Kevin’s Blog » Home brewing
I sucessfully installed the copper cover on my kegerator today. Looks very cool, and the look will only get better as the copper ages. Basically I bought a roll of copper flashing (8″ wide x 20′ long roll) at Home Depot for about $12. I trimmed the edges of each strip using a metal straightedge, and then attached them to the plywood kegerator top using double-sided carpet tape. With the copper folded carefully around the edges of the top it looks dead sexy.
Check it out:
I built my kegerator using a Sanyo 4910M mini-fridge. This model is perfect for
adding a draft tower to since it does not have a freezer compartment, and is sized perfectly to fit two 5 gallon cornelius (soda) kegs. I used these instructions and Chad Dickerson’s excellent photo how-to guide.
I decided to make my conversion a little more involved than just drilling a hole
and installing a tower. I replaced the plastic top that comes with the fridge
with a 2′x2′ piece of 1/2″ plywood. I’m going to use copper flashing (used for
valley areas in roofing) to cover the plywood, hopefully making a nice looking small bar top. Later on when I add a larger bar the fridge will already have a nice looking top and I won’t need to change that. As the copper ages it will look very cool. Anyhow, on to the pictures:
Chad Dickerson, a fellow home brewer, and InfoWorld’s CTO, has started a new weblog all about home brewing.
I’m going to be contributing as well, so check it out: http://www.homebrewblog.com or grab the RSS feed: 
.
Cool!
Archaeologists working in southern Peru found an ancient brewery more than 1,000 years old. Remains of the brewing facility were uncovered on Cerro Baúl, a mountaintop city over 8,000 feet above sea level, which was home to elite members of the Wari Empire from AD 600-1000. Predating the Inca Empire… [Science Blog]
While looking for the appropriate carbonation level for the Bock I kegged this evening, I found this site: www.tastybrew.com. They have an excellent Carbonation Calculator as well as a number of other useful homebrewing calculators.
Their Forum and Recipes look like a very good resource as well. I’m adding them to my homebrewing research toolbox, along with www.northernbrewer.com, www.morebeer.com, and www.homebrew.com.
Well, that was a MUCH more fun and easy experience than washing and sanitizing 2 cases of bottles then filling them.
My Kegging System from Beer Beer and More Beer arrived yesterday. I went and got the CO2 tank filled at a local welding supply shop, and kegged it this evening.
This is the batch of American Bock that I started back on May 5th. It fermented for a few weeks and has been lagering in the fridge since then. Should be ready for tasting by Sunday.
Next project: Add a draft tower to the kegerator. Something like this:
Well, I’m getting ready to keg my first batch of homebrew. After bottling my first 5 batches, I can’t wait to keg it and avoid washing all those darn bottles.
The next question then becomes… once it’s kegged how do I know when I’m running low? This site provides the answer. Just weigh the keg and use this simple chart to estimate how much brew is remaining.
An empty Cornelius keg (soda keg) weighs about 11 lbs. When filled with 5 gallons of beer it weighs about 53 lbs.
Cooked up a batch of American Bock and it’s in the fermentor now. I’m shooting for something Shiner Bock-ish in character.
Last brew was an Irish Red (O’Mathis) that turned out well. A bit strong, somewhere between Red and Stout, but very tasty.
Billygoat American Bock:
7lb Pale 2-Row (Cargill)
1lb Crystal 120 (Crisp)
Liberty hops (Bittering)
Willamette hops (Finishing)
Whitelabs Pilsen Lager liquid yeast
Mmmm… bock….