Brewing TV - Now online

A quick shout-out to Brewing TV (www.brewingtv.com) . Today they introduced their first episode of the new website. It is sponsored by the good people at Northern Brewer and The Brewing Network. Great first episode, I would recommend you take a look. I'm going to link to their RSS feed off to the side so you can catch the action from this blog.

- Tom.

Silence! When the bubbling stops...

A short day after the last brew, the English Pale began to consistently bubble away in the fermenting closet. A day later, the American Amber began to bubble. It's one of the small joys of homebrewing that I get, when I'm awakened by the sound of bubbling beer in the middle of the night, since I use the bedroom closets to hold the carboys. The Pale Ale bubbled consistently for about five days, the Amber only about three. As I spoke with Boone on this, his take was that the Amber would come out a little sweeter, a little higher on the alcohol content, than the Pale, because the yeast was not eating as much of the wort, which produces the by-product gas. Seems logical. Two weeks down, four to go before bottling.

- Tom.

Brewing outside in the spring - MUST HAVE!

When possible, we try to brew outside. You have to admit, it is usually rather pleasant to sit around in comfortable chairs, sipping homebrew and watching your beer in the fresh air. Plus if you are using a propane burner setup, you have to provide ventilation. Here is another tip:

If you are brewing outside in the spring-time, cover your brew pot with a wire-mesh lid. Normally you do not cover (or at least we do not cover) our pot when boiling. However, all day we were watching the sky as small seed pods of different trees came gliding down from the branches, perilously close to becoming part of our brews (think Apocalypse Now, with helicopter seeds and 'Ride of the Valkyries'). Easiest solution is to go to a cooking store and purchase a large mesh lid, which is usually used in the kitchen to cover a skillet when cooking greasy foods. It's also called a spatter guard. This will catch any seeds, but will also allow steam to escape. Good idea, Steve!

- Tom.