Category: homebrewing

  • low voltage

    The beer-making machine I’ve been steadily putting together for the past four weeks needs a lot of wire for its guts. The instructions tell me I need wire in three different sizes but don’t say how much, so I have to guess, and guessing means I have to keep going back to the hardware store Read.

  • mounted panel

    All it’s waiting for is thirty amps of scalding electric current! I got the control panel all but finished this weekend. All the important wiring is done – I ran out of 14 gauge wire before I got a couple of the lights hooked up, but it’ll work without them – and I even managed Read.

  • wiry

    I’ve spent the afternoon wiring the control panel that I will someday plug my electric beer-brewing kettles into, if and when I ever complete it. The wiring’s not complicated – if it were, I would have given up before I started and gone back to extract brewing, boiling beer in my garage the way I’ve Read.

  • this makes beer

    This machine makes beer. I was up way past my bed time working on it last night. I was so absolutely bushed after finishing up that, when I finally came upstairs, I took each of the cats aside and explained to them that anybody who woke me up before five o’clock in the morning was Read.

  • control panel

    , ,

    Spent the evening playing doll house with a handful of electric switches and LEDs. This will be the control panel for my electric brewing setup. It’s just about time to start cutting holes, I think. Read.

  • electric brewery

    Before I tell you what I’ve been doing with wire and a sharp knife, here’s a disclaimer that I like to share as often as possible: Always cut away from you. You will not take this advice, of course. I don’t know anybody who ever did. I never did. I used my sharp knives any Read.

  • blinky lights

    , ,

    I got a call this morning from the fraud detection unit at my friendly neighborhood bank. “We detected some unusual activity on your debit card,” the agent on the other end of the line explained to me. “Did you place an order for a pile of electronic parts and blinky lights, and pay way too Read.

  • clean-up

    , ,

    Spent the afternoon cleaning up the space under the basement stairs where I’d been storing a whole bunch of flat cast-off wooden paneling, gypsum board and backer board against the eventuality that I might find a use for it someday. Well, guess what? I’ve been hauling that crap around for ages and I’ve never touched Read.

  • movin on up

    I bought it. It’s mine. I took that hot liquor tank off his hands. This is it, the gateway to grain brewing. When I got started brewing beer I didn’t think I’d ever be interested in brewing from scratch, but after reading up on it all week long I have to admit it sounds very Read.

  • electric brewing

    I think I have to buy this. It’s a hot liquor tank, it’s used for brewing beer and – this is what really blows my mind – it’s electric, which would give me the amazing super-power of being able to brew beer in my basement where the rest of my brewing equipment is, instead of Read.

photo of the author and the author's best friend