Charlottesville Area Masters of Real Ale

I respect that. 

I've been off the hophead wagon for almost a year, but I have a summit rye pale ale in primary and I'm thinking about a Pliny clone at the beginning of next year.

Old habits die hard.

Can my sources talk to your sources and source me some hops?

I'm just cheap.  And hops are expensive.

I'm a special fan of simcoe, which have become impossible to find recently, but I also like saaz.  Homegrown or otherwise.

I haven't disassembled the keg valve bits at all.

Brewing in converted equipment --

Given the massive amount of cold rain, I brewed inside, but I used my mash kettle.

Several notes about that :

1) the prefab kits to drop a copper pipe into the center of the keg are difficult to measure accurately.  I had to mix-n-match some parts from Lowe's to get everything put together properly.

2) the bazooka-t mashing screen with other zymico weldless fittings suck water out of the keg extremely fast.  in fact, the speed at which one can drain liquid out of the mash is so fast that the mash itself cannot shed water fast enough to keep up with the outflow.  This can be fixed by crimping the hose attached to the ball valve.

3) the 15 gallon mash kettle absorbs/loses heat like a sonofagun.  I played around with the mash a lot to try and get the temperature high enough.  My current thinking is that preheating the strike water is a good idea. Next, direct firing the mash kettle after the initial strike will obtain the desired temperature.  Lastly, I am going to try and insulate it with something flame-retardant.