Nov 102014
 
Brewing with S. eubayanus

I received a slant of Saccharomyces eubayanus (CBS 12357) from Bret Baker via a brew club member who was at NHC this past year. To be sure that I was using a clean, pure culture, I streaked a YPD plate for isolation. I then took 3 colonies and inoculated a few milliliters of 1.040 wort […]

Apr 262013
 

I’m starting to get geared up for the National Homebrewers Conference.  I’ve got my ticket, I’ve got the hotel reservation, the baby sitters are lined up.  Now I just need to get the beer ready.  I’m providing 2 kegs for my homebrew club, and time’s starting to run out.  I had better get brewing.  I […]

Apr 222013
 
English Hop Comparison

Last night a couple guys from my homebrew club put together a nice tasting comparing different English hops. They made a simple bitter with Maris Otter and some crystal malt and single hopped 3 gallon batches to about 50 IBU at 60 and 10 min with 0.25 oz at flameout. It was a great way […]

Mar 082013
 
My Introduction To Lagering

Since I acquired a refrigerator from a neighbor I had been meaning to finally brew a lager. I had been putting off making one for some time, as brewing one can make brewer feel very vulnerable. There is your beer with nothing to hide any flaws. No roasted barely to counter balance any residual sweetness. […]

Nov 302012
 
An alternative starter...

I decided to be a little creative when making my most recent lager yeast starter. I am going to be co-brewing an 11 gallon batch of German pils, and this requires a 2 gallon starter using my starter system. It seems like a waste of beer to just dump 2 gallons of starter down the […]

Nov 012012
 
Yeast Isolation Medium

I have been contemplating taming wild yeast. What I mean is I want to isolate clonal strains of wild yeast, be it S. cerevisiae or Brettanomyces species. By far the latter is more intriguing, as there are hundreds of S. cerevisiae strains available. To begin taming Brett stains I need two things: a source and a medium to specifically […]

Oct 112012
 

So I decided to try my hand at a partigyle brew, and I figured what better style to do this with than an English brown ale and a mild ale. I’ve been meaning to do this for a few years now, but never sat down to actually calculate a recipe. I sat down with my […]

May 112011
 

I’m always behind on my entries, so here’s a wrap up of the sour cherry ale. I named it Elysian Cherry Ale, and technically it’s a soured cherry Belgian pale ale. After primary fermentation (which was quite vigorous), the final gravity was 1.014.  I added 1 Lb of cherry juice concentration, which brought it up […]

Mar 162011
 

I got my wort for the Iron Brewer from Iron Hill on Friday Mar 11.  The SG was 1.058, and it was all domestic 2-row. In short, here’s the recipe: Grains: Iron Hill Wort (2 row)   5 gallons CaraMunich I 1lb 5oz Aromatic Malt 11 oz Hops:2.5 oz East Kent Goldings (4.8% AA) – […]

Feb 052011
 

Today, I’m going to start a Cherry Melomel. I’ll first ferment 5 gallons of orange blossom honey. Then I’ll rack it to secondary with cherry juice concentrate. Pretty simple – here’s the recipe. 15 lb Dutch Gold orange blossom honey Dissolve in water to yield 5 gallons total. Pitch 1.75 packs of D47 yeast.