A watched pot never boils.....

...but if you turn your back it will always boil over!!

I brewed my American IPA yesterday out in the fridgid cold, and stepped inside to warm up a bit and had a boil over. It was so cold that the bolied over wort froze as soon as it hit the ground. Other than that, it was a succesful day.

I've been very lucky these past few months. Things at work were slow.....very slow. So slow that I had a lot of time on my hinds. Time to do things like plan out 6 brew sessions....Belgian Tripel (3 seperate batches), Munich Dunkel, Winter Spiced Ale 2009 and recently American IPA. I also had the time to look for a new job....which I accepted a few weeks ago and start on January 4th! :-) While this new job won't give me access to great homebrew shops like my old one did, it will put me right next to my favorite beer bar in Boston (Bukowski's) and give me a 45 minute shorter commute.....each way!!!

Anyway...enough rambling. My Winter Spiced Ale turned out ok, but had no carbination. So in order to fix this issue, I sanatized a keg, and dumped them all into the keg and I'm in the process of force carbinating it. My sister-in-law helped me make an AWESOME label (which I'll post when I can get it off my thumb drive which I don't have now) and I think everythin will be saved, just not in time for Christmas. Oh well.

I brought my Munich Dunkel today to a meeting I had at Cape Cod Beer. I was lucky enough ot have the opportunity to meet with Todd and Beth Marcus, Owners of Cape Cod beer, for some insight into the business and starting out as a brewer! It was awesome. And, in edition, he tried my Munich Dunkel and had some good feed back. They're going to serve a few of them at his next homebrew meeting and send me some additional feedback as well. SWEET!!!!!!

Other than that, my wife and I are getting ready to welcome our first child in March. I'm trying to get a few more brew sessions in before then, for two reasons. One, so I'll have enough home brew to last me through the summer, and two because I don't want to assume I'll have enough time to brew much at first.

I hope you all have a happy and safe New Year!!

Cheers,
Jason

Odds and Ends

Boy, do I need to brew some beer!!!! My last batch was back in September. I brewed my Winter Spiced ale for this year. I'm changing it up. For starters, I brew it will all grain. Second, I'm not going to dry spice it this year with cinnamon sticks. I thought the cinnamon in last years batch was very overpowering and I really want to make sure the beer is what stands out, not the cinnamon. I still have 4 bottles from last years batch, so I'll do a side-by-side when this years batch is bottled and ready!

A little off topic, but a cause of why I have not been brewing, I just renovated my bathroom! This was a full renovstion, down to the studs and I did the vast majority my self, with the exception of the plumbing and electrical work. It is almost 100% complete which will be nice. We have a 110 year old home, so when you do these types of projects, there are always issues. We had many....which caused all the delays. I was planning on being done this past sunday, and then I was going to have 2 brew sessions this week after work, but this delays/issues keep piling up!! So, I'll brew soon enough!

Next up is 2 batches of Belgian Tripel. It was a big hit, so I'm going to brew a lot of it and trade it with some friends for some random things. This should be fun! I also think I'm going to brew up my brown session ale. I've been really craving some session beers lately, but all I have are the belgian tripels and some bigger IPA's. This isn't neccesarily an issue, but when you swill 4-5 of them you definitely feel it in the morning, which IS an issue!!

With the renovation of the bathroom, we rented a dunpster for all the demo. This allowed us to clean out the basement, which was long overdue. It was clutered with things we bought or collected over the years and have no use for. With this new found space, I'm going to try and carve out a space so I can brew down there in the winter. I'm not sure if it's a good idea or not to brew with a propane burner indoors, but I think if I do it by the door and have the door open, I'll have the proper ventilation I need to make everything ok. Besides, I've seen plenty of people in BYO or Zymurgy who have propane setups in their basements and it seems to be fine. We shall see!

Cheers,
Jason

Overdue

Sorry for the long pause in between posts. I have many updates to write about, but no time right now. I'll get these posts up this weekend hopefully.

Upcoming Posts:

• Belgian Tripel tasting and label update (Allagash clone)
• Christmas Spiced Ale Brew Session
• Munich Dunkel Update
• Big Beer Idea

Cheers,

Jason

Fermentation Friday - Where It All Began

For many people, craft beer is a luxury. For others, it's a necessity!! For me, it's both! It's a reward for long day at work, or a great workout or race one weekend. It's also the only option for me because when I want to reward myself, I want something special. Something that makes me feel like it was made specifically for me. Not some mass marketed product that is made to please the majority. A good craft beer is the only thing that will do.

