Sunday, February 8, 2015

Home Repair: It always breaks on a Sunday

Isn't it always the way? You're relaxing on a Sunday afternoon when you discover a critical part of your home has broken and few stores are open and repair people charge triple. In this case, I heard water running when I was doing laundry. I thought I might have had a burst outdoor faucet. The shutoff for that is in my furnace room. Upon turning on the light, I see water all over the floor and my expansion tank hanging down instead of pointing up.


Fortunately, Home Depot was open and had exactly what I needed. This is what $33 will buy you:

It's a fairly simple fix. You spin off the now full 4.7 gallon steel tank. A couple wraps of teflon tape go around the threaded end of the tank. For good measure, I removed the elbow and put more tape on that part. It was a good idea because there was no tape on the threads which were engaged. The new tank spins on and then is adjusted for position. It took about 10 minutes plus another 20 to go to Home Depot. It's good to be handy. 

Thursday, February 5, 2015

Beer Brewing: Phase 1

I brewed beer once before, but most of the equipment belonged to a friend's father. Over the last 5 years or so, every so often, I've had the thought that I would like to do it again. The last time I did it was during the '90s home brewing era. There were about 2 dozen dedicated stores within a 40 minute drive of my house. Now, there are a couple small places 40+ minutes away with limited stock.

Fortunately, my father-in-law has the equipment and got me an extract kit for Christmas. Otherwise, I would still be considering and dragging my feet.

The instructions were great. You start by bringing some water up to 170°. You add the bag of grain and hold the water between 150° and 160° for 30 minutes. 
After that, you add the 2 cans of extract, the package of malt and the bag of hops. You bring it to a boil and hold it there for an hour. 
The final part of phase 1 is adding the mix to the fermentation vessel (aka, a food grade bucket). You add a couple gallons of cold water, dump in the mix and the add enough water to bring it to about 5.5 gallons. A quick trip outside into the snow brought the temperature down to 75 degrees. At that point, I added the yeast, and closed the lid for a couple weeks.