A Very Beery Christmas

It was a very Beery Christmas at our house. I received a lot of beer- and brewing-related gifts: a gift card to Midwest Homebrew, enough to pay for the ingredients for the next iteration of my Gimp Biscuit ESB; carboy covers complete with “Shh.  I am Fermenting” embroidery; carboy draining and storage racks; a membership in the American Homebrewers Association, complete with a subscription to their monthly magazine Zymergy; a Christmas Story pint glass; a rare Belgian made with “wild” yeast.  Thanks to wife Olivia, mother Marsha, brother Matt, and inlaws Don and Carolyn for supporting my addiction, er, hobby. Continue reading →

Mash Paddle

The Oatmeal Stout brew also gave me a chance to try out my new maple mash paddle, which was a birthday gift from my in-laws (thanks again to Don and Carolyn).  It worked much better than the long-handled plastic spoon I’ve been using, with less stress on my wrist and much less incidents of dough-balls and hot spots.  I highly recommend!

Equipment and Supplies Order

Did a little Black Friday shopping from home (er, in-laws home).  Finally pulled together an order for two brews and a bunch of equipment I’ve been coveting.  Here’s my shopping list:

  • ingredients for my Ghostly Juror Oatmeal Stout recipe
  • ingredients for my IPA, with tentative name of Hoppy Gnome
  • a Barley Crusher grain mill
  • tubing and hardware for racking and aerating chilled wort out of the kettle into the fermenter
  • a digital thermometer (finally!)