2016 Christmas Beer Related Gifts

[D_Rabbit]

Hello all! Its been a few months. My work schedule has been ridiculous with training for the new company! I am finally done with training and actually doing work again so I have time to check back in. Hope all is well with you and the families!

Wanted to start this thread for all the fun and upcoming beer Christmas presents that we look forward to all year. From the new homebrewers kit to more advanced fun. I also wanted to start it because I treated myself to a new toy that I found on Craigslist. Someone was moving and had a fermentation chamber mini fridge set up and ready to go so I pounced right on it.

On the top is the temp control on the right side. Only draw back on this is that it only displays in celcius. There is a converstion chart taped on top as well so that helps and also shows what the best temp ranges are for a specific style, i.e. Ale, Lager, Belgian, Cali Common. On the top on the left side is a stir plate. Guy threw in the 5000ml flask as well. It is fantastic. Was able to sell my smaller stir plate to offset some of the costs of the fridge too. The main compartment for the fridge has a collar built on so I can fit in a 6.5 gallon glass carboy. It will also fit three 5 gallon corny kegs for cold storage. Already brewed up a cream ale that I am fermenting with San Fran lager yeast and it is sitting nicely at 56 degrees. There is built in blow off tube as well so the air lock sits outside the fridge.

Need to mess with it a little as fermentation is taking a while to start up. Think I need to raise it to get the fermentation going and than drop it back down. Like any new toy there will be things to learn. But I love it! Here are a few pictures.

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[bpgreen]

I bought a couple of beer kits for my mom. My brother has to brew them. He kind of inherited the responsibility when my nephew got too busy to brew even for himself. SOMEBODY had to keep the kegerator filled.

I may have beer related gifts coming my way, but I'm not aware of any.

[FedoraDave]

My newly-minted son-in-law often gets me a couple of bombers of some kind of craft beer, usually Brooklyn Brewery. I really appreciate this, since I'm not one to buy myself something really exotic (and fairly expensive), and I also am leaning more toward using bomber bottles to cut down on bottling day time. I got him a couple of bombers for "Santa" and the cat to give him; a saison and a black IPA.

I think my daughter might be getting me some barware; she had packages shipped to our house, so save her the step of schlepping it up on the train herself, and one of the boxes happened to be from a site called something like Wetbar.com, or something. Probably beer/bar related, I'm guessing.

[Inkleg]

Good to see you again Dan! Merry Christmas. That's a pretty nice set up.
Is your temperature probe just hanging in the fridge? Take a towel and a bungie cord (with plastic hooks) put the probe against the carboy with the towel over it and secure it. That way your reading closer to wort temperature and not air around it. According to the controller it's 48.7* in the chamber and is still trying to cool it down (as noted by the light lit by the word cool). What is the controller set to?

[Dawg LB Steve]

Welcome back Dan, good to see you get some brewing in before the year end. Santa already came to N.E. Ohio, 25 gallon Ballington SS pot, Cereal Killer Mill and Ph Meter.
Merry Christmas to you and your family!

[TonyKZ1]

My oldest daughter got me a gift card to BrewDemon. That worked out pretty good along with their sale prices that's currently going on.

[D_Rabbit]

Ink, the probe is actually sitting in a small vial of dish soap which holds the temp pretty accurately for the fridge itself. It is adaptable so I can put in a thermo probe directly in to the carboy at some point. I changed the temp to 56 degrees F, think around 12 C or so. I took the picture before I actually put the carboy in there. There is also a heating pad in there in case I want to get funky with some Belgians

That sounds like a fantastic haul Steve! Can't wait to see some pictures of it in action!

[FedoraDave]

We spread our Christmas gift-giving over a couple of days, so other people can visit in-laws and such. So we had a get-together Christmas Eve with my brother's family and my niece and nephew, and we exchanged gifts with them. My brother got me a growler; a very nice one, with a flip-top seal, and a picture of a fedora on it! It wasn't custom-made for me, it just happens to have a fedora on it. So obviously, he had to get it for me.