It wasn't always that way though. I can remember back to my youth when I'd be sitting with my dad watching the Patriots, Bruins or Red Sox and seeing my dad crack open a few Michelob's or Coors. I remember that first sip he gave me. I remember thinking, "really, I can have a sip?" and cherishing that sip like it was the blood of Christ. I didn't like it, but it wasn't the quality I was looking for, it was the feeling that I had started to grow up and be "a man" because I had some of my dads beer.

As I got older my drinking habits, and reason's, changed. I no longer had a few sips so I could feel more mature and like a man, I drank because I wasn't allowed to! I drank to be a rebel! And, coincidentally, I drank whatever I could get my hands on which was always cheap macro lager.

This continued into and through college (yes I drank in high school once or twice) as the normal keger was flowing with Milwaukee's best, "The Beast" as we called it. It was no where near tasty, but it was cheap and it did the job. Most of all though, I didn't know any better. I didn't know that I could drink beer and actually enjoy it for the taste too, not just for how much fun I had while drinking it.

It was my sophomore year in college when I had my first taste of craft beer. We were having a small get together and he brought some Saranac Adirondack Lager. I couldn't believe how good it was. I mean, beer wasn't supposed to taste good, it was supposed to get you drunk. I remember staring at the bottle reading every word trying to figure out why it was so different. I must have asked him 100 times where he got it. The next day, I was at the beer store buying more, and was baffled to see they had even more varieties than just Saranac Adirondack Lager.

Throughout the remainder of my tenure at Hartwick College, I did continue to drink macro lagers and craft beers. Mainly because the macro's were cheap and I didn't have a lot of money as a college kid, and because that's what was being served at party's.

So how does this tie into home brewing? Well, my senior year I was in the beer store staring at the craft section trying to figure out what I wanted. A man came in and went right to the craft section and grabbed some Saranac Black Forest. As he was paying, the cashier asked him how the brewing was going. Was he a brewer? I needed to know. I quickly paid and followed him out and asked where he brewed. He told me he wasn't a professional brewer, he brewed at home. We chatted, and then he told me to come down to his store to chat some more and he would explain all he could about home brewing.

I went to his store, we chatted for about an hour, and I left with my first home brewing kit and ingredients for an Amber Ale. From that day on, I never looked at beer the same. I drank each beer and always though, "Can I make this?". I tried a few batches, and each one failed miserably. Poor sanitation was usually the cause, but mostly it was my lack of ability to follow instructions. I just threw some stuff in the pot, cooked it, added yeast and thought I'd get some beer. Not the case!

After college, I took about a 7 year hiatus from brewing and focused on drinking! It was fun, and I tried every craft beer I could, started reading about how they were made and finally decided to give it a go again....this time with much better success. I've been brewing now frequently for the past two and a half years and have tried to learn with each session. What can I do better? What other styles can I try? What would happen if I used this ingredient? There is a ton more brewing I need to do in order to considered advanced, but I think I'm getting pretty close. Just think, I might have never gotten here if it were not for that Adirondack Lager I had back in college!!

Cheers and happy Fermentation Friday!

Jason

I am......AN IDIOT!!!!!!

This is not meant to be one of those rants where I say "I thought of it first", BUT I REALLY DID!!!! And I have proof!!! (See picture) I had the idea for the "I am a Homebrewer" too, and I balked at the chance to do it!! DAMN IT!!!! As you can see by my post, I thought of this back in April. Chances are these guys did too, and it just took a while to get it out there. Kudos to them for actually going through with it!!!

Why bring this up now you say? Well, because I'm slightly jealous and I feel like an idiot. I should have gone ahead with the idea then I could be the one everyone is talking about! Ehh, oh well! Anyway, I hope you have seen the clip and enjoyed it. It's pretty good.....BUT IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN US! :-)

Cheers,
Jason

What to brew next?

For the past 4 months I've been training very hard in order to complete in my first half-ironman triathlon. For those not familiar with triathlons, the race consists of a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike and a 13.1 mile run. The weekend is finally upon me, and on Sunday I will be swimming, biking and running my way to the finish line in under 5 hours and 30 minutes....I hope!! I'm really excited that the race is finally here. I get to see all that training that I did put to good use. The weather outlook looks great for race day, so I'm looking forward to a great day!!

