Homebrewing

The All Grain Brewer   |   Thursday, February 23 2012
Carbonator drops :  How to let the carbonation happen naturally in the bottle by adding sugar.

So I have been kegging my beers exclusively since about 2006. I like kegging over bottling on several levels. First I only have to clean one keg, and second I can much more easily adjust carbonation in beer the way I want it.

However, I have recently been doing some bottling after I rack / transfer the beer into the keg. I still have to clean and sanitize the bottles just like I used to, but generally I am only working with a dozen or less so it is not that painful. As I mentioned earlier, I didn’t like bottling because I could never get the correct carbonation levels. A lot of my carbonation level problems revolved around my brewing equipment. My buckets and carboys have no volume indication. Therefore, I would put in the correct amount of corn sugar for five gallons of beer for proper carbonation, but I might actually have 5.2 gallons of beer. This means my final product is under carbonated, and I’m once again not happy with the beer.

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Homebrewing

The All Grain Brewer   |   Thursday, February 16 2012
Lessons learned :  The importance of temperature, roused yeast cakes, blow off tubes, and an understanding spouse.

Fermentation Alert! This winter I have been having all kinds of hardships with fermentation whether it is over fermentation (I’ll explain in a second) or under fermentation.

Under fermentation is really the main issue that I have been battling. This is primarily due to the fact that the temperatures are just cooler in my house during the winter. My basement is between 61 and 62 F. My living space in the house is around 67 F.

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Homebrewing

The All Grain Brewer   |   Thursday, February 09 2012
BJCP Category 19C :  Contrinuing the discussion all the way through to fermentation.

So last week in I talked about brewing an American Barleywine. I followed through on my weekend goal, and got it done. Therefore I will now discuss my hopes for the newly brewed beer. If you did not read last week's post, stop now, and proceed to read last week's post. If you did read last week's post then holy crap someone does read this stuff. Enjoy this Issue – An American Barelywine; a true patriot.

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Homebrewing

The All Grain Brewer   |   Thursday, February 02 2012
American Barleywine :  Thinking through the required ingredients, equipment, process, and timing.

So this weekend I am going to brew an American Barley Wine. So let’s go through a mental brewing session to make sure we are ready. To begin, do I have all the ingredients? I have been known to start brewing only to realize later I was missing an ingredient, generally it's hops since it comes later in the game.

First, I need lots of base malt. So one of my home brew buddies GAVE me a half used bag of Marris Otter because it was over a year old, so I want to use it as fast as possible. I don’t think that it is unusable like he did, but it does not need anymore age on it. Barley wine ale is a great way to use up copious amounts of grain. If you’re a brewing purest your saying – an American beer can’t use a British base malt. “You must use American two-row malt.” The answer is “no I don’t”. I can do whatever I want. I use Marris Otter for most of my ales. It’s just that good. I see the recipe also calls for some Crystal 40 and a little Special B. I have both of those in my possession, so I’m cool on grain. I have tons of home grown Chinook and Cascade, so I am good there. I’m going to want some table sugar as well, and I know the wife has some of that.

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Homebrewing

The All Grain Brewer   |   Thursday, January 26 2012
BJCP Category 18B :  The Belgian Dubble and why it’s good to be in a home brew club.

You can tell it is brewing season because the snow is on the ground, the air is cold, and all I’ve been writing about lately is my last brewing adventure. Well, last weekend all three of these things came together again. This time it was a Belgian Dubble, category 18B in the BJCP style guidelines if you want to go read about it. The best commercial example of the style is Westmalle Dubble of which I agree. However, another close competitor is Grimbergen Dubbel. Grimbergen Dubble has one advantage over Westmalle and that is the price. Grimbergen is about $10.00 a six pack, while Westmalle is about $4.50 per bottle because it’s a Trappist Ale. Trappist ales are made by monks at low production levels, therefore the price is higher especially when they make the best example of a beer style in the world.

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Homebrewing

The All Grain Brewer   |   Thursday, January 19 2012
BJPC Category 14B :  A discussion of the style guidelines pertaining to aroma, appearance, flavor, mouthfeel, and overall impression.

It's brewing season and I just brewed BJPC Category 14B, or for those of you not familiar with the BJCP style guidelines I brewed an American IPA. What is the BJCP you say? Well, it’s the Beer Judge Certification Program, and this organization publishes the style guidelines for beer, mead, and perry. When I brew I generally brew to their guidelines because in a competition my beer will get judged to the BJCP written standards based on: aroma, appearance, flavor, mouthfeel, and overall impression. The BJCP style guidelines can be found on the internet at www.bjcp.org.

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