As our homebrew club did about a year ago, we again decided to age a beer in a bourbon barrel.  The Belgian Dubbel turned out nicely last time and this year we are upping our game and going for a Russian Imperial Stout.  ( Here is the brew sheet for the RIS. ) To be honest, there isn't a whole lot of stuff for me to talk about... 11 of us brewed 5 gallons of the beer and brought it to our local meeting place, Canal Street, and all siphoned our individual beers into the one barrel.  We'll let it sit for a couple to a few months and transfer back out into our individual kegs/carboys.   I have an idea on a few questions you may be asking, so let me take a stab at what may be on your mind. How did you get a barrel? One of the main guys in starting the club, Colin Presby, works for Weyerbacher Brewing.  They use Maker's Mark barrels for some of their brews.  Last year, he got one of their barrels after it was used.  Thi...

So, you want to brew a pumpkin beer, eh?  Good for you - now that is is the fall season .  Let me help you out by spinning two tales for you to ponder. First, a brewer and his partner gather up ingredients to brew a pumpkin spice beer - a beer with no pumpkin in the mash or the boil; there is simply pumpkin pie spices added at flame out.  Nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice... you can already smell the flavors, can't you? Actual pumpkin in a can. On the evening before brew day, the two decide they want to use actual pumpkin in the beer - to add a little extra flavor and fermentables, to make it more authentic, and just for the overall experience of brewing with a vegetable.  The quickest and easiest way to do this is to add canned pumpkin - not the pie filling, they know.  They want to add actual pumpkin in a can, which should be readily available at the grocery store.  After a quick glance at the "If you want to add pumpkin" section of the instructions whic...

The more I brew, the more I learn about how I brew. I think that is true with most things in life, right?  The more you do something, the more you learn about it.  "Practice makes perfect," as the saying goes. But practicing the wrong thing can lead to bad habits and, even worse, bad beer.  So, I want to go into a little more detail about the opening sentence. First, learning.  It is something I have been somewhat obsessed with since I started brewing.  I have gobbled up information from books, forums, and podcasts.  Learning is a good thing.  It helped me know what the heck I was doing - at least in the general sense.  It gave me an overview of the process, a map, a view of the entire forest.  I needed to know how to hit temperatures, how to sparge, how to do the basics of brewing.  Learning, reading, and listening gave me a bigger picture of the process.  Those various avenues of learning were, and still are, extremely helpf...

So, what is up with all the fall/autumn/pumpkin/fest beers being out already?  It's the middle of August.  It is hot still.  I, personally, don't really want to see those in the shelf til after Labor Day.  Autumn doesn't even start until September 21.  Maybe you've had similar thoughts. I liken it to being able to buy a 2013 car now.  It is like we are living in the future!  But facetiousness aside, if you are releasing a pumpkin beer or a harvest ale on August 1, that means you were brewing it in June.  Where do you buy pumpkin in June?  Surely you aren't getting the freshest pumpkins around...  Expired canned pumpkin anyone?  If you are releasing a fest beer, at least there aren't any special, seasonal ingredients.  But it takes longer to make.  When were you brewing that one?  May?  April?  Earlier? I understand trying to get your product out first so people see it, remember it, and buy it. ...

Hey, everyone.  Just a little note to say I will be without any posts for the next few weeks due to conferences and vacations.  That also means I won't be brewing for a few weeks, either, so there won't be much to post. Hope to catch up again in August.

So, in a couple of weeks, I will be heading down to Hilton Head, SC for a yearly vacation with my wife's family.  It is always a good time.  We usually keep a nice stash of beer on hand, but this year I want to do something extra.  I want to take a corny keg of homebrew down to share.  Since we will be at the beach, the beer should be easy to drink and yet flavorful.  This led me to a pale ale - hence why I have brewed so much pale ale recently. The second pale ale recipe I am trying comes from the same book as the first: Brewing Classic Styles .  It takes out the biscuit malt and adds some caramel malts and a higher mash temperature to give it a fuller mouthfeel.  Recently, the batch was ready.  Here's what I think. Mine's the one on the left... if you couldn't tell. Aroma:  No hop aroma, which is ok since this is a pale ale.  I get sweetness up front with a little bit of malt finish.  There is not a stand-out aroma. ...

Some of you may be familiar with a hop back.  Essentially, it is a container that holds hops while post-boil but still-hot wort runs through the chamber on its way to the chiller and then fermenter.  Probably the most famous user of a hop back is Troegs Brewing Company (who even have an amber beer named, "HopBack").  They use a hop back for several of their beers. Blichmann Hop Rocket It is something that I have been curious about using.   Blichmann Engineering produces a hop back called the Hop Rocket .  I have been thinking about purchasing one for a couple of reasons.  First, I like the idea of a hob back. I like the flavor and aroma it gives - at least in the beers I know have used it. It would be similar, I think, to adding a few ounces at 0 minutes.  Second, a hop back also acts as a filter for some of the hop bits from pellets and the like.  A loaded hop back can filter out some of the hop sludge so that a plate chiller won't get cl...