Another reason I'm excited about the race being here is that all that time I spent training......can now be spent brewing!!! I haven't brewed since early May and I am in desperate need of a brew session. But, I'm having a small problem. I don't know what I should brew. Part of me is thinking I should brew the batch I brewed for the wedding, and try to incorporate some of the suggestions I had into the beer and attempt to perfect it. But the creative side of me wants to try something new. These past few months, I've been indulging in some Belgian beers. Mostly from Allagash and Ommegang, but I've made a list of some of the beers I'm going to try and track down from some of the trappist breweries in Belgium and try those. I've given up drinking for the past two weeks (which was not easy) so after Sunday, I'm going to get back on the wagon with an Allagash Curieux and either a Brooklyn Local 1 or Local 2. (The decision between Local 1 and Local 2 will be made by who wins the race....me, or my friend Shaun who is also competing).

Which brings me to the reason for this post. I can't decide what to brew....so I'm leaving it up to you, my readers. I'll post a poll for this and you can vote over on the left side. Brew day is going to be Sunday, July 26th and it can't come soon enough!! If you have a suggestion that isn't in the poll, leave a comment and I'll consider it!!

Cheers,
Jason

Beer Wars - The review......

Last night I spent the evening with my wife in Framingham MA attending the well talked about Beer Wars Movie. And to be honest...I'm still not sure how I feel about it. To answer the questions I posted about yesterday, Yes...I was entertained and No, I didn't learn anything new. So, if you're still planning on going to see the movie and would hate to know all about the movie before you saw it (Leah and Luke are brother and sister....wait, wrong wars) then don't read on.

The start of the movie was, to say the least, rough. I felt like I was watching a track meet and someone tripped when the gun went off. Not good. Anat Baron (Filmmaker) struggled in the opening of the the movie, which was live. Whoever was holding her cue cards probably got fired today.....and we'll leave it at that. I guess that's what you get with live production.

Once the movie actually started rolling, things went a little better. The beginning of the movie went through Anat's background working in the "beer" industry. Ahem....she worked for Mikes Hard lemonade....not quite beer, but a malternative none the less. Oh, and she is allergic to alcohol so she can't drink it. Now, I am in no way saying she's not allergic to alcohol, but to make a movie about beer....hype the crap out of it....then admit you don't drink beer seems a little hypocritical! To quote a good friend....."that's like me making a movie about dresses". It just doesn't work, and my attitude toward the movie quickly shifted to "damn, I just wasted $32 on this movie....should I make my wife stay through it all?"

She then proceeded start us through a journey of beer giving the history of beer in America and transitioned into the big 3 brewers and how they got to be so big. The rest of the movie jumped around from topic to topic, starting with Sam Calagione. She highlighted his/Dogfish Heads rise to Cult status and talked about the expansion to there brewery. The other interview subject was Rhonda Kallman, founder and CEO of New Century Brewing Co. Rhonda also happens to be the co-founder of Boston Beer Co, the makers Sam Adams. New Century is launching a new beer called Moonshot, which is a light beer made with Caffeine in it. This was probably the most interesting part of the movie personally because it highlighted the struggle that start -up craft brewers have to face with the big 3 pushing you off the shelf in stores.

The rest of the movie seemed more like a clip from a Michael Moore film. It showed clips of here trying to track down (stalk) August Busch IV. Then clips of Anat in DC discussing the Beer Lobby and the 3 tier distribution system. I started to get excited that I might learn something about the 3 tier system, but nothing. No more than 15 seconds were spent trying to explain the system, or why the lobbyist are fighting to keep it in place so hard.

Then......it was over! Time for the live panel moderated by Ben Stein. The panel consisted of Charlie Papazian (AHA), Greg Koch (Stone), Sam Calagione (Dogfish Head), Rhonda Kallman (New Century), Maureen Ogle (Author, "Ambitious Brew"), Todd Alstrom (Beer Advocate) and Anat, and man was it awkward. Some of the questions Ben asked made it seem like he didn't watch the movie. I forget the exact wording of the question, but it was the second one he asked and the movie had touched on the same question and Greg Koch answered it in the movie.......STEIN.........STEIN.........STEIN?

