Part of transitioning from extract brewing to all-grain brewing is gaining (read: buying ) more equipment.  It is easy to do if you have lots of cash money to throw around, but if you are like me, you tend not to be so extravagant with your spending (no comments from the wife, please).  Eric and I are piecing together our all-grain brew equipment one tank and burner at a time.  Because of this, I have had lots of time to think about what we need.  I thought I would review what I (currently) see as important to have in the three main brewing vessels. Hot Liquor Tank - The HLT is used for holding hot water for mashing (that's a brewer's word; common parlance would be "soaking" or "steeping") the grains and then for sparging (another brewing term; it's really just rinsing the grains of sugars that are left behind). Ideally, HLTs should hold as much liquid as your mash tun, but a little less is ok.  Grains do take up some volume in your mash...

When I first started, brewing was all I could think about.  It is all I wanted to talk about.  I would spend hours thinking of what next to brew, researching equipment upgrades, learning, reading - just trying to soak it all in.  As my wife would attest, I tend to jump into things with both feet. The problem I ran into was there wasn't anyone available, reliable, and knowledgeable I could interact with and actually hear their input on brewing beer.  Sure, I had books on beer, but those can only take you so far.  My brewing buddy was just as much of a newbie as I was, so that wasn't going to help me progress (though, we did talk a lot about brewing anyway).  The homebrew club only met monthly.  And internet forums, well, you know how the internet is.  There is lots of good info and there is lots of craptacular info.  Wading through all of it, finding stuff that was reliable and applicable, that was a chore and it took a long time t...

A lot of things go into making a good beer.  There is the obvious - the malt and the hops; there is the process and procedure - how long did you mash/boil/hop, etc.; there is the cleanliness and sanitation - no funky bugs in the beer.  All of these can be tweaked one way or another and changing just one thing will give a different tasting beer than before. Working on recipes, one often wants to improve or change a little piece to see what happens.  And one of the difficulties is having to brew an entirely new batch of beer to change one hop addition or to mash four degrees higher.  But, there is one ingredient that can be used several times from one batch of wort.  And that ingredient, is yeast. Yeast, arguably, is the most important ingredient in beer.  Without yeast, one does not have beer at all.  And, to be honest, it isn't really an "ingredient" at all, but rather a living organism that takes your sugar-sludge and turn it into delicious beer...

One of the best things about making your own beer is drinking your own beer.  And, if you are like me, when you drink your own beer, it will either be horrible or the best beer you have ever had in your life.  Ever.  You put your own effort into this beer which you are now drinking.  You want it to be good, and if it is good, in your mind, that is great!  But classifying your beers into one of two categories ("horrible" or "great") is not very helpful.  So, today I want to talk about objectively rating your own beer. There are many ways to rate beers, but a good way I have found is to just use the Beer Judge Certification Program 's method.   They provide a nice score sheet (which the judges use in competition).  I'm not a BJCP judge, but why reinvent the wheel?  The sheet is helpful and can help you be a little more critical of your own beers.  And as an example, I am going to use my IPA which finished up a couple of weeks ...

If you are just starting out brewing, most likely you are going to be brewing an extract beer.  Extract is a great way to get started.  It helps you focus on some pretty important things - like cleanliness and sanitation - before you go whole-hog into all-grain.  Plus, it is nice to step up gradually, gathering equipment over time instead of purchasing thousands of dollars worth of stuff at once. Extract is a great, simple way to make pretty decent beer.  But sometimes, you can just tell it is an extract beer.  More sophisticated palates can taste an "extract" flavor.  At first, I had no clue what these guys were talking about.  After a few batches, however, I began to pick up on what they were saying.  But have no fear, reader!  There is still a way to make good extract beer with minimal to no "extract flavor."  Here are some tips I use when brewing extract batches. 1.  Steeping Grains Steeping grains is a simple and easy way...

I am sure you are just loving reading this blog.  You enjoy my topics, my writing style, my sense of humor... but, yet, you still want more.  You need more homebrewing knowledge.  This measly little blog just ain't cuttin' it!  Well, my friends, your prayers have been answered.  Today I am going to discuss some brewing books which helped me along the way and are some I think can help anyone who wants to learn to brew or create new recipes. 1.   How to Brew by John Palmer My well-worn copy of How to Brew by John Palmer. If you want to learn to brew (or brew better), this is the must-have, quintessential, no-nonsense guide to brewing.  Palmer takes the brewing process step by step, starting with extract and working his way up through all-grain brewing.  It is extremely helpful for the new brewer and is a great resource for the veteran. A vast majority of the chapters are purely about brewing - mostly extract at the beginning, but he goes ...

So, at a homebrew meeting a few months back, someone brought in a Citra IPA (citra being the hops he used).  The beer was fantastic.  I'm not a beer judge, so I don't have all the fancy language to describe its flavor, but, just trust me, it was good.  At that moment, Eric and I decided we would try to brew a Citra IPA. We worked out a recipe based off of our previous IPA batches, switched up the hops to include 80% citra, and went at it.  Round 1 went pretty well.  But we didn't nail it.  Our IPA was good, don't get me wrong, but it was too bitter.  The 20% "other" we used brought that bitterness to the party.  We decided to go for Round 2 and use 100% citra hops.  We reworked the recipe and took the list to the store.  Well, at Weak Knee Homebrew, they didn't have enough citra hops for what we wanted to do.  I had to make a judgement call on the fly and decided to pick up a couple of ounces of chinook hops.  Was that ever t...