Bottling Day

30 Apr 2010
Beer has been in the fermentation carboys for 15 days. Time to put them into the bottles.

Bottle tree. It is used to wash and sanitize the bottles.

Transfering the beer into the bottling bucket.

47 bottles of beer.

Transferring the beer into the bottling bucket.

Sharon putting the beer into the bottle and then putting a cap on.

Hops are Popping Up

26 Apr 2010
My Hop rhizomes are starting to show signs of life.

This is the Centennial hops.

Macro view of the Centennial.

Cascade just poking out.

Macro View of Cascade.

Beer Transfer Day

22 Apr 2010
The Wort has been in the primary fermentation bucket for the last seven days. It is now beer. Now it has to go into the glass carboy for another seven days.

All set up and ready to transfer the beer into the secondary fermentation (glass) carboy.

Went and got a wall paper tray. The auto siphon fits perfect in the tray for sanitizing.

Opened the primary fermentation bucket and looks like the yeast did a good job.

Siphon is going. Glass carboy is filling with five gallons of beer.

Down to the end of the transfer. The yeast cake can now be seen.

Beer transferred. All that is left is yeast cake.

The beer is now in the glass carboy, it will stay in here for seven days. Two things are going on here. One is the final fermentation is happening and second is the clearing of the beer by letting the suspended partials to fall to the bottom. On the 29th I will transfer the beer into bottles.

Beer transferring from primary fermentation bucket to secondary fermentation carboy using auto siphon.

Planting some Hops.

20 Apr 2010
Planted some Hop Rhizomes today. Will see how they do in this warm climate.

Cascade Hops.

Centennial Hops.

And we wait.

Finding more Mines

18 Apr 2010
Spent the day to the South of HWY 91. Went into three mines.

Came across this mine. It was not on my GPS.

This mine had three different shafts. The deepest shaft went in about 175 feet.

One of the shafts. It went into the mountain about 300 ft.

"I'm not going any farther!"

Entrance to the Warrior Mine.

Waiting for the 3:10 to Yuma. Followed it about 600 ft and stopped. It kept going.

Quartz that was inside an open vein in the rock.

Bubbling in The Pot

16 Apr 2010
16 hours after putting the WORT into the primary fermentation bucket. The yeast is going crazy and doing their job. The yeast is eating the sugars and producing C02 and alcohol. The C02 is bubbling out of the airlock and the water in the airlock is keeping all the outside air out.

There are few types of yeast out there. This one was dry.

Added two ounces of warm water to wake it up.

It's Brew Day

15 Apr 2010
Tax Day
It's a good day to brew up five gallons of Flagstaff Honey Hefeweizen. Spent a couple of hours cleaning and getting all the equipment washed and sanitized.

Steeping the grains. Smells like bread and beer. Sharon does not approve.

And now there is WORT. It is going through the hot break. 60 more min to go.

Drinking a brew a taking in the aroma of cooking beer.

Full boil.

In the primary fermentation bucket. It will be in here for a week and then into a secondary fermentation carboy. After a week in the carboy it will be time for bottles.

Maken Some Gud Beer.

12 Apr 2010
I received my home-brew kit. Time to start my Iron Air Brew Company.

Got my brew system from Midwest Brew. Came today. Thanks Fed-X

Everything I need to brew my beer.

Going to start my first beer with an extract kit. Flagstaff Honey Wheat. This kit makes 5 gal.

Nottingham yeast. Little bugs to do our beer making bidding's.

This is the kit.

Specialty grains to steep with and is part of the wort.

This kit only comes with bittering hops. No flavoring hops.

Priming sugar to put into the bottling bucket. Natural C02.

Added Flagstaff honey. More sugar for the yeast to feast on.

50 bottle caps.

Extract.

The whole kit.
More to come.

West Mountain ATV Ride.

11 Apr 2010
Pulled out the ATV's and headed for West Mountain.

Was going to do this ride three weeks ago. I figured the snow on the west side would be gone. Wrong. There were some pretty good snow drifts on the road to the very top of West Mountain.
Our 350's just don't have the power dig through the deep snow.

Sharon at the top.

Drove down the mountain and headed south, crossed HWY 91 and found some mines.

Crawled up the mountain to the entrance of the Apex mine. Went inside about 50 yards and then it got too dark. Will be going back with a good flashlight and do some spelunking.

Looking down at our ATV's.