Saturday, February 26, 2011

A Nut Update and a New Toy

So, as I mentioned before, we are now in the market for a new piece of beer brewing equipment: an aeration system.

Sadly, it's not going to be the fish tank air pump I'd mentioned. I'm a bit disappointed, really. Because the idea that you're using fish equipment in your brewing process just sounds so delightfully ridiculous.

But it turns out that the stuff that works so well for a fish tank isn't the best option for aerating your beer.

Honestly, I think I could have guessed that.

Based on the freakish amount of research that has gone into this, we've determined that this is what we want, and is on its way to our house as we speak:

[source]
It's an aeration kit. Only thing missing? The oxygen tank. That's right, friends....we're bringing pure oxygen into our brewing space. Should be legendary.

I just hope no one loses an eye.

(Related to the topic of bodily catastrophes: I did warn Michael, that if at any time he even suggests this thing might explode, we're switching to filtered air rather than O2 tanks. I don't need a single additional thing that he could worry will explode in our faces.)

Here's how it works: That brass-looking/black knobby thing hooks both to the O2 tank and to one end of the plastic hose. The knobby thing is used to regulate the flow of oxygen from the tank. The other end of the hose (with that white thing on the end) goes into the beer. And in 30-60 seconds, you've got yourself some tricked out beer full of oxygen...a perfect environment for healthy yeast growth.

The only problem is we're going to wait until the aeration system gets here to start our next batch, so we won't brew again until next weekend. That's kind of a bummer, but I think the wait will be worth it.

In the meantime, the nut brown ale should be ready to try tomorrow. Okay, technically we're supposed to wait another week (the beer has only been in the bottle for a week, and the "rule" is that it should bottle-condition for two weeks before you try it), but I'm too impatient to wait that long. I'll report back once we've cracked open one of these and let you know whether my haste was, well, too hasty.

I also have a new plan/promise for our next beer. I'm going to document the brewing process all the way through. With photos. And labels.

For those of you who haven't seen this business in action, I thought it might be fun to show what this whole process looks like.

Or, it could just be funny. Because I haven't really thought through the acrobatics of this yet....taking pictures with one hand while stirring/straining/measuring/pouring/etc. with the other. But we'll figure it out. Between us, we've got many years of advanced education, which hopefully will equate to a certain level of manual dexterity.

Because I'm positive that's how that works, right?

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