While the mad dash to go shopping amongst thousands of nut cases has never drawn me in, I do find it fascinating. Wake up at the crack of dawn, stand in line shoulder to shoulder with tons of people to save what you spend on Starbucks in a week? I digress. Set out to brew a darker style amber with the hops we had on hand. Brew day went as planned with the exception of over oxygenating the wort and over flowing the conical. Excited to see what some of the lesser known to me hops taste like. I scored about 20oz of free hops at the Homebrew shop a few weeks ago, mostly European but some common ones as well.
First casualty of the brew stand also occurred, the HLT prob cord got a little toasty and started malfunctioning. At $75 for a new probe I decided to cut off the melted section and perform a bit of surgery. It appears to be a standard USB with temp shielding. The plan is to place a female USB end up high and use a USB extension to make the run past the burner in the event it happens again. The cord is shielded, has a red and black and three sub shielded pairs carrying data. Utilizing a USB extension will also give the ability to make this cord run around the heat source and minimize the chance of future issues. I will perform the cord surgery this week and post a short video of the repair.
Other Brewery tasks completed:
- Juice Box NEIPA was Kegged and placed on tap.
- All Kegs cleaned, sanitized and purged
- Ordered a second Tilt Hydrometer. These are great and a good way to monitor fermentation from afar.
Anchor Christmas in large format was consumed, it was OK this year. Definitely was not my favorite year for it or my tastes are going away from spiced beers. Nonetheless it has become a tradition at this point so I will endure on.
Brew Stats for the Pale Ale (Euphoria Pale) brewed