Craft Beer, Homebrewing, Beer Guides
A refractometer is commonly used in both the beer and wine industry as a tracking tool for fermentation. While it’s not an essential for home brewing, using a refractometer as part of the process is an effective method of measuring specific gravity. This is a way of showing how dense the liquid is and how … Read more
Chilling the wort after boiling is vital to the success of the brewing process. It needs to be cooled from the boiling point to the correct yeast-pitching temp or the fermentation process will be adversely affected. You can let the wort cool on its own but chilling it quickly is considered the better way to … Read more
If the whole bottling thing is making you dread getting up in the morning fear not, there’s a better way: kegging. You may never have considered kegging your beer before because you thought A) your little homebrew wasn’t worth all the bother and that B) the amount of “bother” was off the charts compared to … Read more
If you’re serious about homebrewing you’re going to need a mash tun. What is a mash tun? Well, during the fermentation process, you need a way to convert the starches in your crushed – or ‘mashed’ – grain into sugars. The mash tun is a vessel built to facilitate this process. It should be insulated in … Read more
Whether you are ready to put your beer from the kettle to the primary fermenter, primary to secondary fermentation or put your finished product into kegs or bottles, you will need a way to move your beer. [adthrive-in-post-video-player video-id=”oXTsKaHJ” upload-date=”2019-11-25T21:03:23.000Z” name=”Top 5 Beer Bottle Fillers of the Year” description=”null” ] While there are many different … Read more
“I want mead!” screams King Hrothgar at the opening of the 2007 film “Beowulf.” The fact that the original “Beowulf” text is more than 1,000 years old and very much mentions this type of brew points to the fact that mead has been quenching the thirst of Viking warriors and weekend warriors alike since the … Read more
Cleaning hop debris from the kettle strainer is about as much fun as cleaning the toilet. But there is no reason you have to put up with such drudgery. Hop spiders are designed to contain debris to prevent it from clogging up your system and from migrating to the fermenter. They also free you from … Read more
Homebrewers have long struggled with the issue of what to do with all their bottles once they’ve been emptied and it’s time to dry and store them. These need to be stored in such a way that A) doesn’t eat up all your available space and B) is safe, secure and convenient. Until now the … Read more
Europeans began producing wheat beer many centuries ago and to this day Hefeweizen (pronounced hay-fuh-veyt-zen) is one of the best-known beer styles on the continent, particularly in Germany where it originated during the Middle Ages. The name sounds as if it was derived from some mysterious Bavarian castle that rises out of the mist in … Read more
Cream Ale is a descendant of American lager and is sometimes mistaken for lager by less discerning drinkers. However, several things separate cream ale from the lager, and we’ll get into those in a moment. Cream ales were developed around the beginning of the 20th century in response to the rising popularity of various lager … Read more