My first new batch of the new year.  With Light LME, Cascade and Willamette hops, and to top it off, 1/2 ounce of Cascade dry hopping the batch.  I’ll publish the qbrew files here:

http://quantifier.org/qbrew/am2010.qbrew

March 3rd, 2010 | Category: qbrew | Leave a comment

Should you put olive oil in your homebrew?

Why use olive oil in your homebrew?
Your yeast need oxygen for a happy and healthy fermentation. Yeast use oxygen during the lag phase to synthesize sterols and unsaturated fatty acids for its cell walls. If there is not enough oxygen, the yeast can not grow and die off early. Low oxygen leads to stalled fermentations and off-flavors. This is the reason you need to shake the carboy before pitching your yeast.

August 30th, 2009 | Category: Adjuncts | Leave a comment

No matter how many recipes I try, I always come back to the one I make best, my bitter amber. It’s in the secondary now, and if everything goes right, I’ll drink the first one by the end of the month. As always, here’s the qbrew files:

http://quantifier.org/qbrew/bitter.qbrew
http://quantifier.org/qbrew/bitter.html
http://quantifier.org/qbrew/bitter.pdf

August 12th, 2009 | Category: Grains, Recipes, Uncategorized, qbrew | Leave a comment

Today, instead of working, I'm building a Hoegaarden rip off.  It's an experiment with using the Golding hop, which weighs in at a subtle 4.2% alpha acid, for bittering, as well as a light wheat malt extract.  The latter has almost always resulted in failure.

Anway, the usual qbrew files are always here: http://quantifier.org/qbrew/

http://quantifier.org/qbrew/hoe.qbrew

 http://quantifier.org/qbrew/hoe.html

 http://quantifier.org/qbrew/hoe.pdf

Comments welcome.

February 4th, 2009 | Category: Hops, Recipes, qbrew | Comments (2)

Austin Homebrew Supply offers several recipes for existing beers available at the market. I am brewing their Abita Turbodog right this moment. I added the yeast fuel and the alcohol booster that are add-ons available before checkout. 

 I prefer AHS for my brewing supplies because their shipping charges are affordable and their wide selection of ingredients and kits are unmatched. I will have the qbrew file up by the day's end.

I went extra-anal on sanitizing & cleansing this cook, and used bottled water instead of the mud that comes from these Dothan taps.

January 31st, 2009 | Tags: homebrew, qbrew, turbodog | Category: Recipes, qbrew | Comments (4)

Today we're bottling an IPA and then getting started on the larger project for the afternoon: starting the first batch of Merlot. Hopefully this first time goes easily. We're skimming all ingredients by 20% to meet our storage capacities. Perhaps I'll add some photos of our progress. 

Or just start drinking beer instead.

January 17th, 2009 | Category: Recipes | Comments (1)

Who knows what 2009 will bring? We'll be brewing wine and ginger ale this year, in addition to moving to Cornelius kegging. The kegerator waits patiently for its babies. Its delicious, life-giving baby kegs.

 I'm returning to dry yeast as the liquid pitchable yeasts are giving me some off-tastes. I have done my best to rule out other factors (such as water & environment) and the one thing I notice is that my brews made with the liquid yeast do not come out to my liking. 

 And that's all this is really about anyway: making what I like when I want.

It's all in the journey after all, right?

December 25th, 2008 | Category: Recipes | Comments (2)

Another week, another brew. I tried http://www.homebrewden.com & had them ship me their Dog & Crown Pale Ale kit. It shipped with White Labs pitchable liquid yeast. I substituted Glacier hops for the Kent Golding aroma hops also. Here’s the qbrew file and here’s the html page.

October 10th, 2008 | Tags: Glacier, homebrew, homebrewden.com, Hops, pitchable, qbrew, Recipes, Yeast | Category: Hops, Recipes, Yeast, qbrew | Leave a comment

Better Beer with Late Malt Extract Additions

I am going to try the late malt extract addition method on my next brew. I’ll probably do about 20% of the DME or syrup to get the hops going, and then finish off the extract for about 15-20 minutes. Another good post about it is right here:

 http://menuinprogress.com/2007/08/on-importance-of-late-extract-addition.html

October 7th, 2008 | Category: howto | Comments (2)