some pics...

Lot's of beer.

I brewed an all grain IPA today along with our first ryePA. You can see we have a lot of fermentation going on right now!

First AG brew! Mostly pics....

Here's our wort boiling away!

 

 A few shots of the crazy amount of brewing shit going on in our hourse.

 Our Oatmeal Pale Ale in the fermenter!

 A few shots of the new mash tun collecting precious fermentable sugars.

 The grain bed.

 German Pilsner for our Pilsner brew tomorrow!

 $20 of water from Rite Aid.

 10 lbs. pale 2 row and 2 pounds flaked oats for OPA.

Beer, Cider and trips to the ER.

Totally crazy weekend. Started with taking Owen to the Urgent Care at Kaiser on Friday evening because he started screaming about his ear hurting...yep ear infection.

Also on Friday I picked up some awesome old-school bottlecappers off of Craigslist for homebrewing. They were super rusty but an overnight soak in white vinegar cleaned them up quite a bit.

Saturday morning consisted largely of dealing with the cleanup process of the bottlecappers.

Saturday afternoon I went and picked up our new keg dispensing system for our kegerator build. I got it for a steal. Refurbished corny keg, 2 dial regulator, gas line, beverage line, and co2 tank (which I'll be replacing). I even got an extra bottle brush out of the deal.

Also Saturday afternoon I went to Portland U-Brew and used one of my 4 Living Social deals to get several items needed for our brewing ventures, including some cleaning supplies, hops and a new thermometer. Then I went to Steinbarts and picked up a valve for our mash tun project.

I got 5 gallons of cider from Joe's Place farms and started our first hard cider. It's fermenting downstairs right now and smells amazing, although we way overpitched the yeast in it so we'll see what effect that has on the final product.

This morning I built our new batch sparge mashtun. Our first all grain brew through it will be next weekend. An Oatmeal Pale Ale!

After that we bottled our IPA, which came out phenomenal, using our new bottlecapper and racked our CDA into dryhop on Simcoe pellets.

Busy weekend! Headed down to check out the fermentation on the cider...more later.

Man is giddy thing.

After a 7 year hiatus my homebrewing venture originally called Mondoholocaust Brewing Company is back up and running only with a new look and name.
Sanders Family Brewers is our new venture in the world of self sustainability.

 

We have 3 beers produced so far and a fourth in the works.

Our first beer is our classic Maple Double Porter brewed 7 years ago almost to the day and brought back now. A double version of a thin bodied mildly hopped English style Porter. This Incarnation chimes in at an impressive 7.8% ABV although you wouldn't know it from tastings.

Our next beer is our take on a PNW IPA. A malt backbone consisting of 2 row, Carahell and Munich and hopped with Magnums, Cascade, and Citra. This is one bitter wicked beast. Clocking in at 7.2% ABV and 89 IBU's our IRON SWAN is a force to be reckoned with, both beautiful and brutal at the same time.

Our Cloak of Feathers is a member of the elite group of Cascadian Dark Ales that cry for secession from a nation that doesn't understand our bitterness towards it's ways! It is a whopping 98 IBU's and 6.5% ABV. This is one beer you don't want to call a black IPA...unless you are a glutton for punishment. CDA's will remain a tributary of Cascadia no matter what the rest of the world decides to call them. CDA's were born here and will always be a part of our PNW culture.

Our next beer will be our Winter's Wolves Oatmeal Pale Ale. A lighter casual drinker for the hibernator in all of us! More details to come...