Kegging the Pale Ales

I went to keg the pale ales yesterday morning and realized that I'd never racked beer off that had been dry hopped. I was worried that I might suck hops up into the racking cane and clog it. After discussing options on the Modesto Mashers Forum and searching the web for ideas I came up with this:













It's a copper pot scrubber (sanitized of course) secured to the end of the racking cane with a zip tie. I had to stuff it into the neck of the carboy but it did a wonderful job of keeping ALL of the hops out of the racked beer.

Here's the rack in progress. I had to use CO2 to force the beer through the hops and through the scrubber into the keg.













Here's the resulting (very) empty carboy. I was able to suck out every last drop of beer with this method leaving behind the hops and almost all of the yeast.

ppfffffftttttttttttttttt!

The bad new is that the English Pale Ale blew last night. :-(

The good news is that the Scottish Wee Heavy and Apfelwein are in the fridge carbonating. The Wee Heavy will be ready to tap next Saturday. The Apfelwein will be ready a week after that.

Until then:

• Deschutes Obsidian Stout
• Traquair House Ale - 1 bottle
• Firestone/Walker Pale 31
• Big Sky IPA
• Big Sky Moose Drool Brown Ale
• Big Sky Powder Hound Winter Ale
• Pete's Wicked Ale - 1 bottle
  

That should hold me over! :-)