Can't wait to get my hands on the new BeerSmith mobile app that was just released! Brad says that you can’t create or edit recipes using the “lite” app, but you can find new recipes from BeerSmithRecipes.com, download your own recipes from the cloud service, run a brewday timer, and use the reference and brewing calculators from within the app. The android version is available from google play now and the iphone app is awaiting approval! Cleaning carboys can be a pain, especially if you let them sit around for a while. Whether you ferment in glass or plastic, it's usually a good idea to let the carboy soak for a while to soften up the band of hardened yeast that typically forms at the top. After soaking, most brewers I know toss in a wet papertowl (or shop cloth), plug the opening, and swirl the towel around to remove the last of the gunk. This works well for wide-mouth bottles but not so much for narrower glass bottles. Here's a great inexpensive DIY project created by Casey Weed that cleans even the narrowest of bottles! Casey describes some of the project below and be sure to hit the link (or the picture above) for the full instructions. "I recently put together a handheld carboy/keg pressure washer and hadn’t see anything like it so I thought I would share. I always have trouble getting the dried up krausen on the top of the carboy off with my brush and always felt like it would come right off if I could get a little pressure on it. This is what I came up with.
[Read More] As you may have noticed from many of our chart of the week posts, we like infographics here at BrewGeeks. For this week, we are not posting chart, but a link to buy a full-sized poster of one. The folks over at Pop Chart Lab have done quite a bit of research to compile a United States map of every brewery.
Perfect for your house pub and the most comprehensive mapping of the breweries of the USA ever compiled, this monster print measures in at over seven square feet and over 1,000 breweries from craft to macro and everything in between. If you don't know about Pop Chart Lab, they have a number of other nice posters available as well. Check them all out here. How many yard tools, machetes, or various random metal objects can be used to open a beer bottle?? Watch this video to find out. If they're taking requests, I'd like to see a chainsaw, piece of bacon, and a burrito. Wait, don't tell me... I'm getting some sweaty notes, slightly musky with an upfront... bovine character?? Umm you're joking right? I'm pretty sure I ordered Bell's Two Hearted, not Balls Imparted! :S All kidding aside, the crew at Wynkoop brewing company has taken Colorado's most popular local dish, the rocky mountain oyster, and built a beer around it. It's said to have deep flavors of chocolate syrup, Kahlua, and espresso, along with a palpable level of alcohol (7%) and a savory umami-like note. Set to be released on October 8th, you can bet this beer will turn heads (and stomachs), but certainly pushes the boundaries of what creative brewing is all about. Besides, how can you have an opinion on something if you don't try it! Read here for all the juicy details. Tired of those unsightly rust spots in the bottom of your keezer? How about a quick way to remove moisture in a freezer turned fermentation chamber? The Eva-dry Mini Dehumidifier does all this and more! (said in my best infomercial voice) Actually, I don't know if it does all of this and more, but there are lots of happy Amazon customers that say it does. This high capacity renewable dehumidifier has been designed to adsorb moisture from small, enclosed areas which seems like the perfect solution for our keg keezers. There is no power while it operates and no cords to plug in. Once full, just plug it into an outlet and allow time for the unit to dry it's silica gel crystals. It can absorb approximately 8-10 ounces of moisture and should last around 10 years. I've just ordered 2 of them, so I'll report back in a month or two with my findings. We like anything running on arduino, especially brewing equipment! What is arduino you ask? Well, I've been hearing this word connected to cool projects for a while now and come to find out, it's a small computer board that can be programmed to help computers sense the physical world around them. This can come in the form of a robot (like the Mars rover), a weather station, or hundres of other cool applications. BrewPi uses arduino magic as an open source fermentation controller. It can control your beer temperature with 0.1 degree precision, log temperature data in nice graphs and is fully configurable from a web interface. Read about it here. If there is magic in beer, it comes from the little microorganisms called yeast and their ability to produce alchohol from sugar. Many factors contribute to their success (or failure) and understanding what these are can be tricky. We consider the following to be the most important:
Want to check out some tips and tricks on the care and use of yeast?
Here's a nice guide we found written by a UK company called Fermentis that details just that! Thanks to shiveringjemmy over on reddit for posting this fascinating look at a brewing notebook/journal belonging to Thomas Benson in the Benson family fonds. Thomas Benson was a businessman and the first mayor of Peterborough, Ontario. A Transcription of these pages can be found at the bottom. To Brew Five Gallons Strong Beer Take Three ounces of Hops, and rub them well into a close vessel sprinkling on them, when rubbed, about a teaspoon-full of salt, then pour on boiling water sufficient to saturate them and cover close. Boil Two and a half Gallons Water, dash the boil with cold water and suffer it to cool down to 180° Faht. Pour it into your Mash-tub, and put in a peck of good Malt. Mash it well till the malt is thoroughly wetted, and allow it to stand close covered about two hours, then run the liquor off into a vessel prepared to receive it, having first of all placed a whisp of clean hay or straw over the hole in your Mash-tub to prevent the Malt running off with the liquor. If at first the liquor should run off thick or discoloured pour back until it runs clear. Mash the second time in the same quantity of water at 190° and let it stand covered two hours. Get up your first wort into the boiler and add the Hops, a quarter of a pound of liquorice root (previously bruised), ¼ ounce Capsicum, a bit of Cinnamon, and three ounces Treacle. Boil smartly for an hour, then run off into a cooler, carefully straining out the hops to be boiled in the second wort, which must also be boiled an hour. Observe that your malt must not stand dry between the mashings but must be Kept constantly moist by lading the liquor over it. Run off the second liquor into the cooler, and cool down as quickly as possible to 65° then run it into the tun as quick as you can so that it shall suffer no diminuation of heat, and add sufficient yeast to cause fermentation. Let it work till it comes to a good deep head and has attenuated about 8°, then cleanse it by adding about a quarter ounce of ginger and rousing it well. The liquor is now fit for putting into the Keg, which must be done carefully. The Keg must be quite full to let the yeast work over, adding fresh liquor to Keep it full till it has done working, then bung it up close but take care to watch it well lest it should begin to work again and burst the Keg, which may be prevented by easing the keg. The only thing that now remains is to fine the beer. Finings are made by dissolving Ising-glass in the Stale Beer till it acquire a thin gluey consistency like sire, the beer in which the ising-glass is dissolved must be quite stale and very clear. Add a sufficient quantity of this to clear your beer a gill will sometimes be sufficient but it may require more. |
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January 2022
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