All in all, I kind of wish I had waited for it to come out on DVD or better yet....You tube! I know Anat had good intentions of showing how the Big 3 are trying to push the Craft Brewers around, but it fell short of the target. Some segments should have gone deeper, some shouldn't have gone at all, but I can say I was entertained!! I'm looking forward to hearing how others felt about it. I'm sure there will be TON'S of posts on blog around the country!!

Cheers!
Jason

CNN BREAKING NEWS!!!!!!!!

I'm not sure about you, but when I see that come across my email, my heart skips a beat. I think back to 2001 when I received the same email about the twin towers, or in 2005 when 16 Navy Seals were killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan that was hit by an RPG, and one went MIA for 2 weeks. So, naturally when I saw today's CNN BREAKING NEWS email, I said to myself "oh no"......quickly followed by "ARE YOU F-ING KIDDING ME?".

"-- Ashton Kutcher is first to reach 1 million followers in Twitter contest with
CNN."

Is this what the news world has been reduced to??? The fact that anyone should give a shit that Ashton Kutcher reached 1 million followers on Twitter is, to say the least, RIDICULOUS!!!!

Our country is in the middle of one of, if not the, worst recessions EVER. We're still fighting two wars overseas (agree with them or not, they are still going on), Pirates are attacking ships delivering relieve supplies to 3rd world country's and CNN has the balls to send a breaking news alert about Ashton f-ing Kutcher reaching 1 million followers???? WOW!!!!

Sorry for the non-beer rant, but that just pushed my buttons!!!

Cheers to real news,

Jason

Email posting & Beer wars

This post is brought to you via email for the first time!!! I'm not sure if this is a good thing, but maybe it will help with my lack of posting! WOO HOO TECHNOLOGY!!!

Tonight, I'm heading out to see "Beer Wars" with my wife. I have mixed feelings about this movie. One on hand, I'm wondering how they can pull off a documentary about beer to a bunch of craft beer drinkers who already despise the macros....I mean, are we going to learn anything that the converted craft beer drinkers of America don't already know?? On the other hand.....I'm pretty sure I'll be entertained which is the point of going to the movies. Plus, I get to spend a night of beer watching, and most likely drinking, with my wife which is always good!! I'll post another day on what I thought about the movie!

Cheers,
Jason

Beer's Economic Impact

I came accross a great site today called Beer Serves America. The site goes into great detail about the impact beer has our nations (and states) economy. There is a tool on the site that allows you to view by state, and by district within your state, the economic impact the beer industry has. It was pretty amazing stuff. In 2006, Massachusettes employed just under 25,000 people in the industry earning wages over $255 million.

Now, I'm not an economist, but I read a great post (actually a few) on Lew Bryson's blog about taxes on beer/liquor/cigarettes etc. and how they don't work. With Govenor Deval's push for the new "Wellness Tax" I thought I'd point out this site. As Lew's post points out, NJ Tried this with smokes in order to help curb a budget crisis, and it backfired. People either stopped smoking or drove over the border to get their smokes and the State actually lost revenue.

Let's pray that the Wellness Tax doesn't go into effect. Because not only will your beer be more expensive, but that bag of skittles from the vending machine will be $2 soon!!

Cheers,
Jason

Lagering - Part 1

I took my first step in being able to brew a lager. This weekend I converted my basement fridge into a lagering fridge. No, I say "converted" but all I really did was reinforce the bottom shelf of the firdge with a piece of plywood and braced the shlef to be able to withstand the weight of my carboy. I know, it's not much. But it's a step in the right direction and I can now fit a single keg on one side of the shelf and the carboy on the other.

I've already put together a Munich Dunkle recipe that I'm going to try out. It's second in line now to my Sweet Crystal Ale, which I'm hoping will be close to the Sixpoint Sweet Action I wrote about. Hopefully I'll be able to brew the dunkle before I leave for Red Sox Spring Training in March.

Here are my questions to you....have you ever brewed a lager? Was it difficult? What did you brew?

I'm not set in stone to brewing the Munich Dunkle, so if you have a good recipe, let me know.

Cheers,
Jason

Sixpoint Craft Ales

I was in Brooklyn yesterday and found myself in front of the Sixpoint Craft Ales brewery. Our goal was to get a tour and be able to chat with the brewers and taste some of there fantastic ales. Sixpoint doesn't have a phone number, so we just had to show up and hope they were open. To our dismay, they weren't. We decided to grab a seat at the bar just next door and have a few . Hey, it's as close as we could get. If you would like a tour, you need to email them in advance (which we soon found out)

I had two of Sixpoints beers. Sweet Action I think is their version of an American Pale Ale. The sweetness from the carmel malt is amazing and balanced perfectly with the hop bitterness and flavor. Very delicious beer. The second I tried was their Righteous Ale, a rye ale that had great hop flavor and malty taste. Also a good beer.

