Other Hobbies / Interests

Post off topic or stuff that otherwise dosen't fit into a specific category here.
User avatar
Geoff
Team Turbo Troll Crew
Posts: 3888
Joined: Fri Oct 20, 2006 3:31 pm
Nickname: Geoff
Number of Saabs currently owned: 6
Location: Nude Humpshire

Re: Other Hobbies / Interests

Postby Geoff » Fri Aug 23, 2013 3:42 pm

Wow, I want to ride one of those swing bikes just for giggles.
The kind of dirty that doesn't wash off :eyebrows:

User avatar
SwedeSport
Posts: 3021
Joined: Mon Jun 15, 2009 9:52 am
Number of Saabs currently owned: 5
Location: Pottstown, PA
Contact:

Re: Other Hobbies / Interests

Postby SwedeSport » Fri Aug 23, 2013 4:06 pm

Geoff wrote:Wow, I want to ride one of those swing bikes just for giggles.



Even better,... it might leave you in stitches...
Swedesport Motors, Apparel and Accessories for SAAB Junkies.
Http://Facebook.com/swedesportmotors
Swedesportmotors@gmail.com

User avatar
Crazyswede
Team Turbo Troll Crew
Posts: 4539
Joined: Fri Sep 22, 2006 3:53 pm
Nickname: Mongo
Number of Saabs currently owned: 97
Location: Vermont
Contact:

Re: Other Hobbies / Interests

Postby Crazyswede » Fri Aug 23, 2013 9:49 pm

SwedeSport wrote:
Geoff wrote:Wow, I want to ride one of those swing bikes just for giggles.



Even better,... it might leave you in stitches...


Don't forget to tip your waitress
I am the 73%

hutch
Posts: 828
Joined: Fri Apr 20, 2007 11:49 pm
Number of Saabs currently owned: 2
Location: Lancaster, PA

Re: Other Hobbies / Interests

Postby hutch » Sat Aug 24, 2013 9:38 pm

*Moonshiners Alert*

Glad you bumped this thread, been meaning to share this with you all.

This is Brewery 2.0, I had wanted to go 220v electricity for a variety of reasons but decided to stick with propane for a bit, luckily if I do upgrade in the future I can keep all this hardware. I've slowly learned to do it once, do it right so I didn't want to have to redo everything if I want to change in the future. Anyway, this is called a HERMS system, meaning you have a big heat exchanger that you pump all the water through to control the temperature of the grains as you extract sugar from them. If you remember biology class you remember that most enzymes work in certain temperature ranges so you have some control over what sort of sugar chains you want to suit the beer style. Forgive me as most people don't care about where beer comes from but in short, lower temp=drier beer and higher=sweeter beer, it can be difficult to supply heat to the grains without scorching them so this is a nice way to accomplish this.

This is all the hardware together just for show, this was the result of saving up and slowly buying pieces for about a year and a half (I work in a homebrew store so I get some good deals on things). Classy granite table from Target :lol:
Image

This is where the coil sits, in retrospect I wish I had a larger coil to get better heat transfer, and is directly fired with propane to control the temperature of the water that the grains are in is pumped through the coil. Everything the beer touches is 304 SS and I use what are called tri clover connections that are commonly used in the food industry and commercial breweries because its easy to clean and connect throughout the process. 'Wort' (unfermented beer) on left side through coil, right side is hot water so you evenly distribute heat.
Image

Return from the coil that supplies the water to the grain used to create the fermentable sugars
Image

'Sweet Wort' draining into the boil kettle where the hops will be added, screen is to filter hops etc. when it goes into the fermenter where the magic happens
Image

Speaking of hops, I grew my own :rock on:
Image

User avatar
SwedeSport
Posts: 3021
Joined: Mon Jun 15, 2009 9:52 am
Number of Saabs currently owned: 5
Location: Pottstown, PA
Contact:

Re: Other Hobbies / Interests

Postby SwedeSport » Sun Aug 25, 2013 8:00 am

Nice work.

If I ever get out to your place, I hope to sample your beer.
Swedesport Motors, Apparel and Accessories for SAAB Junkies.
Http://Facebook.com/swedesportmotors
Swedesportmotors@gmail.com

User avatar
Jordan
Site Admin
Posts: 4068
Joined: Fri Oct 13, 2006 2:38 pm
Number of Saabs currently owned: 6
Location: Vernon, CT
Contact:

Re: Other Hobbies / Interests

Postby Jordan » Sun Aug 25, 2013 10:32 am

SwedeSport wrote:Nice work.

If I ever get out to your place, I hope to sample your beer.


It is REALLY good.

