Recent content by Bramling Cross

You, sir, know how to brew. Really brew. My hat is off. Gorgeous!

I was lucky to be (sorta) of drinking age in the Pacific Northwest, in the early 90's, when the whole microbrewing thing went super critical. Blondes were a late development for brewpubs. The original brewers were disdainfully in full revolt against fizzy yellow swill, so a yellow easy drinking...

FFS, they sent her kidney to the *$&% wrong airport. Surgery is now pushed back to 11pm West Coast. This whole process has been a front-to-back 3-year cluster. Now they've pushed it back to midnight which means they can't use the robot. My poor sister, she hasn't had a bite to eat since...

Well, today's the big day. After nearly half a year of BS, excuses, more tests, more aggressive dialysis, etc, etc, and ten bags further worth of etc, my sister is finally getting a kidney today after they hacked one out of me last year. While prepped and ready in pre-op they informed her that...

It's such a forgiving strain and once you get it past the first pitch, an absolute monster. It's a shame it seems to be so overlooked.

Jennifer Talley's fantastic Session Beers: Brewing for Flavor and Ballance already has me adding salts, to noticeable effect,* post-mash, to make up for those that get trapped in the mash, so this makes sense. Not having read this article and relying upon Wyeast nutrient @10min, would you...

I have no interest in its NEIPA characteristics, but it is unquestionably the best dry UK-style ale when pitched at 64F and allowed to follow a controlled-rise to 72F. Used in that fashion, I'm getting esters, but I'm hard pressed to call them apricot. Fruity, sure, but I wouldn't call them...

I agree. You don't pitch dry Chico if you're trying to keg the following weekend. This strain, however, was slower than dry pitches of S-189 or 34/70. BRY-97 seems like a rocket on the first pitch, in comparison. Sure BRY-97 lags forever, but once it gets down to the business, it gets down to...

As homebrewers, we tend to assume that we must supply the requisite fermentation data, as much to prove that we're not Muppets as anything else. It's a far less data-rich environment when speaking with or reading the reports of pro brewers. The wild catting days of small-scale brewing are dead...

I've used it once and it left me scrambling to check my fermentation data and verify that I pitched the correct yeast. It tasted exactly like that fruit cocktail flavor you get from a botched S-23 fermentation. ;) It certainly is flavorful! If you like Cashmere, try fermenting S-23 at 72F...

Nuts, I keep forgetting about this thread. erm..... I think 6gal of no-name lager, 5gal of UK IPA, 6 gals of Panther Piss IV (LODO) softer water, 5gal of CTZ Spotlight, 6gal of Pasty Gangster, and 5gal of Noisome Blonde. 6+5+6+5+6+5=33 976+33=1,009 Whoohoo, punched through the 1K barrier!

What would I have learned from that? I already know how to make excellent beer with the legacy dried Chico family strains and I have hundreds of batches worth of data on them. I already have a rich, comprehensive data set. A trendy buzzword quasi-methodology isn't going to enhance my well...

It never fails. A closely related phenomenon in the keg world is that a keg that you really need/want to kick will last for weeks whereas a keg that you're trying to extend will kick within days.

A glass of my no-name lager (80pils/20munich). And a glass of Panther Piss IV.

I've used Ashburne several times as a base malt with the Fullers strain and the Yorkshire strain and I can't quite get the hang of it. Even with a good proportion of invert, and a proper mash, it always hangs up several points above where I'd like it to be and where the usual Otters tend to...