Here are some pics from my brew day yesterday at Thirsty Bear brewery in San Francisco.
The day went well. no major mishaps apart from a few grazed knuckles while stirring the mash.
The 8 barrels that will contain the brew in a couple weeks are on the right. the two fermenters in back are 30 bbl for the flagship brews, the two on the left are two of the 4 15 bbl fermenters.
This is the fermenter that now contains the base beer for bugs and cherries.
Me and Talula, the events coordinator at 7 Bridges in front of the barrels.
A very artsy shot of us exploring the bright tanks
Rice hulls and acid malt (I know, I always question acid malt, but it’s what they use instead of 88% lactic so I’m fine with that)
I think I’m having fun
A shot of the whole fermentation area from atop the brewhouse platform
this is either the beginning of the sparge or the beginning of mashing in.
Mashing in
right about here is where the skinned knuckles happened
There go the rice hulls
Talula feeding the mill
mashing in again, this time you can see that when you are atop the brewhouse platform you are in the middle of the dining room.
recirc
Sight glass on the recirc
Brewmaster Brenden making sure the pump doesn’t get away. (and rinsing the fermenter after it’s acid wash)
Making sure it’s clean (Are you looking at my bum? cheeky bum lookers)
just hangin out
Grain out
Hops in
Clearing the gunky yeast before transferring from a finished brew directly to the clean fermenter. We actually just pressurized the fermenter beside the new one and pushed yeast from the dump valve into the dump valve of the new fermenter.
Post brew tasting. The labelless anchor bottle in the background was mine. when we tasted it the owner suggested Brendan grab a bottle of their cherry sour to compare. they were surprisingly similar. Theirs had tart cherries instead of sweet and you could taste the difference. Theirs was also aged in the barrels and mine was not oaked. I could taste that as well. Just a note of vanilla that wasn’t there in mine.
