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There’s an easy and delicious way to improve your beer creation skills. Just get "SMaSH’d" on brew day. Not smashed as in “drink a beer make a beer,” but SMaSH’d as in brewing Single Malt and Single Hop beers. Brewing SMaSH beers dials you directly in to the abundantly flavorful and educational essence of two key ingredients, malt and hops. Sound good? It’s delicious. Also, having the simplest recipes make experimenting with ingredients approachable, and flavor profiles identifiable. SMaSH’d on Malt Making SMaSH beers help you clearly define flavor profiles beyond what's listed online. In his book “Malt, a practical guide from field to brewhouse,” John Mallet describes malt as, “the soul of beer.” SMaSH brewing is the best way to learn...

Up until now you’ve been fermenting your beer in the basement, or in that hall closet that stays nice and cool. What if you want to brew a saison that calls for higher fermentation temperature, want to try your hand at lagering, or even dial in your standard ale fermentations more precisely? You need a way to control the fermentation temperature. Temperature control isn’t just for beers that ferment higher or lower than average. All of your batches can benefit from being at the right temperature at the right time. Homebrewers used to have to come up with clever ways to keep fermentation temperatures in check. Take the “Swamp Cooler” method, where a fermenter is placed in a vessel of ice water and a T-Shirt is draped over it. The theory...

Back in 2012 there were only 5 craft breweries operating in Columbus, OH. This wasn’t many for the 15th largest U.S. city during a time that craft beer was taking off. Nonetheless, a homebrewer living in Chicago and a fellow Ohio State University alum came together to try and add to Columbus’ lagging craft beer scene. Adam Benner and Walt Keys launched a Kickstarter campaign that year as a proof of concept. They wanted to know if strangers would support their efforts if they went through the trouble of opening a new brewery. In just 60 days, they managed to raise $30,000 and knew that they had chosen the right home for their budding dream. However, convincing people to hand them $30,000 turned out to be easier than finding a brewery...

We have all at least seen the Little Brown Keg (LBK) before. For most of us this was our first attempt at brewing. The simplicity of use, the variety of recipes, and the size were all very attractive. Not to sugar coat it: this vessel is home brewing's greatest gateway drug. Use it once and you are hooked destined for bigger vessels, all grain mashes, and complex recipes with far out ingredients. What becomes of this noble introduction to brewing when we all move on to our brew keggles and induction heated 'drool-systems'? Sadly, most end up in yard sales with a sticker asking for a buck or two. This is a sad fate for our LBKs but what can we use them for? They only hold 2.5 gallons and have that obnoxious sticker on the front! Tear...

SUCCESS!! On Superbowl Sunday, I opened my first batch of Mr. Beer Canadian Draft. It was a little bit light on the carbonation (I used carb tablets instead of sugar), but overall it tasted great, and continued to give off very tiny bubbles the whole time I was drinking it (which of course didn't take long). Here are a couple of pictures from the milestone event, Pouring the first bottle: What a beautiful homebrew! My homebrew in the Superbowl action (among the chips, dip, and snacks).

SUCCESS!! On Superbowl Sunday, I opened my first batch of Mr. Beer Canadian Draft. It was a little bit light on the carbonation (I used carb tablets instead of sugar), but overall it tasted great, and continued to give off very tiny bubbles the whole time I was drinking it (which of course didn't take long). Here are a couple of pictures from the milestone event, Pouring the first bottle: What a beautiful homebrew! My homebrew in the Superbowl action (among the chips, dip, and snacks).

The worlds of Home Brewing and DIY have been joined at the hip since the beginnings of home brewing.... Born out of necessity, homebrewers have had specific needs that the commercial brewing market could not supply. This need fostered a huge DIY explosion in brewing equipment & gadgets from swamp chillers, immersion chillers, growler fillers and countless others. For years avid home brewers have shared their ideas, creations & projects. This aspect of sharing ideas and collaboration is one of the great foundations of the home brewing hobby and in particular the HBT website. HBT has been an encyclopedic tome of home brewing fact (and yes some fiction) for many years. I am an avid home brewer and DIY tinkerer. I have on many occasions...

The worlds of Home Brewing and DIY have been joined at the hip since the beginnings of home brewing.... Born out of necessity, homebrewers have had specific needs that the commercial brewing market could not supply. This need fostered a huge DIY explosion in brewing equipment & gadgets from swamp chillers, immersion chillers, growler fillers and countless others. For years avid home brewers have shared their ideas, creations & projects. This aspect of sharing ideas and collaboration is one of the great foundations of the home brewing hobby and in particular the HBT website. HBT has been an encyclopedic tome of home brewing fact (and yes some fiction) for many years. I am an avid home brewer and DIY tinkerer. I have on many occasions...

