Belgian Mare Beer Blog: Back To Work

Greetings!

I realize that I must first apologize for the long span between posts. The point was really driven home when I was recently asked if we had abandoned the brewery project!

I am here to assure one and all that we have not abandoned the brewery project. In fact we are just getting back to work on the brewery. The problem is that much of what has been done so far this spring has required small crews so we have not yet been able to have the big work parties of last year. But fear not for we shall soon have one!

The biggest thing we have worked on has been planking the roof. Loyal readers may recall that the last work party put up all the rafters. So the next step was to plank the roof. However, we were not able to get that done before the snow flew (The day the rafters went up we had ice on the deck and the nail guns were malfunctioning due to the cold).

Eager to get going, I started putting up the roof planks myself and realized that things did not line up. This got me concerned. I called in some professional help in the form of our friend Andy. Andy is a professional builder of many years experience.

Andy came out on a Sunday morning. It turned out that nothing was seriously wrong and over the course of the next three hours, ignoring wind and rain, we were able to plank one half of the roof. With Andy up top yelling down what size plank he needed, and me passing up the same, things went quite smoothly.

The following Sunday Tracy's Uncles Vin and Greg came up. This time Vin had the honors of the "Man on the Roof" while Greg and I supplied the appropriate sized planks. In short order the second side of the roof was planked.

So we now have a planked roof. The next step is to put up the cupola vent and then start with the roofing. After that comes sheathing the exterior. I had not wanted to use any OSB or plywood on this project. However, due to some inherent weakness in the structure, Andy suggested that we sheath the building with OSB before siding it. The weakness arises from the fact that instead of building 12-foot walls, as the original plan called for , we built 8-foot walls and then added a 4-foot extension. This was done to make the construction more manageable for small crews. While not exactly a mistake, it did leave us with a weak spot that we need to take care of. The easiest way to do that is to sheath the building in OSB. So much for idealism.

Once again we must thank the folks at Woodell & Daughters for supplying us with some mighty fine lumber.

Hopefully, the gap between posing will be a little shorter from now on. Thanks to you all for sticking with me, the blog and the brewery.