Tag Archives: miscellaneous

Brew Year’s Resolutions 2018

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20170903_151314It’s a new year! Having reflected on the past year of brewing as well as how I hit my resolutions for the previous year, I’m ready to set out some goals for 2018.

  • Pitch a new article for a homebrew publication.
    • This is a holdover from last year. I had one article published in Zymurgy during 2017; now, I just have to get a pitch together for something else during 2018.
  • Perfect my oatmeal stout recipe.
    • I entered my Eagle Face Oatmeal Stout in the first-round 2017 NHC, and scored an exceptionally pleasing 40. Unfortunately, comments for improvement were pretty vague (which was a bit disappointing, given the caliber of judging there). I’m going to modify the base malt a bit, perhaps, and see if I can’t kick up the score and make it into the second round.
  • Brew some more sour beer recipes.
    • I had great success during the past two years with a Berliner Weisse and am working towards a respectable raspberry Belgian sour. I’m hoping to hone the raspberry Belgian, and brew at least one other kettle soured beer. A gose or another Berliner Weisse will hopefully be in the mix.
  • Brew a perfect IPA.
    • I feel like my IPAs are good right now, but could be better. A lot of this might be in dry-hop handling; I usually keg-hop the things, but end up with a result that can be a bit harsh. The upside of this is that loss of hop flavor from oxidation is less of an issue. It’s time to find a happy medium. For 2018, I want to experiment with different ways of hopping and transferring IPAs, to finally hit peak IPA! I’ll probably start with a return to dry-hopping in the primary…I need to first see if drop-off in hop aroma is even that big of a deal anymore given my kegging and cold storage setup. I had preliminary attempts for my Thanksgiving IPA, but it didn’t stick around long enough to verify hop longevity!
  • Hit my calculated starting gravities more consistently.
    • I’ve found that I am often 0.02 or 0.03 off my starting gravity, usually a touch on the low side. This is almost entirely a boil-off rate issue, so I want to dial that in a bit better this year.

This should be plenty to keep me busy–I’ll check in at the end of the year to see how well I did!

Confidence and Competence in Brewing

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“Relax. Don’t Worry. Have a Homebrew.” What a lifesaver that phrase was in my early days of brewing! Getting started in this hobby can be a nerve-wracking business. First are all of the (rightfully) important warnings about sanitation and proper temperature for yeast pitching and whatever. Then come all of the smaller warnings about water chemistry, boil volumes, specific gravity, and the rest. If a novice brewer spends more than a few minutes browsing any homebrew forum, they are quite likely to spin themselves into a panic over every last detail. And heaven help them if they run across the most die-hard low-oxygen brewing proponents!

Yet, as long as you master the very basics, you can make some pretty passable beer. All of those other details can come later, with practice and experience. Brewing becomes a genuinely relaxing process, passing the threshold from slightly stressful exercise that produces a fun product to a fun exercise that produces an excellent product.

Just the other day, as I was brewing a pilsner, I thought…”Hey! I really have confidence in brewing now!” Much of this comes from frequent practice. I know my system. I can throw in a new technique without too much disruption in my brew flow. I know my ingredients. If I can’t find one particular ingredient for a recipe, I feel confident in making appropriate substitutions. I’m getting much stronger in self-critique, and have had my critiques validated in formal competitions. Speaking immodestly, most of my beer is pretty decent, and some of my beer is pretty darned excellent.

To truly enjoy brewing, don’t try to master everything at once. Focus on the big picture, and dial in the details over time. Brew by brew, work on your craft and develop your knowledge base. It takes time, but we all have the potential to be confident and competent brewers!

Homebrew Con Seminar: The Dinosaur in My Beer!

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blog_imageI’m excited to be on the schedule for Homebrew Con (aka National Homebrewers Conference) in Minneapolis next month! If you’re at the event, come see my seminar: The Dinosaur in My Beer: 250 Million Years of Homebrewing History.

Of course, most beer enthusiasts are familiar with the overall arc of brewing lore (and some of you could probably recite it in your sleep). Things got rolling in the ancient Middle East around the same time that cereal grains were domesticated, hops made it into the equation during the Middle Ages, and craft breweries got their game going during the late 20th century. This is all interesting–and indeed, numerous books and articles have been published on the topic. Yet, virtually every treatment of brewing that I’ve read neglects the much deeper history of all of our brewing ingredients. We wouldn’t have Burton water without events that happened during the dawn of the age of the dinosaurs. We wouldn’t have hops without an evolutionary innovation in plants more than 120 million years ago. And oddly enough, the production of barley malt led to the discovery of many important fossils.