So you’ve started brewing gluten-free. I commend you. For us glutards (those with intolerance and allergies to gluten), there are basically two options: 1) Make a regular beer, and then take the gluten out with WLN4000: Clarity Ferm, or 2) Brew using no gluten-carrying grains in the mash. As I’ve found, even with Stone Delicious IPA, there’s not much added benefit from option 1. I’ll still have some brain fog, indigestion, or sore joints the next day, which really takes the session-ability away from it being gluten-reduced. Furthermore, they’re not doing anything adventurous, just offering basic flavors, making you have to either travel to places like Alpine, Duckfoot, or Amplified Ales in San Diego (gluten reduced), Ghostfish in...

Search the forums and you will inevitably come across new threads asking the same questions over and over. Another certainty, a frustrated user will state something along the lines of "This has been answered millions of times, use the search function!" Avoiding the issue at-hand (Remember mother's words: "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all") I want to help us all search HomeBrewTalk with greater efficiency and effectiveness - enter the power of Google. Did you know, through the Google search engine, you can explicitly search within a single URL? I don't remember the day I learned about this, but as you can imagine, it was life changing. Much akin to the day I realized I could brew my own beer! Here is how...

Whether "New England Style" (NE style) pale ales and IPAs are in fact new styles are a matter of some debate. While there are breweries outside of New England and even the northeast creating them, the style is most prevalent in New England. What isn't debatable is the impact these beers are having on the marketplace as large national and regional craft brewers are losing market share to smaller brewers. Wachusett, a venerable regional craft brewer with roots going back to 1994 is getting into the game releasing their own NE style IPA called Wally. Even more than any other IPA, freshness is key with NE IPAs. The hop aroma and flavor the style is known for can fade quickly. This gives smaller NE IPA producers have a huge advantage over...

When I first started brewing I used a kit to guide me through the brewing process. The instructions seemed very simple which was nice since I was still learning about the equipment and how the brewing process worked. I steeped a small sock of grains for 20 minutes, poured in the liquid malt extract, boiled the hops, pitched a dry packet of yeast, and fermented for exactly 2 weeks as instructed. I now thought I could make any kind of beer by following this same blanket process. However, as I researched my new hobby more I found that different ingredients and styles of beer suggested using alternative or additional steps. One of these conflicting suggestions was to rest the mash at a lower temperature than the 150ºF – 165ºF range I had...

So, what made you decide to start home brewing? I think it all began swigging Lowenbrau with a high school friend under an overpass in Ocean City. Well, maybe that wasn't it but in the early 80's, a pair of dirty work jeans and a ball cap is all you needed in the way of ID. I was taught to cook by working parents out of necessity and all around me read that as two of the three houses on a country lane in the middle of Nowhere, Virginia brewed their own beverages. It's a busy community now with housing developments and parkways but back then you could ride your bike down the middle of the road for a mile and never see a car. In hindsight it was the Warfields and Eggerts who inspired my interest in brewing early on. Old Man...

Before long, any homebrewer with a little yard space is going to start eyeing up the corners of his or her yard and thinking about where to plant some hops. We encourage that urge! As we’ve touched on before, gardening for your homebrew is a great extension of the hobby, and even with a plant as big as hop plants, you don’t need as much space as you think. Hops are a good plant to grow not only because they can be used in your homebrew, but because they come back every year and as long as they get their start in good soil, they are relatively easy to maintain. Plus, they give you another use for all those spent grains left over on brew day. The soil is important, though. Hugely important. Most beginning gardeners know how important both...

I have been using my BrewsBySmith Fermentation Kit for about nine months now and it has undoubtedly become an integral part of my brewing process. I've grown so attached to the way I can set it to accurately control the temperature of my fermenting beer that I won't ferment another batch of beer without one. Here in the Northeastern United States the temperature outside plummets during the colder months of the year. Even though my garage brew room is well insulated the temperature inside can still get down to 45F in the dead of winter. Using the 32 watt Fermwrap heater that came with the kit, together with a homemade 100 watt 'paint can' heater, the controller was able to maintain a stable 66-72F temperature range with ease. This...

