Ybor Centro Beerfest!
Well it was a great beerfest over at Ybor Centro yesterday and I managed to survive and drive home safely too! This beer fest is put on by the Florida Brewers Guild and was a great success!
Among the listing of craft brew attendees were Spanish Springs Brewers, Orlando Brewing Partners, Tampa Bay Brewing Co. (they have a brand new location and were in the center of the festival!!) Shipyard Brewing Co., and many other's from around the state of Florida. Also participating were several of the local and not so local brew clubs from around the state one of which I belong to (Central Florida Home Brewers).
I started my day waking up at 6:30 AM, having my 2 morning coffee's, then started to load the suv up with a couple of chairs and a 3 gallon keg of my English Summer Ale that I donated to the cause. (it lasted 20 minutes!)
Seeing that I was the Designated Driver, I had to make a few stops to pick a couple members up. The first stop I had to make was to the club's president's home (Preston Hoover) (40 minutes away) to pick the club's banner. After I successfully navigated there (via gps) and loaded the banner, I was off to get our head meister and great homebrewer Ed Measom. Ed took Best of Show this year at the Best Florida Beer Competion for his wonderful Bock Beer! Congrats Ed!
That drive took another 45 minutes. We loaded up the suv with all of Ed's beer ( a peach wit, an apricot wit, a traditional wit, and a very awesome barleywine that was made over a year ago) and other equipment such as Co2, booth setup items etc.
Once the suv was loaded 1 more stop was in order! So off we went to pick up Don and Bob across town. After that, we were off to Ybor Centro which was another hour and 15 minute drive. We arrived about 12:45 and unloaded the suv of all the stuff and proceded to locate our booth and get set up. Our booth was located right in front of Tampa Bay Brewing Co's front window, so Don, Bob and I took advantage of that and went in for lunch! We each ordered a sandwich and of course had to try some of their wonderful craft brews! We each ordered their Porter and it was just perfect asides from being served a little too cold. We just let the little beauties sit on the table for about 15 - 20 minutes to warm up a bit then the food was served. The Cuban sandwiches there were awesome and we made them disappear promptly!
After lunch it was time to go to work and man the booth! The festival starting time came, and the beer began to flow, the band began to play, and the rest is history!
Below are a few pics of this wonderful event and next week I'll be going over Brad's house to lend a hand when he brew's a Copper APA! I'll have pic's for that as well!
See ya next week!
Cheers!
What a crowd and a perfect day!
Looking up at the stairway.
Old Time Box Office.
Inside the open air covered area.
Ahhh...Stogies and Handcrafted Stout!
Here's Scott servin it up! Can I get 2 of them??
Outside view and a couple of homebrew fans!
Looking towards Tampa Bay Brewing Co!
The live music was great! Thanks guy's!
The action outside.
posted by Wottaguy @ 9:01 AM
6 Comments:
I really enjoyed reading through your blog, today. I'm glad I stumbled across a fellow Floridian's ber blog. Were you able to make the fest the following day at Skipper's Smokehouse?
I'm at the tail-end of setting up my HERMS, which seems quite similar to your initial attempt. I'll likely do 5-gallon all-gran atches until I have a half dozen brews on tap. I'll move to 10+ gallon batches when I have a few different styles in the fridge. I've been on brewing-haitus for the past several years.
I'm going to fill the HERMS with ICE to use as a chiller with a whirlpooling return. So there will be no chiller emmersed in the boil kettle.
Hi Donald thanks for visiting!
We attended the Ybor event only and were only in the area for that one day.
My original HERMS setup did work great for 5 gallon batches, but when I went to do 10 and 15 gallon batches I found that it just couldn't keep up by providing the temps that I needed. It was a small experiment, and I'll probably still use it for those5 gallon batches. When I do 10gal and larger batches, I just recirc the wort thru my sanitized IM Chiller and that works real good. I can step mash with as well and it is very responsive and transfers heat quickly. I am thinking of getting the kettle controlled by an automatic gas valve and pilot ignition setup. A temp controller would sense the liquor temp, and it would fire up the burner when the temp drops below the set value. Morebeer.com has a set up like that on their web site and there's a good photo of it there.
Thanks for writing and I hope to talk to you again soon. Let me know how your HERMS comes out too!
Cheers!
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Have you considered creating a second identical HERMS to share the load for 10 gallon batches?
Actually I have considered doing that but with making it out of a bigger (10) gallon cooler and a bigger heating element. Something with some power behind it. I think that home depot has them on sale for 39.99 or so. I just have to save up for the parts and a 1/2 coil to circ with.
Thanks for asking!
I was considering the same. However, the Ranco digital controllers are 110v and rated to only 13 AMPs. The 1500W elements draw around 12.5 AMPs. The 110v 2000W elements draw around 15.5 AMPs. In addition, I'm not keen to use 220v because:
1. The 220v controllers are much more pricey
2. The mobility of the brewery is eliminated when moving away from 110v
3. I'd likely need to move away from a plastic cooler HERMS to an all-metal HERMS when dealing with elements >3000W.
I anticipate good results with a 110v 1500W element using approximately 4 gallons of water in a 7 gallon cooler. If I consider the three 220v issues above as show-stoppers, the next logical step for me would be a second identical HERMS to manage a 10-gallon batch.
Your thoughts?
Hi Donald!
Well...I have thought all about those options, and at the time, I wanted to brew and was getting pretty tired of tinkering around with my system, and I really didn't want to spend any more cash on it, so I opted to use what I already have on hand and decided to use my immersion chiller as a heat exchanger and also use my kettle for the heating medium. The 1/2 chiller worked a lot better when I tested it, and I was able to raise the temperature of 10 gallons of water from 150 degF to 168 degF in about 6 minutes! After I did that, I was sold and have been using that method ever since, and have saved a lot of cash and brewed a lot ever since! I just follow the KISS approach and am happy with the results that I am getting. I still want to add the auto gas valve and pilot to my burner. I am starting to look into sources for that. I just got tired of tinkering around and wanted to get to brewing!And brewing it is! I have a total of 25 gallons of finished beer so far and have a 15 gallon brew session planned to go in about a week from now!
Good luck with your system, I wish you well and keep in touch too!
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