CTs are GO! (nearly)

My vessel shifting team and crane driver worked admirably against the world’s stroppiest lorry driver to unload my new conditioning tanks (CTs). We then did a fine job of getting two, 4 metre wide tanks through a 3.8 metre door and they are now patiently waiting for cladding before being moved to their semi permanent resting place and being filled up in a desperate hurry. Sales growth is meaning that we are on the edge of capacity and every day we run out of space, people or barrels. The CTs and subsequent fermentation vessels (FVs) will be filled up the very second that they are ready.

The Cardamom wheat has been racked off into a cask for cellar conditioning. I tried some during the transfer it is really quite good. Time will tell.

Hopfen Weisse is fermenting very well and will be chilled down tomorrow. It smells phenomenal at the moment.

One of the brews of Gentle Jane is cold enough to taste and I am very pleased with how it has come out. The other half smells encouraging. Fingers are now crossed that the trappist yeast will flocculate (clump and settle out) as well as the Sharp’s yeast so that we can move the brews to conditioning on time and so it will be ready for racking next Wednesday.

A surfeit of manpower next Wednesday means I can bottle the Dark Saison and the 12% Red.

I did want to put a juicy picture of one of the CTs sailing majestically over a sunlit brewery on this post but my digital camera has become a tosser. Instead I have posted a picture of the punchbag in my office.