Brews and Tap Handles

I've been busy to say the least.  The batch of rye I made a bit ago is now on tap at the bike shop which is cool; I need to swing by for a taste since I didn't get a chance to sample it with carbonation since I don't have pin-lock fittings for my CO2 tank.  I haven't heard any complaints yet, but we'll see; I'm going to drop in to check on it today.  Anyway, last weekend (4/30) I made a Bass Ale clone but I changed the specialty grain count to give it a bit more color and fuller flavor.  So that is in primary and will be getting transferred either tomorrow or Wednesday.  This past Saturday, a good friend of mine wanted to brew and since we typically brew together, I went over to his place and got the kettle hot.  I decided that I wanted to enter in a friendly competition our local homebrew club is putting on; The Iron Brewer Competition!  The ingredient du jour has to be a root vegetable.  I initially thought of using beets, but realized I didn't really like beets, so why would I ruin a beer with one?  I DO like ginger beer, like Left Hand Brewing Company's Juju Ginger; actually I guess it's got a new name now, "Good Juju".  The only thought I have though is that there will probably be plenty of ginger beers submitted, but we shall see.  So the brew day was just off for some reason.  I lit the burner, filled the kettle, put the lid on and walked away.  I don't know why, but I just wasn't paying any attention, so I find my kettle boiling which is NOT what I was wanting.  The wait began.  For whatever reason, I didn't throw any ice in to bring it back down to mashing/steeping temperatures; there went any sort of hope for a timely brew session.  Once the temps were back down, I got started.  Things went smoothly from here until it was time to transfer to the fermenter.  I had installed a stainless ball-valve last week and am using a stainless screen filter wand to keep the hops schmutz from making its way to the fermenter.  Well, this would've been great had it not gotten plugged up so quickly.  I ended up taking everything home (warm wort still in the kettle) to finish it off since I had left my filter-funnel there to begin with.  Upon making the transfer and filling the carboy with water, I took a hydrometer reading.  To my surprise, it was reading somewhere in the 20% sugar range; basically ridiculously high.  After taking a look at the wort, I realized that it was actually separated; mostly the sweet wort on top and water below.  So, I mixed it up, and took another reading; this time, it was more reasonable but still around the 12% range.  I pitched the yeast and threw in my new 'home-industrial' airlock (think plastic hose connected to an airlock with the other end in a bucket of water).  Down to the utility room, I mean, 'fermentation room' it went, and yesterday it was bubbling like mad!  This has the potential to be in the 9% ABV range by the way.  I'll update with actual hydrometer readings when I get home.

So my second lil beer project this weekend involved making a new tap handle for my kegerator.  I had a perfectly good Look "egg-beater" type pedal sitting in my bike toolbox and since its pair had met an untimely demise, I figured that the good one could be used for something.  After a night of hanging at my friends' place, we got up in the morning and went out to his machine shop to start in on this little project.  We bored a hole down the center of the spindle and proceeded to try to get threads cut in, only, it wasn't that easy.  FINALLY, we got the damn tap started and threads were being cut.  I was left with the task of continuing to cut the threads, so twisting the tap I went.  After a few good turns and backing it out, I go in one more time.  This time, I torqued it just a hair too much when SNAP!  I broke the damn tap off INSIDE the pedal!  We hammered on it as much as possible to try to knock out any other pieces possible since unscrewing it wasn't going to happen.  As it turns out, we were actually able to get enough of it out so that it would still thread on to the tap!  So, I now have an "Egg-Beater" tap handle!