I had first heard of Sixpoint when a friend of mine bought me two growlers from their brewery, Hop Obama and a Belgian triple. The Hop Obama was a great beer with a MASSIVE hop presence. Not too overpowering and it had great balance with malty sweetness. The Belgian Triple was amazing as well. I think it was actually their Grand Crue, (Belgian barely-wine) but there was no label on the growler, so I'm not entirely sure. The alcohol was definitely present and after finishing the growler, i was feeling a little saucy...which isn't a bad thing.

As we were leaving the bar, we noticed a small building across the street and through the windows we saw new oak barrels stacked 3 high, potentially filled with delicous Sixpoint Craft Ales. I'm going to keep my eyes open for some barrel aged beers coming out in the near future. I suggest you give them a try if you can.

Cheers,

Jason

Brew Years Resolution

In the spirit of the new year, I've decided to put together a list of my 2009 new years beer resolutions.






1. Brew at least once a month.
2. Enter more homebrew competitions (in order to get better feedback about my beer)
3. Finish my business plan (if I'm ever going to get this business started, i need to finish it)
4. Learn and understand more about water composition in certain styles
5. Buy a grain mill so I can start buying bulk grain
6. Find a place to store the grain
7. Post more on the blog (goes with brewing more)
8. Post more educational information about brewing (for the beginner readers I have)

So....I know that's a lot, but I figure if I can get half of those done, then I've accomplished a lot. I hope you all had a great holiday and have a happy new year. I'm brewing my Belgian Wit tomorrow so I'll post the recipe and notes after.

Also, I finally popped my Winter spiced ale with a few friends over Christmas, and it was a big hit. My brother and I were very excited as you can see. When I originally tasted the first a few weeks ago, the cinnamon was overpowering, but the extra time in the bottle really allowed the cinnamon to mellow and balance very well with the nutmeg and ginger. I was very please, although Christmas night I had a few too many of them and had a hard time walking home. Oh well!!

Cheers and Happy New Year!!

Jason

Weekend comes to a crashing end

Thanksgiving each year for me is shared with my wife's family in PA. Since there are so many of them (28) we celebrate thanksgiving and Christmas together, and then my wife and I spend Christmas with my family. This year, instead of going to my wife's aunts house, we all rented some condo's in the Pocono Mountains in north eastern PA.

The week was great, minus the fact that there was no good beer around. Thankfully I thought ahead and brought a bunch of beers, plus some of my own (Brown Session and VB Porter). I gave some tastings to some family members and they all loved them. I think I've secured beer duty for all future family gatherings.

When we got home and unpacked, I had to re-stock the fridge with all the left over beers ( i brought beer for everyone, but apparently only needed to worry about me and my wife so I had a ton left over to bring home). I was in the basement about an hour later and heard a sudden crash come from the fridge, and then the door flung open and out poured bottles of beer, shattered glass, waves of beer spilling from the broken bottles, and a few bottles which thankfully didn't break.

Apparently it's not smart to fill a shelf made of glass with 2 + cases of beer, because it will shatter and spill everything on it. The real problem is that I didn't label my last two beers (Brown Session and VB Porter) because I was going to enter them into homebrew contests and as most of you know, labeled bottles are frowned upon. I had it all down though, the VB porters on the right side of the top and bottom shelf and the Brown Sessions on the bottom shelf. Well, when the shelf shattered, it mixed them all up and now they got all mixed up and I don't know which ones are which. So needless to say, I might be entering them into the wrong categories. Oh well....Might as well start drinking the little that is left over and find out which beers are which.

Hope you all had a good turkey day!

Cheers,
Jason

Catching up

It's been a few weeks since I've last posted, but I haven't been able to brew since TAFTHBD so I haven't had much to write about. A few things have happend since then. Firts, my company laid off 1500 people in the first of 3 rounds of layoffs. Thankfully I was spared for now. Second, I tasted my first all-grain batch (American Brown Ale) the other night and I was very pleased. Great sweetness from the carmel malts, and just the right amount of bitterness I was looking for. The was some bready/malty flavors that I think came from the munich malt and it was a little darker than expected, but still great. Next time, I will leave out the munich and use some cara-pils for better body. This beer had good carbonation and head retention, just didn't have the prickly co2 bubbles in the drink itself. I'll post a proper review when I get a chance.3

Also, we're bottling up the APA from TAFTHBD this weekend. My friend is very excited since this is his first beer, and I am too since I only have to split it with one other person! More beer for me!