User avatar
Edward
Posts: 131
Joined: Fri Aug 06, 2010 5:52 pm
Number of Saabs currently owned: 20

Re: Other Hobbies / Interests

Postby Edward » Fri Aug 30, 2013 4:06 pm

That is a phenomenal setup you have there Hutch. My father wants to brew his own beer after he retires. If you don't mind me asking, what does a home brew kit of that size cost?
I'm a huge craft beer fan, and usually keep a nice array in the fridge.

hutch
Posts: 828
Joined: Fri Apr 20, 2007 11:49 pm
Number of Saabs currently owned: 2
Location: Lancaster, PA

Re: Other Hobbies / Interests

Postby hutch » Fri Aug 30, 2013 6:38 pm

That setup would be a lot of money at full retail, way more than what is needed for a beginner. It's not a great analogy but that equipment is a lot like Bose or BMW stuff where it's good quality but it comes at a price. If you're looking to get into the hobby it usually runs about $200 for the basic equipment and another $40-50 for ingredients for each batch. That can be a lot lower depending on if you have a big kettle to boil all the water in, or have a big turkey fryer you can run on propane. That gets you 5 gallons or about 52 beers. So you end up with good beer at the price of cheap beer. However like a lot of hobbies and as evidenced by all my crap up there you usually end up buying more stuff so certainly don't expect to save money on beer, it's more for a fun hobby and total control over what ends up in your beer.

If you're looking to get into it google How To Brew or The Complete Joy of Homebrewing for great books on how to get started. Maybe I'm being confused but I thought you were from the Texas area, if so check out austinhomebrew.com for some ideas on prices. There's probably a local retail store close to you could go into and talk to people and probably even attend a beginners class for free.

If you or anyone is interested I'm going to be doing a clone of the Chimay Dubbel I can do a step by step when I do.

hutch
Posts: 828
Joined: Fri Apr 20, 2007 11:49 pm
Number of Saabs currently owned: 2
Location: Lancaster, PA

Re: Other Hobbies / Interests

Postby hutch » Mon Sep 02, 2013 7:29 pm

Alright as promised, this should give you a rough idea of how to make beer. Note this is whats called All-Grain brewing where you use nothing but grains like the commercial breweries do, most people start of doing extract brewing where a large portion of the process is condensed down into a concentrate that is added later in the process. With that out of the way...

Yeast
Yeast is the lifeblood of beer, it turns sugary bread water into a delicious fermented beverage. Yeast is responsible for the vast varieties of beer out there, from cold fermented German lagers to warm fermented English Ales all of the distinct flavors come from the different varieties of yeast and the flavors each produces. I am going to be making a Chimay Dubbel, for those who don't know this is a pretty famous beer from Belgian. Belgian yeasts are very closely related to French wine yeast which often results in a fruity beer and can also be fermented at a pretty high temperature to create these flavors. Luckily you can harvest the yeast out of commercial bottles so about a week ago I started to build this up. If you ever have a beer that has weird stuff floating around at the bottom its probably yeast and its perfectly harmless, its actually full of Vitamin B, and can be fed an unfermented batch of sugary beer and grow. This is on a stir plate to keep the yeast in suspension and active.
Image

Saccharification
This is from the last batch I did but its the same idea, you are resting the grains at a specific temperature to extract sugars. You can see the thermometer has markings on it to tell you what sort of beer you will get, dry/medium/sweet. I was shooting for a pretty dry beer so I aimed for about 150 or so. Also shown is the filter for the grains that keeps the grain in place but allows water to pass through to both heat the grains and extract the sugars. If you're doing extract brewing this step is done for you and you get a can of syrup that is this stuff concentrated down to a syrup, think Easy Mac.
Image
Image
Image

Sparging
Sparging is the fancy German word for rinsing the grains of the sugar that was exracted. The kettle that has the coil in it has the dual purpose of being used for this process, the water is pumped out and through the the coil and ontop of the grains. The water on the grains is drained and sent to the final kettle where it is boiled. I use a binder clip to mark where the water level is and adjust the rate of the water and 'wort' pumps so it stays about the same. I also marked the lines so I would know what went where, I wasn't expecting the painters tape to hold up but knock on wood its been just fine.
Image
Image
Image
Image

Boil
This is the easiest part, you boil the water to sanitize it and release the oils from the hops that are used. This is usually done for 60 minutes, where Dogfish gets its 60 Minute IPA from, sometimes up to 90 minutes for certain beers.
Image

Cooling
After you are done boiling you want to cool it down to about 70 degrees or so, this is basically a radiator that pipes the hot wort in one end and cold tap water the other direction. This took about 10 minutes today because the tap water was about 75 but in the winter it can be as short as 5 minutes to get to proper temp.
Image

