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Beer
So I'm not really a competition brewer. I say this for a couple reasons:
I do have some exceptions to this mentality though....
So I've been growing tired of my keg fridge lately. Don't get me wrong, it works fine and serves its purpose, but I've been getting the question "what's on tap" more often than I thought I should.
When I bought it, the fridge worked perfectly but was cosmetically in rough shape. Not a big deal I thought as I just put a couple coats of chalkboard paint on it, serving a couple purposes. One, it provided a canvas for my boys to draw on and two, it gave me space to write what's on tap.
Great idea in theory, but there were a couple problems. First of all my writing is atrocious. Seriously, can't read it. Second, the writing would fade over time from condensation and wear.
So after thinking about it for a bit, an idea came to me. My friends, while at the beach had a thought that the ocean safety warning signs would make cool beer names. I played with it in Photoshop a little and made some designs for the fun of it. They sat for a few weeks since I really didn't have a plan beyond the design.
Eventually I thought I could print them out, place them in a clear frame of some sort and stick them on the fridge. This led to the solution below:
1. Pick up some plastic card holders and print your sheets to fit. I used these 3x4 trading card holders since I felt I wouldn't have enough room for anything larger. In hindsight, I could have probably fit 4x5 holders in the space. One thing I found when sliding the sheets into the sleeve is that 3x4 is the size of the entire card including the bezel surrounding three sides. For now I just cut them down but tomorrow I'll actually print appropriately sized sheets.
2. Now how to mount them to the fridge. I looked all over Amazon for magnet tape but eventually settled on these business card sized magnets with adhesive on one side. They come 100 to a pack and can easily be cut to any size and I knew we would have dozens of uses for them around the house. One peel and stick later and the solution is complete.
3. Stick them above the appropriate taps!
It's a pretty simple solution. I like it cause it's easy to change out, especially if you have some regular beers in rotation. Next I need to work on the rest of the fridge cause I think it's starting to look a little ragged. Since I added a fourth tap, I need to replace the drip tray because it's only wide enough for three. Any thoughts on what to do next?
My coconut wheat has become a favorite around my bar and I knew I was running low so I decided to brew it again this weekend. This time, I'm trying something new with it though. I've always separated it into two 5gal fermenters, one with WLP300 and one with WLP320. I then blended them when kegging to get the profile I liked. This time, out of sheer laziness, I just pitched both into the same fermenter. Will see how it goes!
I despise bottling. Never liked it. Luckily it didn't turn me off of homebrewing but I knew after just two batches, I needed to get a kegging setup.
Why am I talking about this now? Well, it's competition season for me so I'm preparing entries for the Kona Homebrew Competition as well as the National Homebrewers Competition. That means I need to do some bottling.
I find the whole process tedious and a chore. Everything from cleaning the bottles to breaking out the beer gun is a pain.
I know I'm whining.
I know I need to just get over it.
Needed to vent somewhere.
My planned brew day ran into some snags when I couldn't get my ingredients in on time. So as not to waste an already scheduled brew session I scanned homebrewtalk.com for a recipe that sounded good, took advantage of ingredients I already had, and would be ready somewhat quickly. So I present Sudden Drop Off Irish Red:
