Zee Beer Fridge

By Elisa|Booze, DIY|8 Comments

Remember how we did that thing waaay back here? Actually it wasn’t that long ago, it just feels like it’s been a million years.

Unlike OTHER projects, still in the making 6 months later. Ahem. I’m looking at you, office.

Anywho, the fridge is back and better than ever because now it looks like this.

And homeboy did it all himself.

Full disclosure, that man works for a brewery so he didn’t even need to research this project.

I, on the other hand, do NOT work for a brewery so I don’t know the names of anything. Only the important things. Like bottle.

First Ryan began by drilling a few holes in the door. He basically used a beefed-up version of the hole-drilling drill attachment used for wood. Disclaimer: ONLY drill through the door of the fridge. The sides and back can have some serious shit in them, like freon. Wouldn’t suggest messing with it. At all. Front door only. Capisci?

Then he put this majigger in the door – this is what the back of a tap looks like.

Next is hose. Check the length and make sure the nuts fit. Don’t giggle at the word nuts.

Yup.

Thread through holes, attach nut majigger.

Screw hose in place!

Repeat!

Add a holy hell lot of beer (left half is bottles and the right half is keg) then pretty up the outside.

There you have it.

Best how-to on the internets.

Linking here, here, here, and here!

Our Garage Is Getting Crazy and We Love It

By Elisa|Booze, DIY|5 Comments

Friday. Beer.

By Elisa|Booze, DIY|3 Comments

Remember a way super long time ago we brewed some beer with our buddy*?

Well, he bottled that, then brewed some more, then bottled that, then he brewed some more.

But this time was different. I was there for the bottling. Yes. Extra special.

Here’s the carboy full of hoppy goodness. All the junk floating around is hops. Yum.

Did you know they make candy out of hops?

So here we go – first and foremost start siphoning. You siphon for two reasons: one – to get any of that good ol’ floaty junk out of your beer. Two – to move the beer from a glass carboy to a tub with a spigot, which makes bottling the beer not only easier but possible. Our buddy put a mesh something-or-other over the opposite end of the siphon to catch up any extraneous hops that were floating around in the carboy.

He also boiled and poured in refining sugars to help with the carbonating process – called bottle conditioning. This just means that his currently uncarbonated beer is added to bottles and carbonates itself over the course of a few weeks, thanks in part to the refining sugars (so even though we’re bottling now it won’t be ready for another two weeks).

This can be a common practice in homebrewing although most commercial breweries do not do it this way – there are a handful of other ways to carbonate a beer.

While he did that we made sure all the bottles were happy and totally clean — one tiny little errant bacteria can ruin an entire batch – or in this case, bottle.

Once everything had been siphoned through into the bucket our buddy lifted up the container and sat it on the counter, which coincidentally has a very useful spigot.

Then: fill.

Homegirl capped all those beers.

Cool right?

Right.

Have you ever had un-carbonated beer? Here ya go, try a sip.

*This is not his real name. He is single though.

Just saying, ladies.

Ahem.