Fermenting
Add the yeast that you built up earlier and add it to the fermenter and let the magic happen. This will take about 2 weeks for the yeast to eat all the sugar. This particular batch will probably age another two months after that point to mellow out. The tube coming out is an airlock that allows Co2 to leave but keeps air out.
Image

Success
After a long day of standing next to propane burners and dealing with chemicals enjoy some inspiration
Image


:beer:

hutch
Posts: 828
Joined: Fri Apr 20, 2007 11:49 pm
Number of Saabs currently owned: 2
Location: Lancaster, PA

Re: Other Hobbies / Interests

Postby hutch » Fri Oct 04, 2013 6:27 pm

Alright another homebrew post to bore you guys :lol:

Its Fall, which means its pumpkin time. I don't usually like most pumpkin beers as they are very sweet and taste way too artificial to me but a lot of people like them so I made a batch to take into work to give to customers for samples.

Fresh butternut squatch (you don't use jack-o-lantern pumpkins as they have little to no taste and are bred largely for appearance). You have to cook these a little bit to not only soften them up but to give them a little extra taste, I put a little brown sugar and honey on these to up the caramelization for a little more taste.
Image

After they baked in the oven at 350 for an hour or so, you can see I did two trays, one went into the mash with the rest of the grains and the other smaller one went directly into the boil to give it a bit more depth of flavor:
Image

This is a basic amber/red ale as you don't want to complicate things much and want the pumpkin to come through. And for better or worse when people see an orange colored beer their mind thinks it tastes more like pumpkins.
Image
Image

Pumpkins in mash tun, very little fermentable sugars are made here you just want to get the flavor. Pumpkins can make a real sticky mess in there so I like to keep the pieces pretty big so they don't clog things up and make for a bad time.
Image

User avatar
Geoff
Team Turbo Troll Crew
Posts: 3888
Joined: Fri Oct 20, 2006 3:31 pm
Nickname: Geoff
Number of Saabs currently owned: 6
Location: Nude Humpshire

Re: Other Hobbies / Interests

Postby Geoff » Mon Oct 07, 2013 1:05 pm

I don't really like beer all too much but when I do have it I tend towards the sweeter stuff. I've tried a few pumpkin beers and wasn't really impressed. Some of my friends go nuts for the Shipyard Pumpkinhead. :barf:

There's a place up here that puts a small amount of (real NH) maple syrup in a few of their brews. One is a porter and the other is a wheat, both of which I think are decent (as far as beer is concerned).
The kind of dirty that doesn't wash off :eyebrows:

User avatar
RadioFlyer
Posts: 918
Joined: Wed Oct 05, 2011 11:08 am
Nickname: RadioFlyer
Number of Saabs currently owned: 7
Location: Utah

Re: Other Hobbies / Interests

Postby RadioFlyer » Wed Oct 16, 2013 12:05 pm

Here's one I can't seem to shake... Cedar strip boat building. Been collecting parts for another one for wifey here soon, and then when Ben gets older, have him build a mini for himself.

Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image

User avatar
Crazyswede
Team Turbo Troll Crew
Posts: 4539
Joined: Fri Sep 22, 2006 3:53 pm
Nickname: Mongo
Number of Saabs currently owned: 97
Location: Vermont
Contact:

Re: Other Hobbies / Interests

Postby Crazyswede » Wed Oct 16, 2013 1:21 pm

Nice. I have on again off again thoughts about building a sea kayak...probably just go with a CLC boat if I did.
I am the 73%

User avatar
SwedeSport
Posts: 3021
Joined: Mon Jun 15, 2009 9:52 am
Number of Saabs currently owned: 5
Location: Pottstown, PA
Contact:

Re: Other Hobbies / Interests

Postby SwedeSport » Wed Oct 16, 2013 1:43 pm

Now that is a cool hobby. I had looked into building a sailboat from scratch. Ended up just buying an old fiberglass boat and fixing it up.

I hear you can get decent money for a quality built strip canoe... but it looks like there is a ton of work to make it happen.
Swedesport Motors, Apparel and Accessories for SAAB Junkies.
Http://Facebook.com/swedesportmotors
Swedesportmotors@gmail.com

User avatar
RadioFlyer
Posts: 918
Joined: Wed Oct 05, 2011 11:08 am
Nickname: RadioFlyer
Number of Saabs currently owned: 7
Location: Utah

Re: Other Hobbies / Interests

Postby RadioFlyer » Wed Oct 16, 2013 9:56 pm

My dad started out building CLC boats. I used the same plans but modified the design to turn quicker and to work with a rudder so I could use it on rivers. Also fitted the cockpit with a seat and braces from a whitewater boat so it could eskimo roll. Worked great!! It was a ton of work, but totally worth it if you're planning to keep it for yourself. Probably not worth making to sel unless it's on commission.


Return to “Random Thoughts”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests