Begin Brewing!

A glass of the finished "Rapid Cream Ale" Last year, one of my favorite (and shortest-lived) beers was my cream ale. It began as the Kari's Cream Ale recipe on the American Hombrewers Association web site, which had won a gold medal at the national level in 2008. I made some minor changes to it, to bring it more in line with my own tastes. Specifically, I switched from 2-row Pale Malt to 6-row Pale Malt (supplemented with about 6 ounces of 2-row Pale since I didn't have enough 6-row), from WLP001 California Ale Yeast to Safale US-05, from whole Hallertau hops to Hallertau Mittelfruh pellet hops, and added a second mash step at 154F to possibly add some sweetness and body. Bitterness was also decreased slightly to 17 IBUs. Ingredients 1 pound, 14 ounces 6-row Pale Malt 6 ounces 2-row Pale Malt 2.25 pounds Briess Pilsner Malt 4 ounces Flaked Corn 4 ounces Corn Sugar 0.60 ounces Hallertau Mittelfruh hops @ 3.8% AA (30 min.) 0.75 ounces Hallertau Mittelfru...

Last year, one of the beers I earned a silver medal for at the Ohio State Fair was an Australian Sparkling Ale. Although I did not enter that beer this year, I did decide to re-brew it. The beer was a hit with friends and family. This re-brew attempts to reproduce the award-winning beer in the Zymatic instead of The Grainfather. I've attempted to adjust grain volume and hops amounts down to a level that should be equivalent. Ingredients 1.5 pounds Pilsner Malt 1.5 pounds Pale Ale Malt 4 ounces Caravienne Malt 4 ounces Carapils Malt 1 ounce Roasted Barley 1 pound Corn Sugar 1.5 tsp. pH 5.2 Stabilizer 1/4 tsp. Wyeast Yeast Nutrient 1 packet Coopers Ale Yeast 0.35 ounces Pride of Ringwood hops pellets @ 10% AA (60 min.) 0.15 ounces Pride of Ringwood hops pellets @ 10% AA (5 min.) 3 gallons plus 8 ounces starting water I added Carapils to this iteration to help maintain a head. The Roasted Barley was added to increase the malt complexity. I'd wanted to add Ca...

Earlier this year, I won the 23rd Annual Homebrewing Competition at Barley's Ale House across from the Columbus Convention Center. The beer I won it with was a Belgian Dark Strong Ale, a favorite style of mine. There are only a few bottles left of the winning batch, and I have several friends and family who would love to try the beer. That means it's time to re-brew. I brewed the winning batch in November on The Grainfather. While I could fire up the device and brew a new batch following the old recipe, I'd rather work out how to brew it on the PicoBrew Zymatic, as that would be a much easier and more repeatable way to make it in the future. I used the Zymatic Recipe Crafter to scale the original recipe to the 2.5 gallon size and match the original beer's gravity. Then, because I've come to believe the Zymatic's recipe crafter drastically underestimates the bitterness of a beer relative to what I see in BeerSmith (where the original recipe was created), I us...

Last year, I created a blonde ale recipe intended to showcase Mandarina Bavaria hops and Orange Blossom Honey. To my surprise, the finished beer took second place (silver medal) at the 2017 Ohio State Fair's homebrewing competition.  When I tried to re-brew that beer using the Picobrew Zymatic, despite their software claiming it would have a fairly low bitterness level, it actually came out so bitter that I entered it this year as a Pale Ale rather than a Blonde Ale. I decided to try again today, scaling the bitterness back to what I hope will match the original 1.0 brew, but using the Zymatic instead of The Grainfather. Ingredients 3 pounds 2-row Pale Ale Malt 1.25 pounds Munich Malt 3 ounces Carapils/Dextrine Malt 1 ounce Caramel 60L Malt 0.10 ounces Mandarina Bavaria hops @ 9.2% AA (60 min.) 0.20 ounces Mandarina Bavaria hops @ 9.2% AA (15 min.) 0.50 ounces Sweet Orange Peel (10 min.) 1/2 tsp. Irish Moss (10 min.) 1/4 tsp. White Labs Yeast Nutrient (10 min.) 0.35 o...

My first attempt at brewing a Dragon Stout clone resulted in a beer that initially tasted pretty good, but began to dry out and lose some of its subtle flavors and nearly all of its sweetness. When entered into competition, it scored extremely low. I might be upset about that if it wasn't for the fact that it was a published recipe, not something I'd come up with on my own.  This version is no different. It's a recipe that did not originate from me, but looked like a closer match to the real beer than the previous one. Ingredients 5 pounds 6-row Malt 1 pound, 2 ounces Flaked Corn 8 ounces Crystal 120L 4 ounces Chocolate Malt 3 ounces Blackprinz Malt (the recipe called for Black Patent, but it wasn't available) 1 ounce Roasted Barley 4 ounces Turbinado Sugar (the recipe called for brown sugar, but I used this instead) 4 ounces Corn Sugar 0.31 ounces Magnum hops @ 12.2% AA (60 min.) 3.2 gallons of starting water, mixed with the two sugars above 1 pac...

I received my PicoBrew Zymatic back in December 2017, and made my first batches right away.  It's now may 2018, and I've had about five months with it.  If you're considering purchasing one, my experiences might help you make your decision. The Zymatic Has Made Me More Prolific To date, I've made 22 batches with the Zymatic.  That's about half of what I made all of last year.  I've made a pale ale, two blonde ales, a malt liquor, a couple of Belgian Tripels, three Saisons, a couple of ESBs, three Belgian Dubbels, and some other styles.  Some of these were my own recipes, while others were published somewhere.  I would probably have brewed even more batches if I'd had the free time to do it. The Zymatic Can Make Good Beer, But It Can Make Bad Beer, Too Only a few of the beers went into competition. They've gotten scores ranging from an average of 20.6 (a Tropical Stout from a published recipe) to 36.5 (a Kentucky Common, my own recipe).  So ...