Fall's coming we gotta get ready!

Hello All,

Your V.P. here.

First of all, my apologies for not keeping up with this blog. We have had so many things going on, but no camera for posterity.

Spring came and went. Summer came and it is now near the end.
But now with Fall coming soon, I felt an overwhelming urge to write and to brew.

These last two weeks, even in a 110 F weather I brewed two pale ales and an amber ale.
As of today, with my weekend cleared up, I plan to brew a simple IPA.

Come over Saturday afternoon to the Bermuda Dunes Country Club and ask for Albert Fernandez at the gate.

Everyone and anyone is welcome to come and observe or help.
Just let me know through our club e-mail:

cvhomebrewers@yahoo.com


Here is my system and a typical brew day for me.

Enjoy the pictorial. If you have any questions or want more specific details or pictures e-mail me:

gfernandez4875@yahoo.com






Here is my three-tier gravity-fed propane gas system.


The Coachella Valley Brewing Company













In the desert, we don't have to heat our mash water.
The temperature right out of the tap measured 140 F.














I did heat the sparge water a little.

Here you see a copper sparge arm showering the mash as I drain the sweet wort from the mash tun into the boil kettle.











The boil kettle has a homemade bazooka screen to filter the wort after the boil.














During the last 15 minutes of the boil, I placed my homemade immersion wort chiller into the boil kettle to sanitize it and then to cool down the wort.

Construction of the chiller is described in my previous blog.









Finally, I drain the wort into "Corney" kegs and place them into my temperature controlled fridge.

I don't use carboys, because I have broken so many. Metal from now on.

Oh, and I stopped aerating the wort as well. A tiny drop of olive oil does the trick.

Look it up, it works!

February's Meeting I yr. Anniversary at Babe's

Greetings from your V.P. Albert,

Well kudos to all who attended our first anniversary as a Homebrew Club. We've only just begun. Here's the sorry lot of us minus myself since I'm snapping the shots. We met at Babe's at the The River in Rancho Mirage. See we're not that scary.

The Culprit: Drunkin' Monk, a Belgian Trippel

.......a little over 7%ABV......typical session beer. Not!

Micah had a trippel. Well, someone has to set the example.

We all followed suit.
Damn that peer pressure!

Damn that beer pressure!

Tom asked me to take a picture of his good side.

Damn those juicy ribs!

See it wasn't just a sausage fest. Just kidding. Our newest member Chris Anderson's family were also here to celebrate our 1 year anniversary. She's the one who ate the entire rack of Bar-B-Que ribs. It was like watching piranha.

My First Southern California Homebrew Festival

Hello All From
Albert
Since we're all preparing for the 2008 SCHF, I thought I'd share my pictorial documentary of my first experiences at the 2004 and 2006 festivals. I missed 2005's event.




The Inland Empire Brewers have always been a great bunch.

They let me crash with them.

What is this? No Country for Old Men?

Former Secretary
Nick French

Former President
Terry Boyles

...and that other guy...sorry other guy.

No it wasn't just a sausage fest, see there were some babes.

Beer Wenches!

















HEY! What's going on over there?










Hey, baby! How 'bout a shot?









SURE!

Well that's what I sorta remember.
I can't wait for this years festival.

For more information about the fest:

http://www.calhomebrewers.org/

Our President, Micah made a slide show of last years festival and the CV Homebrewers' Debut.
Check it out: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8177830@N03/show/

Even the most pissy of old men happened to muster a smile. That tells you it was good.

Immersion Wort Chiller Construction

A few of you out there were curious about how to make a heavy duty immersion wort chiller. I think you might enjoy this pictorial of my wort chiller construction adventure.

We began with 50' of 1/2" copper tubing. We coiled the tubing around a Cornelius Keg. This keeps a uniformed coil from top to bottom and the Corneluis Keg is the exact diameter to my boil
kettle's opening.





I make this look easy.





Then we soldered 90 degree copper elbows to both ends of the copper tubing.














We also soldered a piece of 1/2" rigid copper pipe to one end of the coil, to an elbow, and up through the inside of the coil. This gives the wort chiller a bit of a back bone, it makes the wort chiller sturdy. Some sections of the coil were soldered to the "copper spine".

We measured the rigid pipe to reach over the rim of my boil kettle.







Cousin Lalo (Pronounced Lah-Loh) was kind enough to solder a couple more pieces of rigid pipe to the other end of the wort chiller's coil. It shoots across the diameter of the coil to another 90 degree elbow and up and over the kettle's rim.
Unkowningly, we also created the chiller's carrying handle. I know you can say it, ingenious!

From there, we added 2 more 90 degree elbows creating the inlet and outlet water supply lines.

Finally, we soldered a few more pieces of rigid pipe to the ends and soldered female threaded fittings.

We also threaded to the ends of the female fittings a couple of quick-disconnects and hoses.







Final product in its natural environment.....
a converted Sanke Keg.

Voila!

Final Note: This is how we measured the rigid pipe. Just an eye measurement to fit over the rim of the boil kettle.