Homebrew project: Tap Handles

Homebrewing has been a passion of mine for a few years now, as those of you who have read this blog before probably know already. I have a DIY nature, so I'm frequently coming up with some sort of thing to make whether it be beer, equipment, an electric guitar, or even a microphone. I love being able to look back on something and say that I created that. It doesn't hurt that you end up spending a heck of a lot less money in most cases when you make something yourself, and that means more money for buying beer.

When I first put my kegerator together, my wife took advantage of the chalkboard paint I coated the door with and drew on the tree from the Dogfish Head and Sierra Nevada collaboration, Life and Limb. It stands to reason then that I wanted some matching tap handles, and what better to use than some old,

messed up tree branches? The process was pretty straight forward. I headed over to my parent's house and found quite a lot of dead branches in the wooded area behind their yard. I was specifically looking for branches without bark on them, were a comfortable thickness, and that looked interestingly damaged. I then took them back, cut them down, sanded them lightly an

d drilled holes for the taps to screw into. Using a thread tapping set my dad has, I was able to add the threads directly to the wood, although I'm still considering buying some metal ferrules to install. I then burned our fake brewery name, "Phrygian" into the handles, added some stain, and coated them with polyurethane. I think they turned out great.