Brewing Info

I also have a place for your recipes. Please feel free to submit your favorite recipes and I will add them to the site. It may take a few days for your recipe to be posted.

I started, as most brewers do, making beer from malt extracts. I am very much into all-grain now and have also made a few lagers. I definately recommend to any extract brewer to delve into the the all-grain world. Also, if you are not prepared yet to do all-grain, you should still check out my all-grain recipes and substitute malt extract for the base malt and use the specialty malts as usual.

If you are new to brewing, check out my links for sites with more comprehensive information.

I also include wine ,cider and hard lemonade recipes. My wine making has been strictly from boxed kits. I have had very impressive results from these kits. They are easy to make as long as your equipment is sterile and you have patience. If you are interested in more advanced wine making, check out my links. Cider and Hard Lemonade are also easy, again if you have patience.

Lagers are fermented with yeast suitable to live and metabolize at cooler temperatures and yeild a beer which is very smooth, compared to its ale counterpart. Patience, again, is a virtue. 46-50 degrees is optimal for fermenting and lagering (aging) should be done close to freezing. If you use your basement in the winter and cannot chill your brew lower than refrigeration temperatures, than you should wait even longer during lagering.

General Brewing Considerations:

1. Alway use a secondary fermentation. Transfer your beer to a secondary vessel after the vigorous fermentation resides. Getting your beer off the majority of spent yeast will create better tasting brew. Also, it helps in reducing sediment in the bottles.

2. Dry hopping is another favorite of mine. If you have not tried dry hopping, just add some hops to your secondary carboy and let sit for at least a week.

3. It goes without saying that cleanliness is very important. Keep everything that comes in contact with your beer as sterile as possible.

4. Hops go a longer way in full wort boils. Their % utilization is greater with a lower specific gravity. In general, if you try an extract recipe and you use a full wort boil, you may have to reduce the amount of hops to compensate (and vice versa). See technical reference page for more details on hop efficiency.

5. Cooling your wort as quickly as possible before pitching yeast greatly reduces the chances of infection. I made my own chiller with copper tubing from the hardware store, rubber hose, and hose clamps. You will also need a connection for your sink. You use cold tap water from the faucet which runs through the copper tubing cooling the beer. It usually takes about 15 minutes to cool to pitching temperatures. You can clean your equipment with the running water while you wait so it doesn't all go to waste.