Tuesday, September 22, 2009

These Long Days




I've got it figured out. Just get up early and all will be well. I also needed to call England to check on my order from acask.com, which so far has taken them two weeks to figure out the shipping. The smoke from the fires south of here had all drifted west and was covering the mountains. The sunset should be interesting again tonight.



I had thought, given the four hours between 8:00 and 12:00, that I could get the beer racked. Also, while waiting for each cask to get washed, I could clean the beer lines. By 11:45 I managed to do same, but only got the wash and rinse on the casks. The pub opened at noon, so I have to wait until 5:00 for my temporary barkeep Jill to take over. I figure between 5:00 and 6:00 I can get the bitter into the casks and not have to be up until the wee hours hammering in those shives. 8:00 to 6:00 then, with coming back after play practice to do the closing at 10:00 PM - a not so unreasonably long day.



For you DIY homebrewers and aspiring small brewpub owners, you can make a smashing good cask wash system out of a sink, a cheepo sump pump, some copper fittings, and a spinning wash head from The Compleat Winemaker


3 comments:

Benj said...

It looks like you have a clover fitting on the end of the copper pipe - do you hook that up to your sink faucet somehow?

Brewers Union Local 180 said...

It's a dual-purpose wash unit. As it already sits in the sink, the sink is filled to a calculated level and mixed with caustic, or not when rinsing. For washing casks, they are inverted over the pump and the spinner goes inside the shive hole. The other leg of copper is used to clean other containers and hoses. I have clover attachments for cleaning corny kegs, golden gates and the racking arm that I use for filling the firkins with lovely beverages. You will notice a valve on each leg.

Benj said...

I understand now. Looks like a highly useful tool. I could easily build one for cleaning my casks and corny kegs.