The First Post

Here we go:
So, I decided to start writing down in a more public forum, all the activities of the 3 Dog Brewery. I know, another useless blog, right? I hope I don't bore you to tears. I hope you'll stick with me for a bit, while I try and figure out how to best utilize this format.

What for?:
Unless you've been to my house, you really have no idea the volume of notes I take for a given beverage. Wines tend to require a lot less information because all I know how to do is follow the instructions of a kit and maybe improvise some. With my mead and beer, I have gotten very creative and tend to take a lot more notes since, on the off chance one of my creative inspirations actually turns out worth making a second time. If this sounds strange, let me tell you that I'm still trying (unsuccessfully) to repeat the London style porter I made in 2006.

Where's the beef:
Today I made a lot of progress in some areas and neglected others. I racked the Old Ale I made in November from the oak barrel to the bottling bucket and bottles two cases of 12oz bottles. I dumped the trub out of the barrel and racked the Christmas Ale into the barrel. This is my first oak barrel and I've been trying to keep it full since I got it. It had Baby Blue Whiskey in it and was emptied only days before I got it from UPS. The last thing I did was to rack the lemon/ginger Metheglin (a spiced mead) from a 5 gallon bottle and a 1 gallon bottle back together into a 6 gallon bottle. I made this in November '09 and it has been fermenting until now. The fermentation stalled in December, I believe due to the low pH from the lemon juice. To remedy this, I mixed a half cup of baking soda into the bottle in January.

The one thing I forgot was my high school chemistry. When you mix baking soda into something very acidic it unleashes a large quantity of CO2. Add this to the CO2 present from fermentation that was looking for a way to escape the solution and my mead exploded out the top of the bottle like dumping mentos into diet coke.

What I've neglected:
I need to finish my keezer collar. Which is essentially a wood collar that fits between the lid and the body of a chest freezer to allow my CO2 lines entry without making a hole in my chest freezer. I also need to figure out why my Auber PID controller won't read the temperature from the new platinum RTD sensor I purchased. It keeps giving me "EEEE" on the display.

That's all for now, my kid wants to play Mario Bros. on the Wii.