When I first came across a Keg King product, it was a wort pump selling for 25-50% less than the mainstay pumps of the homebrewing world. I figured maybe it was just a one-off no-name product, but I gave it a try. The pump itself was great, and was a solid performer. When inquiring about their pump relative to their competition, Keg King talked about high temperature durability testing that outperformed its competition as well as a higher water protection IP rating (industry standard as a measure for how well electrical products keep stuff out of their insides- water, dust, etc.). Hearing them explain their pump with these sort of details, I realized there was more to it than just being the lowest-cost producer. Kee Doery says he...

When we last left off in part 1, we were about to look "head on" at the three dimensional graph of the Tinseth Formula. If you have not yet read part 1, I suggest you do before continuing. Now our 3-D graph looks 2-D. The upper edge of the graph (that extends into the purple) represents how the IBUs of 1.000 specific gravity wort (essentially water) changes over time. The bottom edge represents how the IBUs of 1.100 specific gravity wort changes over time. In between we have all of the possible specific gravities between 1.000 and 1.100 represented and how the respective IBUs change with time. The shape of the curve becomes compressed, but it remains the general shape of our familiar graph of IBUs versus time. For clarity I have...

When we last left off in part 1, we were about to look "head on" at the three dimensional graph of the Tinseth Formula. If you have not yet read part 1, I suggest you do before continuing. Now our 3-D graph looks 2-D. The upper edge of the graph (that extends into the purple) represents how the IBUs of 1.000 specific gravity wort (essentially water) changes over time. The bottom edge represents how the IBUs of 1.100 specific gravity wort changes over time. In between we have all of the possible specific gravities between 1.000 and 1.100 represented and how the respective IBUs change with time. The shape of the curve becomes compressed, but it remains the general shape of our familiar graph of IBUs versus time. For clarity I have...

Advantages of Using Dry Yeast Dry yeast has a lot of advantages over liquid yeast. It is cheap and readily available. If stored cool and dry, after 2 years the cells still have a viability over 90%. The form factor is small and one packet contains around 230 Billion cells. That is more than enough for a 5 gallon batch. The biggest drawback is limited variety. Not all yeast strains are available in dried form. I am still waiting for a hefeweizen dry yeast with the same qualities like their liquid counterparts. In conclusion, if you are brewing ales or lagers where good quality dried strains are available, dry yeast clearly has the edge; therefore, I would recommend to always keep a few packets in the fridge. Why Rehydrate Dry Yeast? It...

At my first Queensland Amateur Brewing Competition (QABC), I volunteered as a steward. Upon arrival I was asked to judge, which scared the hell out of me (and still does). Fortunately I was paired with a very forgiving judge who mentored me for the day. I set out to shut up and learn something, a plan I got half-right. More importantly though, on that day I fell in love with English beers. Later I found a book of old English beer recipes. I bought it expecting to be brewing what I’d tasted. It was nothing like it. What you get from a centuries old recipe is not what you’d expect from a modern beer. The evolution of British beers over the last 300 years has been a roller coaster, expanding exponentially thanks to specialty malts, studies...

Perhaps it was sampling that delicious bourbon barrel stout that seduced you into contemplating a way to impart the taste of oak into a batch of homebrew. Maybe it was the scent of smoked grain mashing on brew day. Whatever your personal call to oak is, there are now a range of choices to give your beer that fabulous hint of complexity that oak imparts. After all, wood was the initial home to all things beer. From aging to storage, wooden casks were the only choice for brewers of old. The modern home brewer has a range of choices to bring back that taste of yesterday. Choosing your oak is a matter of beer styles, taste, and simplicity of use. Oak is the wood of choice for many reasons, but for now, we’ll focus on the aspects of flavor...

I have a friend who's really into politics, and more importantly, digging into what bills congress are voting on to see what they include. He found something on homebrew sales that might be pretty cool for us homebrewers. In fact, really cool. Homebrew Sales Could be Legal to Sell With a Home Cottage Production License Apparently the Bill, H J Res 59;14 has additions to the the Cottage Food Production licenses. Well technically it will legally allows amendments to be made so that states can vote to add them to their individual cottage production licenses (as each state has their own). If the bill passes, it could allow homebrew sales as early as 2018 in some states based on voting schedules. What About Red Tape? Of course there are...