I posted a question on the tastybrew forum about when I should bottle my Winter ale. So, I will ask you, my readers, as well. I brewed this beer in early October and it's still in the carboy aging. Should I continue to age it in bulk in the carboy, or bottle now and let it sit until christmas? My plan is to age it until christmas regardless of where, but I'm curious to see if it is better to age all togther, or in seperate "batches" in each bottle. Let me know you're thoughts!

Cheers,
Jason

White Water Rafting on the Kennebec River

I spent this past weekend with some friends up in The Forks, Maine doing some white water rafting with the Northern Outdoors company. I've never been rafting and I was very excited. My wife, not so much. She was petrified! But, she faced her fears, and got on the river and loved it. We rafted on the Kennebec river leaving from a Hydro electric dam about 20 miles north of where we stayed. Luckily for us, Saturday was a scheduled dam release, so the normal 3,400 CFS (cubic feet per second) was more than doubled to 8,700 CFS. That made for some pretty big rapids, two sections were class IV. It was a long day, but we all managed to stay in the boat without getting tossed by the rapids, thanks to our guide Nick Atwood. I recommend him if anyone goes up there. He knows the river well and will make the trip a lot of fun for you.

The best part of the weekend happened when we got to the lodge and I realized that not only was this an outdoor adventure company, but they were a brewpub too. They had 5 beers on tap this weekend, Kennebec Logger (a pilsner lager), Kennebec Summer Ale, Big Mamma Blueberry Ale (named after the big mamma rapids), Ripogenus Red (amber ale), Magic Hole IPA, and were out of their Class V Stout which according to all the guides is there best beer.

My personal favorite was the Ripogenus Red, but I really liked the blueberry. It was a lot darker than most commercial blueberry's I've seen, but it tasted every bit as good. Although we didn't eat dinner there, we had breakfast and lunch and both were fantastic. I am definitely going to plan another trip. They also raft on two other rivers up in Maine, The Dead River and the Penobscot river. The Dead river is supposed to have equally big rapids, but they last almost the entire 15 miles. It has the most continuous white water than any other Eastern river and some are even class V. The Pennobscot is a much bigger class river with bigger rapids, mostly class V, but they are short technical sections. Our guide is pushing us to come up and do the Pennobscot next as he said it's so much better.

Cheers,

Jason

Me vs. A Big Bear

It's a slow day here at work, but a friend of mine sent this to me today and I had a good laugh and thought I needed to share. We were at a post wedding reception "after party" and I got in a slight tussle with a bear. I totally kicked that bear's ass. I mean, if it were alive....I would have killed it! Anyways....back to work.

Designing Great Beers

I just finished reading the first section of Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels. The first section talks about what goes into a recipe, from the malt bill, color characteristics to hops, calculating bitterness and yeast. I'm a few chapters deep into the second part of the book which goes into details of the various classic styles of beer that are out there. I highly recomend this book for anyone who is trying to learn how to create your own recipes.

After I got through part one, and highlighting all the formulas and good things Ray had to say, i decided to try and put together my own recipe spreadsheet that has the calculations for IBU's, water needs based on evaporation and other factors, beer color ( I use HCU's and convert to a range of SRM's) and hop bitterness. Overall I think it's a good spreadsheet. I designed a recipe using the sheet and compared it to one of the online recipe calculators and I was damn close to exact. That made me smile. I have yet to brew the beer because it's an all grain recipe and I am in need or 4 stainless steele fender washers to complete my mash tun and for the life of me can't find a damn place that sells them. I'm hoping to have them soon, and FINALLY make the move to all grain!

On to the point of this post......I wanted to ask some people out there if they would take a look at my sheet, test it out and let me know their thoughts. Just post your email and I'll send it off to you. I'm a firm believer in feedback, and I think a lot of readers of my blog are brewers and coudl help me out with this. It should actually work for extract w/specialty grain recipes as well as long as you know the gravity of the extract and efficiency. So, post or send me an email and I'll send it off to you. Thanks for you help in advance.

