There she be!

Earlier this week, my neighbour John worked his excavator magic and we slotted the last interior beam into the NW corner of the house.

One end is bolted to a 3/8” thick flitch plate, cut on a water jet table in Nanaimo by Unlimited Fabrication. The other end rests on a ladder until this coming weekend when I’ll add a built-up post of four 2X6s that will ultimately be housed inside an 18-inch thick wall.

Over the past few weeks I’ve also had great success with the giant Ikea connector for the posts and beams. I’ve avoided being flung from a great height or having my wrist snapped by my massive drill and there’ve been only a few minor alignment issues with my drilling jig that were resolvable. I’m delighted given the tight tolerances of 0.05” and challenging materials and circumstances.

External east and west posts and long beams to support the upstairs overhangs will be added after I shape and install the 15 epic 6 X 12” joists I had milled last spring.

I also built a work bench for shaping and sanding the joists. The base is 2 X 4” cribbing with a beastly bench top of two spare joists. When the joist work is done I’ll pop my compound mitre saw on the bench for chopping framing sticks.

Last Saturday I moved three of these 120 kg / 270 lb joists with my mate Archimedes and a few pieces of log as rollers. Nearly 10 months of air drying and the moisture level is at 21% near the surface and they look stunning.

Next job is to set-up string lines for levelling the joists where they meet the beams and to start notching and sculpting them to fit.

 

 

 

Whoosh!

An epic flame and the Tall Boy kettle rattled towards a boil, 28 litres of Pilsner in the making.

The graduation of my all-grain brewing from the kindergarten of an 18 litre pot and homemade double bucket lauter tun to a post-secondary 60 litre kettle and 40 litre converted Igloo cooler mash tun complete with false floor and ball valve for easy sparging.

Let’s not forget the Barley Crusher roller mill for crushing the malt now arriving on my doorstep in 25 kg bags. All part of the Mother of All Brewing Equipment Orders I placed in November from Ontario Beer Kegs and Hop Dawgs that included 60 kg of malt, a dozen different hop varieties and two dozen yeast strains.

Lest all of this sound like the hopped-up pub banter of beer-anoraks [which it is], simply know this: when it rains on Gabriola and the house building stalls, the beer [wine or cider] making commences.

I see it as time well spent on the house build.

Instead of chiselling or hoisting beams I’m laying down hectolitres of crisp Czech Pilsners, malty Munich-style lagers, heady porters, enduring session ales and fresh milds to bend the rubber arms of volunteers who will be press-ganged into cob floor building and light clay straw mixing this coming summer.

Absolutely nothing says natural building like free beer.

Bring on the rain or the sun. We are happy either way.

Beer anoraks read on, everyone else skip to the photos

 

Pilsner recipe (28 litres)

Adapted and modified RU Kidding Me? Pils from Papazian, The Complete Joy of Homebrewing, pp. 301-303

5.75 Pilsner malt, crushed
332 g aromatic malt
62 g Saaz hops (60 min boil)
31 g Hersbrucker-Hallertauer hops (30 min boil)
6 g Saaz and 16 g Hersbrucker-Hallertauer (1 minute boil)
Whirlfloc (Irish moss) 10 min boil
21g Saaz hops for dry hopping while lagering for 4 weeks
White Labs Pilsner lager yeast WLP800 (two vials)
OG 1.046-50
FG 1.010-12
35 IBU

Mash all grains in 12.5 litres of 68C water for 45 minutes at 68C, raise to 70C for 15 minutes, heat to 75C, drain and sparge with 11 litres of 76C water.

60 minute boil with hops and Whirlfloc added as above. Cool wort to 23C, sieve and sparge into fermenter. Aerate well and cast two vials of yeast. Ferment at 13C until fermentation visibly stops, rack and add dry hops and lager for 3-4 weeks at 2-13C. Clarify with gelatin if necessary a week before bottling. Prime bottles with 175 ml of brewer’s sugar dissolved in 300 ml of boiling water.

Drink immediately or age for up to 6 months.