Homebrewing

It is commonly expressed by homebrewers, bloggers, and makers of beer-related podcasts that throwing a lot of different grains and hops at a beer, or Kitchen Sink beer as it is frequently referred, is a bad idea... so I thought I would give it a go!

NHC 2014 in Grand Rapids was great fun, alas we missed NHC 2015 in San Diego due to personal reasons, but we were glad to be able to make NHC 2016 in Baltimore.

After an afternoon at PA Flavor, we stayed an extra night in Harrisburg (PA) to attend the 2nd Battle of the Homebrew Clubs which is the official homebrew competition of Harrisburg Beer Week.

State College Homebrew Club were invited back to pour at the Brews in the Barn charity event for Millbrook Playhouse on Oct 17, 2015.

The Pennsylvania Homebrew Open Competition is AHA & BJCP sanctioned and will be held on Dec 5, 2015. The entry window is now open and closes on Nov 20, 2015. This event is being hosted by the State College Homebrew Club.

For the last few years I have carried out my homebrewed beer fermentations in a freezer and managed the temperature using a Johnson Controls Digital Thermostat Control Unit (model A419) which is a single stage controller i.e. it can be used in cool mode or heat mode. For the last year or so I have seen the price of STC-1000 All-Purpose Digital Temperature Controllers drop in price and having seen a fellow homebrewer build a Dual Stage Temperature Controller I decided to take the plunge.

Cleaning and sanitizing is probably the least popular part of homebrewing but is certainly one of the most important aspects if you want to avoid dumping batches of beer.

Further to our recent article on Carboy Cleaning Tablets we also wanted to try out a similar product for cleaning Growlers, which for those of you who are not familiar Growlers are 1/2 US gallon containers for taking beer home from breweries.

I recently received some Keg & Carboy Cleaning Tablets to try whilst homebrewing and thought I would post an article about my initial experience.

Ever wondered what the difference is between a Vienna and Munich malt, American 2-row Pale and Maris Otter malt, perhaps even Chocolate and Roasted malt? Like with many homebrewers so have I and as all the books I have read, podcasts I have listened to, and seminars I have attended suggest we should taste our ingredients and learn more about them to help better understand how they impact the beers that we brew I decided it was time to get to work on this.