After 2 weeks of fermentation, 5 days of dry hopping, and 2 months of keg conditioning, the Farmhouse IPA is tasting great. Beginning in late spring with the onset of hot Texas weather, I was inspired to make a hop-forward saison-like beer for the summertime. Detailed in the brew day post, anticipating ultra-high attenuation of … Continue reading
Homebrewing is a great hobby. As a homebrewer and apartment brewer, nothing is more rewarding than brewing and fermenting your own creations and sharing them with friends and family. If you’ve found this blog post, you’re likely looking into starting the hobby and want to understand the equipment necessary to start brewing your first batch … Continue reading
On Saturday, I attended the July monthly meeting of my homebrew club, Austin Zealots. It was held at Adelbert’s Brewery in Austin, TX, a Belgian-style brewery about 15 minutes north of downtown Austin. The style for this month was meads, and many members brought their very best, including a fantastic vanilla-cardamom and well-aged pineapple-coconut mead. … Continue reading
Six weeks since brew day, the Craft A Brew Brown Ale has finished fermentation, bottle-conditioned, and is now ready to drink. After racking from the primary, I yielded 9 bottles and some tasty hydrometer samples. Overall, I’m quite pleased with this one-gallon brown ale extract kit, and from this, hope to play with one-gallon batches … Continue reading
On Sunday, the last of the Fall 2014 German lagers was finished brewing; at present, only fermentation and packaging are left. As seen in the picture, both the 2014 Summer Solstice Helles Bock and Oktoberfest fermentations have visibly slowed, while the Schwarzbier, brewed on Sunday, is at high krausen. To my knowledge, I’ve never seen … Continue reading
Having washed the yeast from the primary fermentation of the Barrel Project Sour Saison in April, I was keen to make another saison-like beer for the summertime. Along with being on a hop-kick, I was inspired to make a hoppy farmhouse ale of sorts. Anticipating the ultra-high attenuation of Wyeast French Saison, I designed a … Continue reading
Looking back through my brew logs, June was quite a productive month for my standards, brewing four batches, including my first one-gallon batch, the Craft A Brew brown ale kit. Initial tasting notes are quite nice, close to a Northern English Brown in style. Look for tasting notes soon. At present, my 2014 Summer Solstice … Continue reading
While brewing on the 2014 summer solstice, I cracked open last years big brew, the 2013 summer solstice blonde barleywine. SMaSH-y in recipe, the idea was to design a beer to taste the malt and fermentation characteristics from Maris Otter and Wyeast 1098 British Ale when brewed at a high gravity. The resulting brew was … Continue reading
This past Saturday marked the 2014 summer solstice. In celebration of the changing seasons and the beginning of summer, I brewed a Helles Bock. As per tradition, during the summer solstices, I like to brew something pale and strong. Since I am currently brewing German lagers, I thought a Helles Bock would be an appropriate … Continue reading
A few weeks ago, Craft A Brew generously set me one of their one-gallon starter kits [**]. For those unfamiliar, Craft A Brew makes homebrewing starter kits and extract-based recipe kits, ranging from 1-3 gallon batches, providing new homebrewers with all of the equipment and ingredients necessary to start their first batch of homebrew. With several … Continue reading
The Apartment Homebrewer 