Las Vegas and Kegging Homebrew

Hello All. Sorry for the delay in posting lately, but spent the last 2 weeks in the Nevada desert doing a project for work. I was out at Nevada Test Site, the place where the govt decided it would be a good idea to test a bunch of nuclear weapons back in the 40's & 50's. Trust me, if you're a rad geek like me, there's no shortage of things to work on out there. Don't feel too sorry for me, as I did get in some Vegas party time. No gambling (not really my style), but saw some sights, drank some beers, and had some really great food. It's looking like I'll have to spend more time out there this summer, so perhaps I'll do some gambling then. Here's the view from my hotel the first week. Not bad for a camera phone...

The latest batch of homebrew was started before I left for Vegas, but didn't get done until I returned. The batch is an extract kit from Northern Brewer based on a Fat Tire clone recipe. It's not all that close to the original, but it's still really good. This is my second time brewing it, but the first time kegging. More on that later... The Yellow Jacket Amber name came about when I noticed that a yellow hjacket landed in the brew kettle during the boil. Poor sucker didn't know what hit him, but since he didn't drink much and I've got the Ga Tech connection, the name just stuck.

Since my last brewing post, I've got some upgrades. Mainly, I'm doing full wort boils now (thanks to a honkin' turkey fryer burner). This allows Russ & I to do most of it outside, which makes Beth happy since I no longer occupy the kitchen while brewing. :-)

The shop now doubles as a brewhouse, as seen by the workbench being occupied by a fermenting carboy. The blue thing is my temperature controller, which I have in line with a heater that's wrapped around the carboy to make sure I keep a nice & even fermentation temperature throughout. I'm learning that temperature control is one of the keys elements in going from making so-so beer to really good beer. That, and making yeast starters, which I'm doing now too :-)

And after about two weeks, we racked the beer into one of my newly purchased 5-gal Corny kegs. These are actually used Pepsi soda kegs that are cleaned, filled and pressurized with CO2. These things are cheap and readily available these days since soda distributors don't really use them anymore. And let me tell ya...I've seen the light! I may never bottle a batch ever again. Having to clean only 1 container instead of 40 is a blessing I can hardlt describe. Plus, it's just too damned cool to be able to pour DRAFT beer at home! DRAFT BEER! All it took was removing a shelf from the beer fridge to fit the keg and CO2 bottle. I've got room for 2 kegs in there at a time and have already begun the thought process of installing faucets in the front door. Yeah, Baby!

The next batch is going to be a hopped-up version of the same recipe to make it more of an American Style Amber. I hope to have it in the fermenter by mid-June.

Refurbishing Old Tools

I bought an old Stanley #80 cabinet scraper off E-Bay a few weeks back. These tools are really great for fine-tuning and preparing surfaces for finish. The one I bought wasn't in great shape, but it was cheap ($20) and with a little work can be back in fine working order. Here's a photo of the one I bought.

The photo isn't a really great one, but you can see the surface rust and lack of japanning (paint). Most of the rust was on the underside (out of view in photo). It will work as-is, provided it has a good burr on the blade, but thought it would be fun to try to bring it back as far as I can. This link shows one in mint condition (go to the middle of the page). I'm not planning to go crazy with the restoration, but it should look good when done.

Step 1 is rust removal. I've been reading about electrolysis for some time and finally had a project to try it out on. After picking up a few supplies at the hardware & grocery stores, it only took me ~30 minutes to get my rig up & running. Here's what it looked like.

The bucket had dissolved washing soda in it and the leads from the battery charger were hooked up like the instructions said. It only took ~30 seconds to see bubbles rising from the electrodes. Very cool indeed. The first photo below is what it looked like after 30 minutes. BTW, the scraper is hanging from a wire in the center of the bucket (attached to the negative (black) lead).

And overnight...
And here's the intermediate results after some brief cleanup with a wire brush on a dremel tool. All of the deep pitted rust is gone and the cast iron has a bit of a sheen again. It could use a bit more work before I attempt to apply paint, but it should be finished in no time. I'm looking forward to the Stormville Flea Market again on Memorial Day weekend. I'm no longer afraid of buying ugly, abused, rust covered tools.