New Brewery

It's arrived!

Trouble is, I can't use it just yet, as I'm waiting for the electrics to be sorted out. I guess I could have got that sorted while I was awaiting delivery but, to be honest, I wasn't sure if the unit was going to fit where I had planned for it to go. As it happens, there's just enough clearance from the garage door (you can just see it in the top of the photo), so it would have been fine.

It looks pretty good on that awful floor. I'm itching to get some water in there so I can start playing with the pump so I can get used to all the valves and stuff. At the moment I'm thinking the plastic bucket routine I'm familiar with is far simpler, but I guess it will be fine once I've got used to it.

I'm not expecting to make better beer, but it will save me taking over the kitchen for seven hours and also save my back from lots of lifting. I'm also hoping my efficiency will improve slightly as it was pretty poor using the grain bag and plastic bucket method.

As promised, in return for her consideration, I'm going to have to buy the wife a new bag. Now, do I do that before the electrics are done, or make her wait until I'm up and running?

Seeing Red

The new brewery equipment has been ordered, so a thorough sort-out of the garage is overdue. The concrete floor has never been sealed or painted, so dust levels were high.

Shocked at the price of garage floor paint, I turned to the internet. I found a specailist paint company with just the product - THE garage floor paint. The clever use of capial letters had me hooked. This was clearly going to be THE garage floor paint I needed.

It wasn't. In my haste, I failed to read all the info. It was a water based paint, albeit 'the toughest water based garage floor paint avaialble'. All I can say, is that the other stuff on the market must be worse than useless. After 24 hours the first coat came peeling and flaking away. I rubbed it down, removed the dust and tried again. Same result.

By now I was hot, sweaty, and a little pis*ed off. Although it irked me, I had to concede that I had made a mistake and it was time to go down to B&Q and buy the forty quid tin of Ronseal and try coat number three.

No flaking, no peeling. Blimey, it did exactly what it said on the tin. Nearly.

The colour claimed to be red. Now my eyesight isn't what it was, but I know that ladybirds are red and sh*t is brown. You could take a dump on my garage floor and not notice, so I think we know what colour it really is. It's browner than Gandhi in a bloody heatwave.