Flashback to prep day. Here’s the recipe: Continue reading
TMBR: Schl. Wolfenstein Dunkel
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Monthly Archives: January 2013
book report: Dave Miller’s “Brew Like a Pro”
I like Dave Miller. His Homebrewing Guide was the technical manual in the mid-90s and the book that ushered me into all-grain and kegging. He had previously written a number of other books, some of them for what would eventually become Brewers Publications. Then, like many others, became a homebrewer who went pro.
That was more or less the last we heard from Dave in print for a while, until last year’s Brew Like a Pro. Mr. Miller has retired as a pro brewmaster and once again taken up the small spoon; this book is, in his words, “a field report of my reentry into homebrewing.” Continue reading
crowdsourcing a stout
A few days ago, blog reader Joe J. asked:
I am gearing up to get a nice dry stout going for Patty’s Day. Do you have a tried and true recipe that you stick by?
I’m going to invite y’all to help me answer in the comments section. I’ll go first:
What I brew, when I brew a dry Irish stout, isn’t mine by any means – it’s pretty much the standard modern Dublin DIS formulation: 65% pale malt, 25% flaked barley, 10% roast barley. I like a bitter dry stout, so I aim to get low-mid 30s for IBUs with one bittering charge. Then 1084 Irish Ale yeast and Erin go bragh … nitro serve is nice if you can do it, but the texture is nice regardless with the flaked barley.
So … what say you, citizens?
on Minnesota hops
A reader posted this question to the “About” page of this blog:
I’m curious about your thoughts of the hops industry, or lack thereof in MN. It seems that there are breweries opening every month, but virtually no one in MN is growing hops at even a semi-commercial scale. Do you think this is a needed industry in MN, and do you think that the local brewers would prefer to brew with locally sourced hops?
… and as I’ve written and rewritten my thoughts on this, the response turned into something that needed more than a one-paragraph reply to a thread on a different topic. Continue reading
the imp of the perverse
Picture it, citizens: there I was, minding my business, bench-trialing and blending some more- and less-aged sour beer into a semblance of a whole, when the imp of the perverse called an audible. Continue reading
2013
Happy new year, citizens.
I am not big on resolutions – when I make a to-do list, I like to include items that I’ve already completed so I can start crossing things off right away and bask in the glow of my own incredible efficiency – but I do believe in the importance of intentionality and not waiting for things to happen all by themselves. So, with that in mind, here are my brewing resolutions for the 363 days to come:
- Read in a timely fashion these good books that Santa brought me.
- Renew the bonds of friendship with some yeast strains and beer styles that I haven’t visited in years … Dortmunder, Witbier, straight lambic, Wyeast 2565 …
I’d love to hear what you guys have planned for your fermentors and kegs this year.
the beer engine 