days) rack to a secondary fermenter with the vanilla beans (split and the seeds scraped out)
-Allow to sit in secondary for ten days
-Bottle adding bourbon to the bottles at the rate of 1 Tbsp per 22oz bottle. (I used Maker's Mark)
-Age for at least thirty days
-Chill and enjoy

Edit the third(?): dissolve the honey in water and add to the bottling bucket before transferring the beer, then bottle the beer with the bourbon already in the bottles.

This next one is an easy way to ease into brewing and to getting people drinking home brew when they're used to the crappy beer most Americans guzzle down. It's a light German ale that is crisp and refreshing like a lager, but with a bit more flavor. Also, it doesn't make me throw-up the way store bought light beer does.

Kolsch
3 lbs Dry Wheat Malt Extract
2 lbs Extra Light Dry Malt Extract
1/4 oz Perle hops pellets
3/4 oz Czech Saaz hops pellets
1/2 oz Tettnanger hops pellets
Kolsch yeast (I used Wyeast 2565)
3/4 cup priming sugar

-Dissolve the dry extracts into 2 gallons of water and bring to a boil (a large whisk helps with this; the dry extract is good, but can make a mess if you're not careful)
-Bring to a boil and boil for 5 minutes.
-Add Perle and Saaz hops
-Boil for 45 minutes
-Add the Tettnanger hops
-Cool and add to fermenter bringing volume to five gallons
-Pitch yeast
-Ferment for at least a week (I find ten days works better for me)
-Bottle as normal

Edit: that should say boil for 55 minutes, not 45. You should add the Tettnanger and then immediately turn the heat off.

DAMMIT! I got the edit wrong. 45 minutes is right. then you add the Tettnanger and boil for another 10 minutes and then turn the heat off. That's what I get for trying to edit without checking my notes. The tettnanger hops are flavor additions, not aroma.

Here's the brewstore's clone: http://www.defalcos.com/component/conte ... e/139.html

The put it up on their website so I don't feel bad sharing it. There's a brewery here in town called Saint Arnold's that brews an amber ale. This is the clone.

I think the sauerkraut turned out this time...

I'm quite sure though, because I've never tasted "fresh" kraut (as opposed to packaged) so I'm not sure whether it turned out right or not.

Well the hefeweizen did turn out, so yay me.