My sister had gifts shipped from the online stores directly to my parents' house, since she's in Hawaii. They didn't come labeled properly, so we called her and asked her who they were for. Turns out my gifts from her are four pots of beer-based jelly from a place in Vermont. I'm going to try the oatmeal stout jelly with my Christmas bagel this morning! She also got me a very handsome brew journal. I'll be honest; I've never really kept meticulous notes on my brews, but now that I have this, I have to put it to use. Maybe it'll step up my quality. If nothing else, it'll give me a reference point when it comes time to taste the beer, and I'll have a better way to evaluate the recipe and process.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

[John Sand]

Well, so far, I received socks and shirts. But since I don't brew naked, that might be considered brewing gear!
Last night at a Christmas party, I was talking to a young woman friend. She is a craft beer enthusiast, and found an unused brewing kit given to her father ten years ago. She's thinking of trying it out. I encouraged her to discard any ingredients, and offered to lend her books, supply fresh ingredients, and answer any questions.
It was a nice gift to hear a young woman interested in brewing.

[Rebel_B]

Just finished cleaning & assembling a Blichmann beer gun that Mrs Claus gifted me. I modified the accessory kit a little, so it only needs one gas line coming off the regulator. Gonna try my hand at bottling the remainder of a keg that didn't get finished on Christmas Eve. My stocking also had a beer & a book in it.

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[RickBeer]

I'm just amazed that everyone knows what they'll get for Christmas next year...

[bpgreen]

Just finished cleaning & assembling a Blichmann beer gun that Mrs Claus gifted me. I modified the accessory kit a little, so it only needs one gas line coming off the regulator. Gonna try my hand at bottling the remainder of a keg that didn't get finished on Christmas Eve. My stocking also had a beer & a book in it.

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1451069689.390970.jpg

Have they changed it recently? Mine only had one gas line from the start.

[Whamolagan]

Hello all! Its been a few months. My work schedule has been ridiculous with training for the new company! I am finally done with training and actually doing work again so I have time to check back in. Hope all is well with you and the families!

Wanted to start this thread for all the fun and upcoming beer Christmas presents that we look forward to all year. From the new homebrewers kit to more advanced fun. I also wanted to start it because I treated myself to a new toy that I found on Craigslist. Someone was moving and had a fermentation chamber mini fridge set up and ready to go so I pounced right on it.

On the top is the temp control on the right side. Only draw back on this is that it only displays in celcius. There is a converstion chart taped on top as well so that helps and also shows what the best temp ranges are for a specific style, i.e. Ale, Lager, Belgian, Cali Common. On the top on the left side is a stir plate. Guy threw in the 5000ml flask as well. It is fantastic. Was able to sell my smaller stir plate to offset some of the costs of the fridge too. The main compartment for the fridge has a collar built on so I can fit in a 6.5 gallon glass carboy. It will also fit three 5 gallon corny kegs for cold storage. Already brewed up a cream ale that I am fermenting with San Fran lager yeast and it is sitting nicely at 56 degrees. There is built in blow off tube as well so the air lock sits outside the fridge.

Need to mess with it a little as fermentation is taking a while to start up. Think I need to raise it to get the fermentation going and than drop it back down. Like any new toy there will be things to learn. But I love it! Here are a few pictures.

IMG_0906.JPG

IMG_0907.JPG

IMG_0926.JPG

Where does the blow off tube go?

[Rebel_B]

Just finished cleaning & assembling a Blichmann beer gun that Mrs Claus gifted me. I modified the accessory kit a little, so it only needs one gas line coming off the regulator. Gonna try my hand at bottling the remainder of a keg that didn't get finished on Christmas Eve. My stocking also had a beer & a book in it.

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1451069689.390970.jpg

Have they changed it recently? Mine only had one gas line from the start.

No change from Blichmann, just put in a tee in the line, so I can keep pressure on the keg & run gas from the same accessory air hose. From the factory you get the one gas line, & you use a second gas line to keep the keg pressurized as you bottle.
See this discussion on Homebrew Talk:
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=454129

[bpgreen]

Oh, I forgot about that. I've got 3 CO2 canisters and 2 regulators, so I just keep the keg on one and use another for the beer gun.