Friday evening happily marked the end of the longest theater drought I’ve endured since my debut as a fresh-faced mohawk-wearing 17 year-old (? I think ?) in Beauty and the Beast: 1 year, 5 months, and 21 days.  It’s been so bad there wasn’t even a "theater" category on the blog!  I mean, come on!

Oh, and it’s a record-breaking 77 degrees right now.  And our bulbs are coming up.  Awesome.

Duoteam gets righteously pwned by Captain Stupie!

Feast your eyes, my friends, on a bottle of Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey.  "What?!" you may say, "how does that work?"  Well, the Denver Daily News has a good writeup about the whiskey and the process that makes it unique – basically they use 4 kinds of barley grown in the "Northern Rockies" and ferment their wash at the Flying Dog Brewery.  (Sort of the reverse process for the amazing 1488 ale we had in Scotland – they use the wash from a distillery to make beer)  The wash is put in a holding tank at Stranahan’s and they distill on average three barrels per week in their unique combination pot / still column.  The whiskey is then aged for a minimum of two years (CO (or US?) law says it can’t leave the distillery until it’s 2 years old) in new charred American white oak barrels.

So basically we’re talking about an all-malt American whiskey made just an hour or two from my hometown using delicious Rocky Mountain water and a wash from a totally kick-ass brewery!  It’s different from other American whiskeys in that it’s all-malt, no corn or rye, and different from Scotch in that there’s no peat smoke.  I’m intrigued.  The Mmm, Whisk(e)y blog has some tasting notes that make me very, very excited to try this.

(Luckily I immediately chatted my mom in Fort Collins and not-so-subtly hinted this would make a fantastic birthday present.  I think someone’s going to be very happy when his 30th rolls around…  :)

Got a snow day today (Karen will hopefully post about the huge snow storm we’ve been getting) which is awesome – gave me time to finish up the caskerator!  (Still debating that name…)  First shot is the saw hooked up to the shop vac, a super nice configuration that lets me do work indoors on crappy days like this.  At right is the basic frame constructed.  Essentially I built a frame with plywood and bracing to get the shape, then started slapping 2" foamular insulation on it. 

At left you can see the corner detail.  I ended up just using wood glue to attach the foam to the plywood, seems plenty strong, and the interior bracing is good.  The whole structure firms up a ton once the back foam is attached.

Here’s me in my "project" shirt trying to figure out what’s next.  Those playing along at home will notice the kegerator is in the laundry room now – I knew the caskerator piece would be big but as I got it framed I realized the whole thing would be better out of the now-fancy-ish basement.

At right I’m cutting holes for the fans and an extra one on the left for gas and beer tubes to run.  By sizing the holes under a bit I could attach the fan right to the foam for a good seal.  My biggest concern in all of this, and a problem I didn’t solve until late in the project, was how to attach the caskerator and the kegenator.  I was planning on just running a 4" piece of duct between them, but I couldn’t figure out how to seal it tightly and still account for the shift when things moved – I need to pull them off the wall to fill the CO2, adjust pressure, etc…  Eventually I ended up with what you see at left – a built out 2" set of foam with some softer foam insulation attached.  Also you can see the hacked thermostat unit that controls the fans.

The basic idea is to take advantage of the angle in the floor.  At right you can see I’ve anchored the caskerator to the kegerator at the base to act as a pivot point. 

At left you can see how I’ve shoved little shims under the front wheels to push the soft foam into the kegerator.  It ends up producing a really tight seal and still provides movement so nothing breaks when I move them.

Here’s the kegs inside before closing it up – you can also just make out a wood and foam shaft I built to direct the air intake to up near the top.  I wanted every connection into the kegerator to have the cold air on the downhill side so it didn’t fall into the caskerator and make it too cold.  We’ll see how that works.

Finally, success!  I’ve only got a british bitter on tap right now, but I’ve got a Scottish 80 Shilling standing by as soon as a tap frees up!