Cheers,
Jason

Back in the Saddle

Well, it's been some time now since I've last posted. I had a pretty busy month of June. Unfortunately, there was only one brewing and it was the last recipe post I had. I ended up kegging it and priming with sugar since I don't have the funds right now to purchase the Co2 tank and regulator. I did, however find a great website that sells tanks and regulators for pretty cheap.

The kegging went pretty good. I read somewhere that when you keg with the same amount of sugar as you would use when bottling, the beer can be over carbonated. So, I let a little pressure bleed out twice in the two weeks it conditioned in the keg. The beer ended up being a little under carbonated, so I'll make sure I don't release the pressure the next time. I'm going to be brewing a traditional Bavarian Hefeweizen and kegging it for a party in August, so I'll post the recipe as soon as I brew it and get the stats.

Anyway, I hope you all had a great Month, and a great 4th of July (for those in the US).
Cheers,
Jason

Refocusing: Back to the basics

When I first started this blog, it was my goal to write about things that pertained to my dream of opening a brewery. I had dreams about posting my recipes and brew sessions and starting discussion from other home brewers that read this blog. That lasted for about a month. Then, I got caught up in the kingdom of beer blogs, trying desperately to grab readers attentions and "boost my stats" so I could be one of the big guys in the blogosphere. But there were two big things I realized that swept my leg like Johnny did to Daniel-son in Karate Kid......I'm not a writer by any stretch of the imagination, and I don't work in the industry and thus don't have the contacts available to spread the word about my blog. Hmmm....time to refocus!

Throughout the time I've been blogging, I make it a habit everyday to visit the "big guys" of the beer blogosphere. Each day I visited blogs like Appellation Beer, A Good Beer Blog, Beer Culture, Lew Bryson's Beer Blog, Stonch's Beer Blog, Roger Protz and others written by beer writers and other people who have been in the industry for a while. Then it hit me......I realized the struggle I was having trying to get tons of visitors and be a respected beer blogger was similar to the struggle that craft brewers once went through when trying to break into the beer market back in the 70's and 80's against the "Big Guys" of the macro world. And please, by no means am I comparing those writers to macro brewers of the US. They are all great writers, and are doing wonders for the craft beer industry, (hats off the them all) but they are the big guys of the blog world.

After realizing this, I started to think about how the craft brewing revolution finally got some traction. The answer was easier to figure out than I had hoped. They stopped trying to be just like the macros, and started to create an identity of their own. BRILLIANT!!!!! Be yourself, and the rest will take care of itself. Shouldn't this be the motto of every entrepreneur? Distinguishing a different product and offering a choice to their customers? (note to self....do this when you start you're brewery. Express yourself through your beers). I am reading Sam Calagione's book, Brewing up a Business so this is where all these ideas and realization are coming from.

Another great blog that I like to read daily is Ted's Homebrew Journal. Ted is a home brewer from Chicago who is extremely detailed about his brews and essentially does what I originally set out to do. He brews beer, posts about his brewing session with brew stats and his notes and thoughts. Lots of comments on each post discuss his beers, techniques he used, and results. He frequently experiments with yeast's to determine fermentation profiles of yeast strains, brews odd beers like Dandelion wine and herbal beers mixed with ginger, fennel, cardamom and fresh sage. He is a great resource for home brewers and I'm sure he is one hell of a brewer (Ted, if you're reading this.....I'd love to sample some of your beers).

As Pablo Picasso once said, "Good artists copy, great artists steal". So, with that being said, I'm stealing his blog! No, not literally, conceptually. His blog is exactly what I had wanted my blog to be like only I will also post updates as I get closer to opening a brewery, but still very similar. I know, I know.....how can I write about getting my own identity and not following suit, and then copy someone else. Well, here's how. That's what I was trying to do in the first place. Just because I'm copying his format, doesn't mean I'm copying him. Would you say that Harpoon copied Sam Adams? No...they are similar in the fact that they are both craft brewers, but the content of what they brew is a style all their own. Which is what I hope to do.

I'll continue to participate in The Sessions but I am re-dedicating myself to writing about my adventures in beer. I hope you all stick around and continue to read and comment on things I am doing, and your comments and suggestions will be important in helping me. I'm going to try and figure out how I can get a possible distribution list pulled together so I can use some of you as samplers. If you're interested, drop me a line with your address and I'll see what I can do.

Cheers,
Jason