Category Archives: Equipment

Kegerator Construction

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FridgeWe bough a new refrigerator as part of a recent kitchen renovation, so I’m turning the old one (still functional and now in the basement) into a two-tap kegerator.  I had kegged my brew for NHC Club Night and immediately decided that I no longer want to bottle my beer (except of course for the occasional Belgian offering).

My order from KegConnection.com has arrived.  It’s showtime.  I gathered my tools, including the most important one, in the name of RDWHAH.  Important safety tip: always have a beer before using power tools. Continue reading →

National Homebrew Competition 2012 Results

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I submitted my Hoppy Gnome IPA to this year’s National Homebrew Competition.  It didn’t make it out of the regional round, but it did do very well – a 37.5 out of 50 possible points, good enough to earn a Silver Certificate, which I fully intend to frame and display proudly.  This is only the second recipe I came up with on my own, and American IPA is a notoriously difficult category, because of the large number of entries this category receives.  It did much better than I hoped. Continue reading →

Stir Starter

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I recently bought a stir plate to aid with my yeast starters.  Using a stir plate can increase your yeast cell count considerably, resulting in quicker fermentation starts and less chance of off-flavors (specifically those that come from unwanted organisms beating the yeast to the yummy sugary nourishment of the wort).

The combined use of a yeast starter and stir plate can also make each batch of beer consierably cheaper, since you won’t need to pitch two (or even three) tubes of yeast to Continue reading →

Brew Day – Hoppy Gnome IPA – 1/9/12

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Today I brewed the first version of my Hoppy Gnome IPA.  It’s a modified version of a Green Flash West Coast IPA clone that I made a few months ago (the clone was actually my first all-grain batch and was very successful).  I dropped the amount of 60L crystal to lighten the color a bit, and swapped out some of the late hops for Citra.  I hope this will give it a softer hop profile. Continue reading →

A Very Beery Christmas

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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

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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!