THE ART OF HOMEBREWING

My name is Jared. This blog is designed to teach what I know and what I am learning about homebrewing.

 

HEY! What happened to you? No beer?

I’m still alive. Unfortunately starting a new job while juggling my final semester of undergrad didn’t leave me with enough time to brew. Without having the opportunity to brew I didn’t have much to write about and I didn’t want to just have filler posts until then.

Luckily I am done with school now and my schedule has opened up plenty of time to sneak in a few brews here and there. I expect to be brewing again in the next week or so. As always I’ll catalog everything here for all to see.

I apologize for the post hiatus. I haven’t been brewing it’s as simple as that. I don’t have much time to sit down and write posts right now, never mind brew a batch of beer. As always I hop this changes very shortly.

In the mean time, don’t forget I have all of my Homebrewing How-Tos on the Homebrewing 101 page. If you have any questions at all feel free to ask here. No matter what I will take the time to answer any and all questions I receive.

Cheers.

2 months ago 1 note

Cheers! There’s not much better than a holiday that promotes excessive drinking.

2 months ago 6 notes

Russian River Brewing’s Pliny the Elder

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2 months ago 2 notes

"I think it’s lovely, and the reasons that I like it seem to be all the reasons why other people don’t. But I’ve never claimed Beer Snobbery, only Beer Enthusiasm."

- MARY; beerwedrank

2 months ago 2 notes

New England Brewing’s Gandhi-Bot

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2 months ago 3 notes

New Addition

About a month ago I asked you guys how you felt about beer reviews. The consensus was about 50/50. Some of you wanted to see them, while others didn’t want the homebrew posts to get lost in the reviews. Here’s my solution:

I wil post at least one beer review a week. My schedule has just become too busy lately and I haven’t had much time to homebrew or post about it. I want to continue to deliver you content so the reviews will give me that opportunity. I try and tag every post I make so that they fall into 1 of 3 categories seen in the menu bar to the left: “Homebrewing 101”, “Recipes”, and “Reviews”. This will allow you guys to find what ever it is you need. If you are looking for a technique then you can easily just click “101” and find it. I want everything to be easily accessible to you guys.

I’ve been writing reviews consistently since late last year, I just haven’t posted them. The reason I’m finally bringing them to the public is because I’ve gotten my hands on some well-respected and sought after beers in the past weeks and wanted to share my experience with them.

Hopefully those that didn’t want to see reviews wont be too turned off. I don’t plan on posting them everyday, only once a week. That should keep them from overtaking my blog.

Cheers!

3 months ago 1 note
Is a malted extract/malt syrup the same as a Hopped malt extract? Also, I want to make a batch but don't know if I should go HME, hops, or both. How much hops do you need to use if you don't use HME?

The amount of hops needed in a batch all depends on the style you are brewing. If you are making a malt focused beer like a Porter you may only use around 2 ounces of hops. Even if your leaning more towards a hop-focused beer like a Pale Ale you may be using the same volume. The added bitterness will come from a hop variety with a higher AA% (Alpha Acids). When you get into get into the IPA range of hoppiness you could be looking at 6+ ounces.

It really just boils down to the style you plan on brewing, the level of bitterness you want, and the flavor profile you are looking for.

This barely even scratches the surface. To truly explain hops I’d have to get into the different varieties, alpha acids, cohumulone levels, boil time, etc. That is an article for another day.

White IPA: Dry Hopping

So here we are, 3 weeks after brew day, and today si the day to rack it to secondary. I give almost all my beer 3 weeks in primary regardless of what any recpe says. This gives the yeast plenty of time to finish fermentation and continue to clean up any off products produced in the first few hours after pitching.

After pulling off a small sample, which came in at 1.010, I’ve determined a couple things. First, I was scared that the hops may already be too overpowering of the Wit at this stage, not the case so I carried on with the Dry Hopping. Second, and maybe most relieving, my beer did not get infected by the hose water. It tastes great, a little watered down, but still great…

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3 months ago 3 notes

There are huge perks to writing a beer blog. The biggest perk is that your readers can hook you up with beer that is otherwise unattainable to you.

Thank you Jenn for shipping me some Pliny all the way across the country. I’m enjoying it immensly as we speak! 

3 months ago 7 notes