New Homebrewing System - Initial Run

After adding the new mash tun to my brewing equipment arsenal, I was finally ready to break it all in with a brewing session. I chose to brew an all grain version of the partial extract Full Sail Ale Clone I brewed recently. This will give me a good basis of comparison.

For this batch I decided I would make yeast starter for each of my five gallon batches. However 90% through the process I realized I did not have the appropriate size bungs for my one gallon jugs. Since I had already pitched the yeast into the starter, I had to think fast. I remembered hearing of a trick, using balloons as an airlock. I had a bag lying around so I washed, sanitized, and turned the balloons inside out and attached them to the top of the jugs. This worked pretty well and definitely did the job of preventing pressure explosion and preventing cross contamination. The next afternoon the balloons where very full, visually showing the yeast starter was a success.

On brew day, I enlisted the help of a couple of my brewing friends to assist me in the process. And I'm glad I did, definitely helped to have an extra set of hands helping haul the full brew pot and mash tun around. In the course of brewing I found that my cheap digital thermometer was inaccurate, off as much as +20°. Fortunately the thermometer on my brew pot was accurate.

I chose to batch sparge for my first all grain on this system, and it seemed to work out just fine. In the future I may try to fly sparge, but for that I think a rectangular mash tun would work better, so as not to upset the grain bed.

After boiling the bittering & aroma hops, and cooling the wort with an immersion coil, we leveled out the wort into two 6 gallon carboys. I lost more liquid in the process then I thought. Starting off with 7 gallons in the brew pot, adding 4 more for the mash, ended up with about 6 gallons of wort. I boiled more water and topped each carboy off at the 5 gallon mark. Even though one of my buddies tried to talk me into loading it all into 1 carboy and going imperial style.

In all a successful brewing day. I now have 10 gallons of Amber Ale in primary next to my recently brewed Mocha Java Stout. I found some bugs in my new all grain system that I'll quickly work out before I brew again.

DIY - Mash Tun

Upgrading my brewing setup from 5gal to 10gal batches requires that I also create a 10gal mash tun. Following the advice of one of my fellow home brewers, I followed these instructions to build mine. The project was very simple, requiring a quick trip to Home Depot and 10 minutes of assembly time. Can't wait to put this to good use on my next batch of homebrew!

More Beer Equipment!

I found a video of the burner in action, pretty impressive!

I purchased another vital piece of my all grain brew system this week, a high output propane burner. Brewing friends of mine have complained about the low output of their standard off the shelf propane burners. Cheap models designed for boiling 5 gallons or less. This just isn't functional for all grain systems needing 15+ gallons. On their recommendation I've been looking for something better, and finally decided on a Kick A Banjo Burner #KAB4. This baby is designed for high output, large quantity boils. The kind necessary for bayou country crawfish boils. This baby puts out a crazy level of heat,

"This propane burner kicks out the minimum of 210,000 + BTUs"

"Heat at top of flame is almost 1000° F."

You know it's a serious piece of equipment when the warnings include

"The Kick A Banjo Propane Burner is a powerful high pressure cooker pulling a high volume of gas from the propane tank. This high gas volume pushes, to the limit, the shut-off safety features on the propane tank."

This should put out plenty of heat for me to begin all grain brewing in a timely manner.

"We have seen it heat a 100 quart pot in just 15 minutes!"

I might just have to get a couple more of these burners and build myself a brewing rack.

Kegworks Upgrade!

After a couple years of pushing, I finally talked my buddy into selling me all of his home brew gear. I now have the beginnings of a very respectable home brewery operation. The crème de la crème of which consists of:

• 5 lb. Co2 tank


• 2 x 20 lb Co2 tanks


• 2 x 5 gallon cornelius kegs


• 15.5 gallon keg brew pot w/integrated spigot & thermometer


• 15.5 gallon keg ready for brew pot conversion


• Dual gauge pressure regulator


• Draft dispensing hardware for cornelius & sankey kegs

This will finally give me the ability to brew all grain batches efficiently. As well as the ability to convert my garage fridge into a multi keg draft dispenser. I'll also have the option to keg my home brew instead of spending hours bottling every batch. And this summer I can simply grab a keg and the portable Co2 and bring it over to friends BBQ's.

Can't wait to get everything cleaned up and put to work!

Pac-Man is Alive!

After four months of hard work I've finally finished restoring/converting my Pac-Man cocktail arcade cabinet to full glory. This cabinet has been locked away from the world for more then a decade, maybe even two decades. It was hidden away in my buddies garage forever, and then a few more years in mine, until I had the time to invest in restoring it. The cabinet was empty other then the original monitor, and in very poor shape. So I made the tough decision to "MAME" the cabinet. I'm sure I'll be flamed by the purists out there, but for me and this cabinet, this was the right decision.

I started off by stripping the cabinet bare, and giving everything a thorough cleaning. I had to rebuild the under carriage and leg levelers as the wood was splintered from years of moisture. I sanded rust off the metal components and gave everything a new coat of paint. I installed my old 19" IBM CRT monitor, which to my surprise fit perfectly with only minor alternations.

I then installed a vast array of new components:

• 11" Cocktail Control Panels from ArcadeDepot. I had to modify the controls from pac-man's centered solo joystick to a proper joystick & 3 buttons layout.


• Red/Blue Suzo Universal STC 500 (OMNI Stik) Joysticks (set to 4-way)


• Red/Blue Translucent Pushbuttons from FX Buttons


• Mini Round Momentary Pushbuttons


• Reused my old I-Pac4 Encoder from Ultimarc, however I may installed a GP-Wiz40 Eco from Groovy Game Gear that I have lying around to try it out.


• Cold Cathode Lights from NW Computer Accessories


• an old Dell Optiplex GX1 - running Micro XP Pro.

To keep the cabinet as authentic as possible I only installed MAME and classic ROMs that have a cocktail cabinet dip switch mode. No Nintendo, Sega, Virtual Pinball, or jukebox craziness on this cabinet. I configured everything under the MaLa front-end, and set the machine to boot directly into Pac-Man (you can then backout to select other games to play).

I still have a few more lighting, electrical, and software tweaks to make to the cabinet, but it's in fully function order. It was ready in time for my 30th B-Day party, and got a lot of usage and rave reviews.

Mark another knotch in the project tree, let's see what's next ...