Did you know you can radically alter a beer without changing the ingredients? One thing I love about brewing is all the tools available. First you have the ingredients: grains, hops, yeast strains, water profiles, herbs, spices, vegetables, wood, fruit.... Factor in different amounts, ratios, varietals - and you can see that we'll never, ever "run out" of beers to brew. The possibilities are already endless and we're only getting started. As if ingredients don't give us enough possibilities, there are many MANY ways to change the flavor of beer without changing the ingredients. Here are 5 ideas for you to try: 1. Mash Temperature Ask any all-grain brewer what they really love about all-grain and 9/10 of them say "the control." Brewing...

Wine aficionados have always been passionate about the vintage of their bottles. They often say “it was a good year,” or talk about how many years the bottle has been aged. Some people are compulsive enough to only store bottles on their sides, in a temperature and humidity controlled fridge. This is loosely accepted as the proper way to mature your fine wine. Although the majority of people believe that wine will get better with age, many still believe that beer won’t. I’ve heard people claim that a beer can’t change once it’s bottled, because nothing can get in or out. Ironically, those same people are worried that after a year of sitting in the bottle the beer will spoil. What a double standard! Time and Cellaring Your Beer Anybody...

Version 2, which serves two mini-kegs at the same time No, this is not an article about drinking beer while driving around (very bad idea). This is an article about how to keep homebrew chilled and carbonated in mini-kegs for tail-gating, BBQs and camping trips. It is about having portable homebrew that does not require hauling bottles that may have different levels of carbonation, the added costs of labels, carriers and other nice things we like to do to personalize our home made craft beers not to mention the removal of the empties when done. This story starts 22 years ago when a group of friends celebrated the 10 year anniversary of their college graduation camping trip. It was 1994 the same year as the Woodstock II. When we told...

World Beer Week celebrates the best of beer around the world, and Australia is a proud member of the beer drinking family, with more beer drunk per capita than the USA. That's even despite a slump of beer consumption as the people Down Under go for more wine and cider in recent times. The truth is that Australian craft beer is probably two decades behind the US. Most generic pubs and bars will have mainstream brews on tap and won't offer a true craft beer unless they're purposefully seeking that market of discerning drinkers. Bottle shops are the only stores in Australia licensed to sell beer, with supermarkets and corner stores unable to sell liquors, wines, or beer. Beer is reasonably expensive, with taxes on alcohol driving a high...

In my evolution as a brewer, the most difficult thing for me to learn has been how to design a solid recipe. It is an ongoing process and probably will be for the rest of my life. The struggle came from a desire to create brews that I could truly call my own, while not really having enough experience to even know where to begin. Designing recipes is a slow process and, in my opinion, should only be attempted once the entire brewing, fermentation, and packaging processes are understood. Designing Solid Recipes Can Be Interesting And Challenging Since I am the type of person that always tries to run before I walk, my first few attempts at recipes were disasters. It was only my second brew day when I thought I could invent something...

“If you’ve ever wanted to learn to brew beer from an expert, look no further. Award-winning homebrewer Chris Colby of Beer & Wine Journal offers recipes for every major style of beer to teach novice, intermediate and advanced brewers more about the craft and science of brewing. From classic styles like pale ales, IPAs, stouts and porters, to experimental beers such as oyster stout, bacon-smoked porter and jolly rancher watermelon wheat, brewers will learn more about brewing techniques and beer ingredients. Chris also shows how recipes can be modified to suit an individual brewer’s taste or to transform one beer style into a related style, creating a lot of different and fantastic beer options”. Chris Colby is the former editor of Brew...

Pleased with the HLT/heat exchanger project shown in a previous article, my friend Rick asked me to help him with his MLT build. We used the same techniques and many of the same components for this phase of his three vessel brewing system. This was the simplest kettle of the project, requiring only two 13/16” holes, so it was completed very quickly. He already had a domed false bottom with 3/8” dip tube so we used those. He had a nice clamping sparge arm on hand, so we didn't have to install anything for the input feed. Because of the domed false bottom we did not install a sight glass, as there would be no grain-free region from which to feed it. If he decides later to switch to a full false bottom, we will at the same time change to a...

It has been a year since I started brewing my own beer. In that time, I went from extract to all-grain, learned how to keg my beer, built a keezer, bought and used a fermentation chamber, installed an RO filter for water, and learned how to manage water additions, along with a host of other things. I’ve done 24 batches to this point which gives me some measure of experience, but I also remember, vividly, what it was like to be a new brewer. In the interest of giving back, I list these myths and surprises I discovered in my first year of brewing. 1. SURPRISE - Patience Isn’t Just A Virtue, It’s Required If You Want To Brew Great Beer. Everyone starting out is anxious to sample their new baby, but it’s almost always better to wait. I know...

