Thursday, May 6, 2010

Some (grainy cell phone) photos from my first week at Alameda

I've been taking some photos of things I've been doing at Alameda this week. I've been doing a lot of cellar work, preparing the weekly beer order to go out tomorrow. I kegged up a shitload of beer! (for a brewery of this size).
I set up to keg the beer outside, which is nicer than shuffling kegs in a narrow walk-in with serving tanks that also serves as the kitchen walk-in. That was Eric's idea and they have just been doing that for the couple months.
Here's a couple of shots of the fermenter room. There are 3 10 barrel fermenters and 6 grundies, which can hold 7 barrels but we just use them for single 5 barrel batches. We only have 1 tiny floor drain, so spilling stuff on the floor makes a mess! But all the essentials are there to make great beer.
After a day and a half of kegging and other projects, I had the tiny outdoor walk-in full for shipping out on Friday morning. I got a lot of practice lifting a keg on my own. Not easy, but there is a technique to it which involves squatting and lifting with your legs just enough to get the lip of the keg onto the top of the one it's stacked on.
Paul and I are doing a re-brew tomorrow of the Scottish 70 (actually Dale's Mild) that placed 3rd in category in the first round of NHC. We are going to try some different yeasts this time and enter whichever one turns out better. I have a slurry of Cali ale yeast going, and we are going to use Alameda's house yeast for the other batch which is Scottish ale yeast. I haven't brewed with it but I find it to be very clean on the esters and more malty than Cali yeast.

1 comment:

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