Orphan/Endorphin Homebrewers 2015

[mudpuppy000]

We host a homebrew/micro brew bar in our main camp, and are looking for additional brewers to help us fill our taps with lovely home brews. Ciders, wine, beer, mead, infused vodkas, whatever you feel like. The last few burns we have also done some in camp brewing demos.

We should have 5+ taps going at Burning Man 2015 and 7+ taps at our LA regional, BEquinox.

If you're interested in brewing something up and camping with us send me a PM!

[Krokodyle]

I remember some sort of jalapeno vodka (?) or similar at the OE bar in 2013. It was...memorable.

I'm planning on rejoining O-TOO this year, and this sounds like fun...but I couldn't do anything on the scale of the main camp.

[mudpuppy000]

I know Shiney has been doing Sriracha vodka at the regionals which is amazing. Maybe it was that?

If you get a decent amount of people doing one or two infusions you could end up with a nicely stocked bar for O2. I think we may do the carbonated vodka keg again for O/E this year, hehe.

[Krokodyle]

Hmmm...I don't recall trying any Sriracha vodka in 2013...but then, it was my first burn, and I'm STILL processing aspects of that excellent week, so it's very possible I had some and it slipped my memory. I certainly would have if it was offered!

I would imagine the very nature of OE camps (especially O2 & LOA) would make it hard coordinating multiple people doing infusions/brewing, but therein lies the challenge!

[rideincircles]

I am going to try and bring as many corny kegs of homebrew as I can make to the festival. I was hoping to use one keg a day, but haven't figured out the serving situation or how it will be given away yet. I was thinking bike trailer jockey box, but who knows.

This will be 1st trip to the playa, so my plans are just getting sorted out. haven't joined any camps or have any close friends going yet.

I need to start brewing though. My coffee stout will need to sit a couple months to mellow out and I may make some grape juice pyment and try carbonating it. I have a keg of cherry apfelwein i could bring also.

Planning started this week and its a 1700 mile drive from DFW. I have been to a bunch of music festivals, but this is a whole new ballgame.

[mudpuppy000]

Awesome! I keep wanting to do some sort of keg trailer to haul out into the deep playa but never seem to get around to it. One thing I've seen that worked really well was a 3gal keg/co2 in a roller ice chest. Not a huge amount of beer but easy to roll around wherever you're going. We should be opening up camp registration fairly soon if you'd like to join up with orphan/endorphin and camp with us. Or just come by and visit us on the playa and drink some beer.

Those brews sound really good! We could definitely help you figure out the serving situation, hahaha.

[mudpuppy000]

So we just had our LA regional a couple weekends ago and our brewers brought out an amazing selection of homebrews to the event. We had about 28 kegs and 7 taps going the whole time. The brews were amazing, but unfortunately we drank it all! We're starting to gear up to brew for black rock city, so if you'd like to contribute some brews and or camp with us send me a message. Not sure if we can top this but we'll give it a shot!

Our camp also serves up a whole lot of commercial beer as well, to supplement the homebrew.

BEquinox Tap List:

Brett B IPA - Dave
Brett B Red Ale - Dave
Gluten Free Cream Ale - Dave
Pear Cinnamon cider - Dave
Unicorn Blood - Dave
Sparkling Gallberry Honey Mead - Dave
Hoppy Wheat - Dave
Peach Saison - Dave
Hibiscus Farmhouse Ale - SHINY
Faerie Cider - SHINY
Sugar Wine (2 gal) - SHINY
Princess Blood - Anna/Charlie
Belgian Brown - Anna/Charlie
Oatmeal Stout - DT
Oatmeal Stout - DT
Habanero IPA - DT
Habanero IPA - DT
Brett C Apple Cider - DT
ESB - DT
Citra Blonde - DT
Citra Blonde - DT (May add coffee to one of these blondes depending on taste after fermentation)
Black Tea Kombucha - (20-40 gal) - Mark
Nut Brown - Max & Victoria
Nut Brown - Max & Victoria
Pale Ale - Max & Victoria
Pale Ale - Max & Victoria
Vanilla Cream Ale - Max & Victoria

[rideincircles]

My Welch's grape pyment and coffee stout are now in process. I overshot my gravity boiling too long on my coffee stout and it started at 1.112 which I think is the highest gravity on any brew I have made. I may turn it into a KBS type clone if possible. I plan an adding a bunch of coffee, cacao nibs, and vanilla beans to secondary, will debate on bourbon soaked wood chips once its further along. It will probably be a little less than 5 gallons though. I have an oaked cherry apfelwein keg I will save for Burning Man also that is already over a year old.

Not sure what to brew next, I am thinking a Tripel of some sort. I will definitely make a double IPA and probably my pale ale that just got 1st place at Bluebonnet brewoff out of 42 pale ales to bring also. That was my first major beer award so far aside from my homebrew club competition.

I still need to discuss camps with my friend I am going with, we haven't had the chance to sit down and plan stuff out yet. Trying to stay a few steps ahead on planning, but there is so much to do.

On my beer cart idea, I think I will use my 10 gallon water cooler and make some type of lid that the top of the kegs will stick out of. I already got a cart for it, just not sure what would be best for insulation on a lid. I also need to consider how to keep my beer kegs cool or at least not burning up during the day. I plan on keeping them in a hexayurt, just havent decided if I need a generator and a/c or just use a swamp cooler.

I assume any day I want to use the beer cart will also be a day I need to spend an hour in line for ice. I think going out with 2 kegs a few nights might be the best course of action.

[mudpuppy000]

That Pyment sounds interesting. The "Unicorn Blood" I've been doing as a joke is just sparkling fermented welch's style grape juice. The last batch I did was surprisingly good.

I haven't decided what to brew yet for BRC. I may do a few sours as those are going to be hard to find in commercial kegs. When I'm out in BRC I really like the session type beers but a 5 gallon keg goes pretty quick if it's something that easy to drink. I did a Berlinerweisse a couple years ago and we tapped it during setup. It was perfect having a tart, refreshing beer with low alcohol.

One thing we found at our regional was that having something like Kombucha on tap was really nice if you just wanted something refreshing to drink. Pretty sure we'll do something like that again.

For the cart, maybe it would be easiest to just chill the whole keg in a plastic barrel that was slightly larger than the keg. You could use a picknick tap and wouldn't need to worry about the extra space for a jockeybox.

[rideincircles]

I am thinking a citra saison and lemon lime hefeweizen will be 2 of my refreshing brews. I just kegged a batch of lemon lime hefeweizen and it should keep me going when I work on the garden this month. That recipe and the Joe's grape pyment both came from homebrewtalk and are both good and easily searchable. Same thing with the citra saison also.

My idea on the beer cart would be similar to this, I just don't plan on drilling any holes in my cooler since it is also my mash tun. I would also want to make it taller so that no metal is visible, and I May run the party tap into the bucket to keep the line cold. I do have a tap, but would have to build it up on the lidif I wanted to go that route. Still have 5 months to sort it out.

[mudpuppy000]

Something like this might work nicely. I have a couple and they tend to get knocked open, so might want to take it off when riding around.

[Mojojita]

Huge thank you's for the BEquinox goodness!

[mudpuppy000]

Huge thank you's for the BEquinox goodness!

We had a blast! Already looking forward to next year!

[mudpuppy000]

So we're going to do an informal meetup tomorrow in the arts district in Los Angeles. Beer will be involved. PM me if you'd like the info!