I've seen a couple issues come up lately where people have found pinhole leaks coming from under the rubber on their kegs. This can be somewhat distressing if you're not sure how to tackle it. Most of the time leaks come from a damaged o-ring, an unseated lid, or a worn poppet. These are easily fixable with little investment, but a leak that can't be repaired by way of replacement is risky business. When I purchased my kegs, they all held pressure and so I thought all of them would be fine. When I cleaned them up for the first time, the gas post on this one was really stuck and I had a really hard time getting it off. I had to lay the keg on its side and really crank the wrench to get it to budge. I think that part of it was that the...

I've seen a couple issues come up lately where people have found pinhole leaks coming from under the rubber on their kegs. This can be somewhat distressing if you're not sure how to tackle it. Most of the time leaks come from a damaged o-ring, an unseated lid, or a worn poppet. These are easily fixable with little investment, but a leak that can't be repaired by way of replacement is risky business. When I purchased my kegs, they all held pressure and so I thought all of them would be fine. When I cleaned them up for the first time, the gas post on this one was really stuck and I had a really hard time getting it off. I had to lay the keg on its side and really crank the wrench to get it to budge. I think that part of it was that the...

Most of us homebrewers started out bottling our beers, some of us then decided to move on to kegging. Those who bottle claim that bottling is better for portability (bringing to parties, sharing with friends, entering competitions.) Those who keg claim that the time saved cleaning and filling bottles is one of the best things they’ve done to save time, and that you can always Counter Pressure Bottle (CPBF) fill some bottles for competition or for giving away. But a CPB filler is one more piece of equipment to buy and there’s a bit of a learning curve when using one. I know you can also just fill a growler but many times the carbonation on a growler is lacking. The Process If you keg and wish that you could just bottle up a 6-pack or...

Initial considerations First, I strongly suggest that if you haven’t read Part One of this series, it might be a good idea to do so. In that segment, I discussed my reasons for using the approach described here. This portion is more of a hands-on, procedural description of how to achieve that which has already been decided upon. Second, please be aware that I would be amazed if anyone were to follow through with an identical build. I included everything but the kitchen sink in my version because that was what I wanted to build. Three controlled burners and four PID (proportional–integral–derivative) control modules is certainly overkill for the job at hand, which is homebrewing beer. I believe that most homebrewers will find one...

In my previous article Wort Canning To Save Time, one commenter questioned where the time savings were. Well, ask and ye shall receive! In this article, I'll show you how I use pre-canned starter wort to make preparing a yeast starter an extremely quick process. As I mentioned in the previous article, the problem with yeast starters is that they're time-constrained; you generally have to prepare them a set number of days prior to your brew day to ensure the maximum freshness and viability of the yeast. I usually brew on the weekend, which generally means I have to prepare my starter on Wednesday night. This is still true using the pre-canned method, but most of the work has already been done. Instead of boiling and chilling, I only need...

When I started looking into making mead it seemed so very simple. Dump some honey in some water, add some yeast, ignore it for a while, and tada! Nectar of the Gods in your bottle. And sure, you can get mead that way, but as I started researching, I found a whole lot more information on the subject. Things started to get complicated. Even categorizing my mead became pretty cumbersome. I found that I would have to search about and look things up. To be honest, the HomeBrewTalk forums have most all the answers you will need. The only down side is I can’t say I’ve found a single place where they are all grouped together neatly and easily accessible. So I shall endeavor to provide newbies to mead making a reference document. Also, I won’t...

The obvious answer, of course... With a little holiday gift money in my pocket and a few beginner questions answered, I energetically jumped into the wide world of homebrewing earlier this year. In the dozen or so extract batches I've made since, I've found the transformation amazing in my understanding of this hobby. It's an avocation that can be as approachable as making your macaroni & cheese, all the way to being as in-depth as crafting your own space shuttle. I've had some other substantial hobbies over the years (guitar, barbecuing, etc.) but this one has got to be the most intriguing as to why' people started this pastime. In those other hobbies, no one goes to the various lengths in all areas as they do in home brewing. I've...

By now you know the story of most startup breweries. Someone with a passion for homebrewing gets a glimmer in their eye and starts daydreaming about doing it for a living. They take the plunge and go professional, but the road towards opening a brewery ends up being longer and rockier than expected. After some trials and tribulations the doors open, pints and flights are poured, and the world is given another great craft brewery that once again began with someone who started with nothing more than a mash paddle and a dream. Jason Goldstein’s story is a little different. The result of his blood, sweat and tears, Lakewood, NJ’s Icarus Brewing, opened in November 2016, with the tap room opening to the public two months later. Yet he wasn’t...