My seminar (around 45 minutes long, with time for questions) ties together threads that stretch deep into our planet’s history. You’ll gain a better appreciation for just how densely beer and beer ingredients are interwoven with the evolution of life–beer ain’t just a cultural phenomenon! I’ve given versions of this talk at Claremont Craft Ales as well as the Arizona Museum of Natural History, but the Homebrew Con version will have lots of new content, plenty of cool images, and interesting anecdotes. I guarantee that you’ll learn something you didn’t know before!

My seminar starts at 9 am on Saturday, June 17, in Auditorium 1. And even if you can’t make the seminar, I’d love to chat about beer, brewing, and paleontology. Hope to see you in Minnesota!

And for an extra bonus…I’m bringing a replica of the skull from Aquilops americanus, the little dinosaur that inspired Eagle Face Oatmeal Stout, as seen in a recent issue of Zymurgy magazine. If you’ve ever wanted to get your selfie with a dinosaur, now is your chance!

[Image info: The dinosaur skeleton in the logo is modified from a 19th century rendering of Iguanodon by Gustave Lavalette. Also of note: the fossil was found in a part of Belgium that is purportedly home territory for saisons! This fact inspired one of my first attempts at the style.]

Homebrew savings in bulk?

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Since I started ramping up my homebrewing two or three years back, I’ve been brewing at least 20 times a year. At five gallon batches, that adds up to a lot of supplies! I soon realized that it might make sense to start buying in bulk as a cost-saving measure, for things like hops, base malts, and some cleaners. But I also realized there are a number of cost/benefit factors that need to be considered. In this post, I outline my thought process.

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  • Do you brew often enough?
    • If you’re the sort of person who only brews a few times a year, it probably doesn’t make sense to buy bulk supplies. They’re likely to go stale before you use them up, and thus are just a waste of money.
  • Do you have space?
    • I’m fortunate to have plenty of storage space to store bulk supplies. Back in the days when I was an apartment brewer, that wouldn’t have been the case.
  • Is the particular supply or ingredient something you use frequently and in large volumes?
    • I brew with American 2-row a lot, so it makes good sense to keep a supply on hand. I can save around 40 to 50% by doing so, which adds up over a few batches. It would not make sense to buy 50 pounds of chocolate malt; I only use a few pounds per year, and a bulk sack would go stale before I could use it all up.
  • What’s the shelf life?
    • A 50 pound bucket of PBW cleaner is nearly two and a half times cheaper than buying the equivalent in 1 pound increments. It will probably take me several years to use this up, but I can’t imagine this stuff ever goes bad, as long as I store it properly. For stuff like yeast or bulk malt, a multi-year shelf life isn’t likely in the cards.
  • Can I pick it up in person or does it have to be shipped?
    • I buy bulk at my local homebrew shop whenever I can. In general, I have found that shipping can swamp out any potential savings otherwise. On those occasions when I do order online, I do a quick calculation on shipping to see if things still add up.
  • Do I really want that in bulk?
    • Although buying in bulk saves money, it also potentially constrains creative exploration of new ingredients. For instance, if I have 50 pounds of a particular brand of pilsner malt, I’m probably not going to try out other brands, at least until I’ve finished out that supply.

Overall, I find bulk purchases to be a good value given my brewing habits. Everyone’s situation is different, though. Think carefully; it might be right for you, too!

Welcome, Zymurgy readers!

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farke_brewery_smallIf you are a reader of Zymurgy and/or member of the American Homebrewers Association, you may have found my website from the link in my recent article (“Homebrew for Dinosaurs,” September/October 2016 issue). Thank you for stopping by!

It was a real privilege to share some of my experiences as a homebrewing paleontologist with a broader audience. Of course, there wasn’t nearly enough room to talk about everything I wanted to discuss, and who wants to read 15 pages of my navel-gazing, anyhow? Here, I have included a few links for the curious that expand on some of the things I touched on in the article.