ALERAISERS

Here are the photo’s from Home Brew Day 2010, and our brewery’s first run.  Thanks again to all who came!  You can also see the remainder of the build photos in the gallery.  For all of those interested, please check back for documentation.  We are now beginning the process of writing down steps, hints, tricks, things to remember that will help anyone interested in repeating our process.  We will give special detail to deviations from the original plan, and discuss alternative methods we discovered along the way.  Id like to especially thank Mr. Robert Haskell who wrote the original plans and shared that information with the world, and who took the time to send us photos during the process to help with some questions we had.

PROST!

We’ve been so swamped trying to get the brewery done before homebrew day, that we have been very vigilent about photographing every step of the process.  Here are a few cell phone pics I took after what I thought was the end of working on the kettles.  We are since done with most of the plumbing, Ive installed the solenoid, that I hope is going to regulate the temp of the HLT, and a pilot, that I hope is going to keep us from blowing up.  As for the final photos you’ll have to wait until after this upcoming weekend.

Alrighty….as of last night Step 2 w/ modifications is complete. We have installed and tested all of our gas lines, valves, and after much deliberation, arm-wrestling, and heated discussion(pun intended) we tested the 210,000 BTU BURNERS in Hops’ Basement. Next, is heat shielding, and after testing the burners….thats gonna be important. Below is the Gallery Slide Show of the step 2 process photos…you can browse them manually by visiting the Gallery on the upper right of the page.

So….parts are starting to rolling in and we officially have two of the grandaddies of all burners….

Also got this cute little beast….

THE THERMINATOR

Update:  Save the waterproofing, Step 1 is offically completed!  We only had to deviate from the plans once at the end in order to mount up our wheels.  Overall we are extermley pleased with the stability and overall ‘beefy-ness’ of the cart.  Our block additions on the bottom for wheel mounts increased the height to just about chin level.  Any higher and you would probably need a stool to peek inside the pots…

Anyway, we also have an official Gallery page.  You can find it in the upper-right hand corner above the picture of High Gravity and me as youngins’ …

It has begun and the brewery is beginning to take shape!  It isn’t as big as I thought it was going to be… which is nice.  We have also been working on the gallery.  Stay tuned for a dedicated page documenting the build process… As always, the newest results will be here!

So it has begun…

(more…)

Unemployeed

Now that more and more of my friends are unemployed they have finally decided to get into home brewing… All I can say is it’s about damn time.  It did make me start thinking about why…

There are two major benefits of this for the unemployed: 1 – Something to do; 2 – Save money;

First, lets face it.  If you don’t have to get up in the morning and go to work then you will very quickly become a lazy bastard (yes, more so.. it’s possible).  What better way to fill your time than by making the nectar of men?

Second, if you don’t have a job then you need to be watching your greenbacks.  However, don’t be fooled.  Brewing yourself (in a small scale) will only save you money if you normally buy “good” beer.  You have to compare apples to apples.  Your home brew IPA will be much cheaper than the store bought variety, but the lonely home brewer just cannot compete with King Budweiser.

Happy Brewing…

(go get a job)

You have now entered our little corner of the INTERNET.  We glad you made it, because its hard to find…near the back, close to the unmentionables.  This is our virgin(thats sure to return some good Google hits) voyage into the great-big “blogosphere,”  so be gentle.  We’ll cover topics from politics, to firearms, to tech gadgets, to homebrewing, or whatever the sun shines(or doesnt shine) on.  Our plan is to have no plan; simply speak our minds about whatever hits us at that moment in time.  Please come back often to check out whats new, as we hope to keep our blog as dynamic as possible.  We are in our infancy, so please deal with the mess as we get off the ground.