I run BLC through my kegerator taps twice a year, so I just finished doing that. Also, cleaning kegs, changing O-rings, ie., fun s@#t. Gonna keg an Alt and Dubbel tomorrow. Beautiful thing 
Way to be productive, I keep putting my Beer related work off… Congradulations on the two additions, and report back on the turnout of the Altbier if you would. I dont believe I have had one but recently read up on it and I"m curious about this Deutsch Ale.
I made my first melomel today. 15 lbs of Orange Blossom Honey and 15 lbs of mixed fruit (dark cherries, sour cherries, blueberries, rasberries, and strawberries).
Man, that sounds really good.
I was really inspired after drinking some of Ken Schram’s meads at NHC this year. He also gave a great seminar that really got me thinking. I hope it turns out good because I dumped a lot of money into this batch.
The great thing about mead is that as long as you handle your fermentation well (SNA, cap management, ferm temp control, etc), you have a lot of room to adjust post-fermentation to tweak it to your liking.
I brewed a slightly modified recipe of my Lights Out Black IPA… Basically just added more hops. I had an ounce and a half of chinook left over so I added a half ounce of each to 10 min, 0 min, and dry hop additions. 18.5 ounces of hops that include chinook, Columbus, Simcoe, centennial and galaxy.
I also kegged a cherry stout. Homegrown IPA and pumpkin beers are still fermenting.
I tapped my kellerpils last night. It’s awesome. I’m so happy with it. It’s more hop forward than the typical pilsner but it’s not quite an IPL.
Out of curiosity, what type of Pils were you shooting for - German or Bo Pils? What was your water like?
Cool. I have an IPL that went a bit overboard on the bittering side - still drinkable, but not up to my liking - think I’ll call it “A Bitter Pilz”
A BoPils. I used the Pilsen water profile in Bru’n Water but acidified the mash down to 5.2.
I’ve found I get better results by using a color/flavor profile than a city profile. If you’ve been following Martin’s series in Zymurgy, he makes it clear that the city water profile is often adjusted by the brewery.
I almost always take the same approach. The only reason I used a city profile in this case was the yellow profiles were not as soft as what I wanted for this beer.
I kegged a helles and an IPA on Friday. Brewed the BCS oktoberfest on Saturday morning. It was the first boil I had done outside in over 3 years. I’ve really missed that, it was a great time. Carrying the kettle back inside to chill was a b*tch though, super heavy! I think I had almost 7 gallons of wort after the boil. I was shooting for 6. Whoops! Oh well.
Oh, and I also acquired a home RO system from a friend, so I brew my oktoberfest with that. Hope it turns out. The water tasted filtered, so I guess we’ll see. I should probably get a TDS meter to check it. The filters are kinda pricey though…
Quite the “beer weekend.”
Friday night was “keg emptying night.” Hosted a back to school/end of summer party at my house… woke up to 7 empty kegs on Saturday morning :o
In fairness, 3 of them (Dortmunder, IPA, Citra APA) were down to 1-2 gallons. But, the other 4 (ordinary bitter, Dark Mild, A. Wheat and a really light APA) were brewed specifically for the party and were all 4-5 gallons full. Definitely some serious “Qaulity Control” going on. Lots of fun though, and always enjoyable to have BMC and Wine drinkers find that they actually really like “homebrew” or “Dark Beer.”
Sunday - Kegged an IPA, Dry Hopped an Amber, and Brewed an Oktoberfest… well, more like a Novemberfest now.
On Deck… cleaning a boatload of kegs. And, thank god I have 4 beers in fermenters, because I only have one keg with drinkable beer in it right now!