It’s getting cold here in Weedwolf’s Shitcago. In fact, today the lake front was shut down and manned by Escalades. I saw snow fall from the sky. I pulled the long underwear from my lingerie drawer. All this means that my previous method of cooling our wort with a displacement chiller spitting upwards of 75 [...]
Category Archives: Beer
Closed System Wort Chiller for the Homebrew
Also posted in Gear, Instructional Tagged Blichmann Therminator, Chicago, Displacement chiller, Weed Wold Leave a comment
Gordon Strong’s Technique for Force Carbonating Homebrew
It’s the 11th hour and I need to get this beer carbed up for Thanksgiving. I’ve basically got about 20 hours to get this stuff to a decent level of gas. So I’m going to force carb them. Force carbonating is a black art, elusive and highly subjective in it’s execution. I’ve tried several techniques, [...]
Also posted in Instructional Tagged Brewing Better Beer, force carbonating, Gordon Strong, Homebrewing, Thanksgiving Leave a comment
Put Thanksgiving In My Face & Then Leave Me Alone.
Our country of fat fucks are about to hit their annual apex of indulgence and I couldn’t be happier. You see, I fancy my self a fairly learned sensualist. Certainly, at times, my adventures slant nearer towards escapes than escapades, but I’m comfortable with my batting average. And what kind of sensualist demands perfection anyway? [...]
Also posted in Event, Instructional, Recipes Tagged Aleister Crowley, Brewing Network, Homebrewing, Lemmy, Maggie Thatcher, Michael Rulhman, Thanksgiving, white labs Leave a comment
A Mash/Boil Screen Has Made Homebrewing Much Easier
I’ve slowly come to realize while building our brew system that the tools and techniques compiled to create our beer are as much a part of us and our creation as the finished beverage that comes out of it. And, like every good work of art, this one, too, will never be finished. Transcended, maybe [...]
Also posted in Gear, Instructional, Review Tagged bazooka screen, Homebrewing, mash/boil screen, northern brewer Leave a comment
Positive Progress in the Hunt for Fenugreek in Homebrew
Ok, so I finally got to the end of the two-week alcohol extraction of fenugreek seeds that I found digging four pages deep into a google search on fenugreek and maple syrup alternatives. The experiment was successful though I did need to make some adjustments. I wound up using twice the amount of vodka as [...]
Yeast Reference Guide
I like this page over at winning-homebrew.com that describes the yeasts and then tells the brewery source of them. It’s nice. It’s not as nice as those posters that wYeast and White Labs have been giving away at events recently, but it’s nice.
Finch’s Giving Yeast to Homebrewers This Friday 10/14
Between 5p-7p this Friday, October 14th the nice folks at Finch’s Beer Company will be giving out their American Ale yeast that was used to make their Blonde Ale. Bring a sanitized container to carry your yeast in! View Larger Map
More Homebrewing with Fenugreek
My water extraction experiments were vaguely successful last week, but didn’t yield anything I felt would be worth jamming up a whole batch of homebrew on. With the water extraction I found that the whole seed, untoasted and cold steeped for a day, offered the best results. I put 1 tblspn in 4oz of water. [...]
Also posted in Health, Recipes Tagged breast milk, extraction, fenugreek, Homebrewing, Outsider's Almanac Leave a comment
Sediment Free Alternative to Priming Sugar Bottling for Your Homebrew
I hate bottling my homebrew. Mostly because I am particularly undermotivated when it comes to things that could be more easily done by a machine or lesser, mind-controlled, humanoid like a tea bagger or something. Because of this I haven’t bottled anything in a couple years and just simply dump my beer into a soda [...]
Also posted in Instructional Tagged BierMuncher Bottle Filler, bottling, homebrew, homebrewtalk.com, priming sugar Leave a comment
Experimenting with Fenugreek to Replace Maple Syrup
I wrote about using fenugreek in homebrew to replace maple syrup last year about this time. I’m finally getting around to trying this out. I had hoped initially that a cold steep would be my answer for extracting the maple flavors and tastes from the fenugreek. Several experiments with that have proven that unhelpful. Instead [...]