BeerBorg

What a spring day in the middle of winter! 63 degree. Should have brewed today but will wait 2 weeks.
This is the longest I've gone without brewing in ages. That just means that after Nashville is over and is just a notch in the belt, I'll be brewing lots for the spring time. But, I know our winters are not at all like you guys in the north and north east but to have a day like today in late January is one I should have been ready for.
Guess I'll have to visit a friend and 'delete' some of the beer I have.

One thing about the Borg that has fascinated me ( since we are really kind of new to it at 2 + years) is seeing all the different kinds of events that make us halt our brewing.

I never would have thought,before we got into this hobby, how stop and start it turns out to be for so many of us. There are a ton of posts about how one of us had to shut down because of such a diversity of reasons.

I never would have imagined that some brewers would have to quit because of winter/seasons., but clearly a lot do.

Trying to grab that day to brew because the weather is your friend is going to be new here.

Long story short Go For It Big Get out there and advance the movement

Yup...I've had to shut down for quite some time due to weather. Of course the Christams and New Years traveling and parties are thrown in there too. But the last time I brewed was December 7th. And that sucks. I wanted to get a batch done today, but low and behold, the weather came through again. We are under a winter storm advisory right now. It's difficult to brew when it's so cold. Not only is it hard to hold mash temps, but getting through the hot break in the kettle is a real challenge. There is so much steam that you can't even see inside the top of the pot.

It better be warmer when I get back from Nashville.

In the summer I shut it down for a month or so, just because it's too hot in my kitchen for a boil. Today, it was too cold outside to open the kitchen windows, and it was pretty hot during the boil. But I brew every Sunday that I can.

I have to shut down every summer here. I just don't have any place to keep a fermenter cool during the hot months. Summer is short here though, so really only two months. And truthfully, I kind of enjoy having that break.

I guess I'm lucky that I like all sorts of beer, so I don't shut down, just brew with the seasons, lager and super clean ales in winter, Saisons and Belgians in the summer, and English/Steam Beer/Kolsch/other things in spring/fall.

If it's too hot I'll just do a short boil extract batch with hops/fresh extract that I like to keep the pipeline full. I'd still rather drink that then most commercial beer.

I just added a new piece of equipment to the brewroom, one of my cars is now parked in there right next to my brewing table. We're looking at a possible 6-24+ inches of snow and blizzard conditions in the next coming days.

Tomorrow I'll make a yeast starter to have ready to pitch this coming Saturday and tomorrow I pick up the grains and hops. I'm planning on brewing a nice high alcohol Cascadian Dark Ale, basically a Victory Yakima Valley clone.

gonna be partly cloudy and 57 tomorrow...now you know why I moved down here.

jimjohson wrote:gonna be partly cloudy and 57 tomorrow...now you know why I moved down here.

I plan on visiting Naples FL before the Spring this year again. My brother in law just flew up from there on Wednesday just in time for the storm of possible historic proportions.

Paul, I feel your pain. The weather hasn't stopped me yet, even when it's pegging 100 for months at a time. I only brew indoors and we never let the house get any colder than 60 in winter and 75 in summer. So it doesn't take much to adjust fermenting temps with frozen water bottles in coolers.

It was health issues that sidelined me instead. Eight months no brewing or drinking nearly broke my spirit. By the time I got the health conditions under control, all my ingredients were starting to expire when I had expected them to be used up by then. Now my brew schedule is not as aggressive as before and I'm struggling to use up all those old ingredients.

But I sure am happy to be brewing again. It actually started to depress me when I couldn't brew for so long.

Weather used to impact me, dead of summer basement was too hot. Fermentation freezer fixed that. Since I only do stovetop, nothing stopping me from going year round, if I did outside I can't imagine brewing when it's 10 degrees out, or a wind chill like today of zero, so glad I brew stovetop.

I brew 12 months of the year......just not January of 2015 for various reasons mostly to do with having so much beer and not being able to empty kegs fast enough. With some plans for events in late February and March, I will need to get back to brewing in the next few weeks.
I've brewed with temps just over freezing and with temps almost at 100 and love it either way though a day like yesterday would have been icing on the cake.
However, I used yesterday to the fullest. Saw a friend and drank some homebrews as well as helped to deplete my ever increasing amount of bought craft beers.

Beer-lord wrote:I brew 12 months of the year......just not January of 2015 for various reasons mostly to do with having so much beer and not being able to empty kegs fast enough. With some plans for events in late February and March, I will need to get back to brewing in the next few weeks.
I've brewed with temps just over freezing and with temps almost at 100 and love it either way though a day like yesterday would have been icing on the cake.
However, I used yesterday to the fullest. Saw a friend and drank some homebrews as well as helped to deplete my ever increasing amount of bought craft beers.

Well now, it don't sound like you're suffering as bad as I first imagined. I'm gonna have to plan a trip to Louisiana to help you work off some of that beer glut. Actually, I'm happy to report, since getting back on the horse, I've been cautiously persistent and now have about 10 cases of beer bottled up. Sure is nice to have a pipeline again. Fun to drink and fun to share.

C'mon down. We can also see about getting those teeth fixed while you're here.

I have no problems brewing outside in the winter assuming it isnt crazy snowing or overly windy. It is actually nice to sit outside in front of a boiling cauldron and how well you can smell the boiling wort in the crisp, clean air. Summers can be a pain sometimes but that is when I will switch over to either a saison if it isnt too hot, or simply do a stovetop MrB or other HME batch to keep the pipeline filled. In fact, bottling an old MrB batch a friend gave me today or tomorrow since I just didnt have a whole lot of time to devote out in the cold a few weeks ago. The beauty of choices!