Over the weekend we successfully brewed the first batch of Danger Shed beer! The blonde ale (named “8 Stitches” after John’s finger debacle) will be ready in a few weeks. Since the equipment hadn’t seen the light of day in nearly 8 months, brewing was not without it’s share of mishaps. Our mill got stuck and had to be disassembled and cleaned out, a pump had a melt-down, and a few small pieces of equipment were missing. But through all this we persevered!
John “Danger” Carter, and Philip (the mead master) caught on to beer brewing pretty quickly and the brew day seemed both chaotic and very easy with three people. Fortunately, the shed is roomy even with the equipment everywhere and three guys moving around constantly. Philip busted out a bottle of 6-month aged cranberry mead to celebrate the occasion. Incredible color and flavor. I’m not a big fan of sweet and this stuff had a great balance between sweetness and tart.
Maybe the most exciting part of the day for John and I was our first real life test of AleProof! I took some time the night before to compile a blank copy of the program (clearing out any test data I had, and giving it a “factory” setting) so that we could start from scratch. Philip did the hands-on set up (his first time seeing the software). He input each team member, built our system, and created the beer and batch. Once we got the wort in one of our two Ss Brewtech Brew Bucket fermenters, an original gravity and temp were taken and input into the program.
At day 2 of fermentation, we have three data points input into AleProof and the gravity curve is starting to take shape. Using the Batch Analysis tools, we can analyze the beer from the perspective of its style (Blonde Ale), and we can use the OG and the yeast metrics to estimate a final gravity range.
AleProof is not pretty to look at, and is a little clunky at the moment but that will change. Danger Shed gives us the ideal platform to test the software, brainstorm, de-bug, and develop it into an invaluable brewing tool. The more we brew, the more functionality becomes available on AleProof (such as yeast analysis and fermentation model building). So standby to see how cool this thing is!
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Brew Dangerously
During the brewing process do yall ever have down time that allows yall to relax and watch the Matrix Trilogy or old Magnum P I reruns? If not why not?
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Yep! The mash and boil each last about an hour, and there’s not much to do other than keep an eye on things. So maybe not the whole Matrix trilogy but at least the first movie!
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Glad you persevered! I’m proud of y’all!
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