Many all-grain brewers seem to be put off when anything beyond a single infusion comes up in a recipe. Terms like “triple decoction” conjure up images of steampunk laboratories, mad scientists, and hump-backed henchman. Cereal mashing seems to get the same response, which is understandable as just about every article on the subject is filled with diastatic calculations, gelatinization temps, etc. which no one having a beer on brew day wants to remotely contend with. At this point, I should tell you that the benefit of cereal mashing is simply that you, by adding an hour or less to your brew day, will be able to use any grain, flour,or other cereal in your beers without exception. Wheat flour, corn meal, sorghum porridge, millet flour...

10 Most Badass Craft Brewery Logos Making your homebrew look as professional as possible will impress your friends, and could make it taste better--the mind can play tricks on us. Would you rather have your buddies drink your beer from a plain brown bottle, or would you prefer to show off an awesome custom logo? That's what we thought. Design has a huge impact on the way beer is perceived. I realized recently that I've been buying beer depending on how cool the packaging is. And that made me think: what are the most badass craft brewery logos, ever? And how can other people learn to make their own labels just as badass? Here's what happens when brew maker meets logo maker: 1. Our Brewing Company That mustache. Go and tell that guy he's...

My name is Christopher J. A. Saint Germain. I am a photojournalist for the Army National Guard. I have been in the active military for most of my adult life and never have had the chance to start brewing. I've never lived in one place long enough. The closest I've ever come was making a batch of Corn Whiskey when I was stationed in Korea. A few days ago I was cleaning out the kitchen and I realized that I had a large jar of honey that has been sitting in the cupboard for a year. Now I know that honey never spoils. There are claims of honey coming from the pyramids that is still edible. I'd like a spot of that in my tea! Anyhow, I had about five pounds of Fireweed Honey sitting unused in the kitchen. I don't really drink that much tea...

My name is Christopher J. A. Saint Germain. I am a photojournalist for the Army National Guard. I have been in the active military for most of my adult life and never have had the chance to start brewing. I've never lived in one place long enough. The closest I've ever come was making a batch of Corn Whiskey when I was stationed in Korea. A few days ago I was cleaning out the kitchen and I realized that I had a large jar of honey that has been sitting in the cupboard for a year. Now I know that honey never spoils. There are claims of honey coming from the pyramids that is still edible. I'd like a spot of that in my tea! Anyhow, I had about five pounds of Fireweed Honey sitting unused in the kitchen. I don't really drink that much tea...

I started homebrewing early in 2016 with no knowledge and with what a store owner told me was "everything I needed." With every batch I brewed, I made mistakes, sought out more advice, and acquired more equipment. Now, after nine batches, I finally feel confident that when I invest time on brew day, I'll end up with something worth drinking and sharing. While I have loved this journey into homebrewing competence, I've also loved making beer labels for each batch. This article presents my year-one journey as captured by the labels I created. 1. Incident With a Siphon Imperial Stout As depicted on this label, I had major struggles with the siphoning on my first batch. I was anxious about ensuring everything that touched the wort was...

I've always enjoyed fermenting things, ever since I made my first hard cider when I was 19 and not cool enough to have friends that were old enough to buy me beer... er, I mean, 21 years old and not a day younger. I am fascinated as much by the process as I am the finished product. Cider, beer, wine, kimchi, sauerkraut, kvass, mead, sake, pickled vegetables; all a combination of science and culinary art which I can take part in right in my kitchen. When one of my friends told me I could ferment sweet tea, I thought ew I have to try that! Glass Of Kombucha I have been an avid beer brewer for 8 years now, all the while dabbling in other various fermented foods and beverages. The only thing I make more of than beer is kombucha. It's easy...

A typical Saturday brewday for me begins on Monday before sitting down to eat dinner. After picking up the liquid yeast vials needed for my recipe I boil up a batch of yeast starter wort made from extra light dried malt extract and filtered water. My LHBS The Brewers Apprentice stocks Munton's Extra Light DME packaged in convenient one pound plastic bags, they're perfect for making up starter wort on short notice and easy to store on a refrigerator shelf once opened. To make up the wort I use a pretty simple formula of one cup of dried malt extract to two liters of filtered water, it gets me within the 1.030 to 1.040 gravity range every time and it's easy for me to remember. Once you've measured out the water pour it into a small pot...