Begin Brewing!

Pico Pale Ale I was fortunate enough to be able to purchase a new Picobrew Zymatic automated brewing machine a few weeks ago for myself.  Today, I unboxed it and began brewing the sample kit included with it.  The sample recipe, Pico Pale Ale, was one of the easiest brews I've had in years. The machine shipped in four boxes.  Two of the boxes contained 5-gallon Cornelius kegs.  One contained the plastic tray, hoses, power cord, and other items, along with the recipe kit.  The last box contained the machine itself. Setup was fairly easy.  Remove everything from the boxes and confirm that it's all there.  Remove the plastic film covering the stainless steel parts of the Zymatic.  Attach the in and out liquid hoses to the correct fittings on the side of the unit, after inserting a nylon washer.  Attach the ball lock connectors to the appropriate posts on the keg.  Assemble the tray and insert it into the unit.  Register the dev...

I've made a couple of attempts at Christmas ales that just didn't come close to what I wanted. The hops would be overwhelming everything, the spices undetectable, or the spice balance not quite what I was looking for. I decided it was time to try a kit, and the Label Peelers kit had great reviews. It's an extract kit, which I don't typically brew, so that meant a shift from my usual process. Ingredients 9 pounds Amber DME 1 pound Dark Candi Sugar (rocks) 1 pound Crystal 80L 8 ounces Chocolate Malt 2 tsp. Allspice 1 tsp. Cardamom Seeds 1 ounce Cinnamon Stick 1 ounce Sweet Orange Peel 0.50 ounces Ginger Root 0.25 ounces Magnum hops @ 12.3% AA (dropped from 1 ounce in the kit/recipe) 0.50 ounces Cascade hops @ 6.3% AA (dropped from 1 ounce in the kit) 0.75 ounces Cascade hops @ 6.3% AA (dropped from 1 ounce in the kit) 0.50 teaspoons Yeast Nutrient 1/2 Whirlfloc tablet 1 vial White Labs Clarity Ferm 1 packet Safbrew S-33 yeast The kit included 3 ...

Some time ago, perhaps more than a year back, I purchased a Great Pumpkin Ale kit from Adventures in Homebrewing.  The kit's been sitting in my basement in the original double-bagged container ever since.  This weekend, I decided to brew it, though I held out little hope that it will taste very good - not because I think Adventures in Homebrew didn't make a good recipe, but because it has to be at least a year old. There's a good chance the grain has oxidized and gone bad. But rather than throw it out, I decided to brew it anyway. The worst case scenario is that I'll have to dump it later. The original recipe made for a very weak beer compared to most pumpkin ales I've had. It was estimated to have an ABV of 4.3%.  I'm not sure I've ever seen a pumpkin beer that low. I was also concerned that given the age of the grain it might not yield much sugar. I decided to put my own spin on the recipe. If it turns out to be terrible, it won't be Adventures in Ho...

Today I brewed the " Shades of Gourd " pumpkin spice ale kit from Adventures in Homebrewing. They describe the beer as a light and elegant pumpkin ale. The kit arrives with all the grain in a plastic bag. The hops and spices are in other bags, combined with priming sugar and/or yeast depending on how you order the kit. The Recipe The kit contains the following: 7 pounds of 2-row Pale Malt 1 pound of Honey Malt 12 ounces of Crystal 60L Malt 12 ounces of Crystal 10L Malt 8 ounces of Carafoam Malt 1 ounce of Tettnang hops pellets (marked as 2% AA in my kit) 20 grams of Pumpkin Pie Spice I added the following: 1 packet of Safale US-05 yeast 1/4 teaspoon of Super Irish Moss, rehydrated in water 1/2 teaspoon of Wyeast Yeast Nutrient Campden tablet added to mash and sparge water to remove chlorine and chloramine The yeast matches with the Adventures in Homebrewing options, but I already had it on hand. The other two items were designed to clarify the bee...

As a fan of Belgian style ales, I've long wanted to try Westvleteren XII.  It's considered to be one of the very best of the Belgian abbey ales, and by most accounts deservedly so.  Unfortunately, it's not offered for sale very often in the US.  Northern Brewer's Northy 12 Belgian Quad is reportedly a close approximation of Westvleteren XII.  I purchased the kit recently and decided to brew it. Northern Brewer's kits ship as a collection of loose components in bags inside a box.  I'd ordered the kit with some other items, so separating out the components of the kit from the other items in my order took a few minutes of careful examination to make sure I had it all, and wasn't accidentally slipping the wrong thing into my Northy XII ingredients. The ingredients in the kit include: 8 pounds of Belgian Pilsen malt 7 pounds of Belgian Pale malt 2 pounds of D-180 Candi Syrup 1 oz. Brewer's Gold hops pellets 9.9% AA (60 minutes) 1 oz. Hallertau hops ...

Adventures in Homebrewing (AIH) is a brewing supply store located in Southeast Michigan.  They offer a full range of homebrewing products, including equipment and ingredients.  I learned about them relatively recently through sales they were doing that the brewing bargain site Homebrew Finds shared.  I decided to check out their Gingerbread Brown Ale kit and their Peanut Butter Conspiracy Stout kit, as both were on sale at the time (priced around $27 each). AIH shipped the kits very quickly.  I had them only a few days after I ordered them.  They were packaged well and made the trip without harm.  Since it's the summer, I opted for dry yeast with these as there was a good chance that standard yeast packets or tubes would get too warm in shipping. Ingredient Kit Packaging The kit arrives in a small box, imprinted with the AIH logo and slogan "I would walk the plank for a homebrew" in back. The ingredients come sealed in plastic bags, along with...

A few weeks ago, I visited a local homebrew shop and decided to support them by picking up a Brewer's Best Belgian Tripel extract brewing ingredient kit.  I'm a big fan of the Belgian Tripel style and have yet to find a recipe that I am happy with.  The ones I've made have come out too sweet, too bitter, and often with a bitterness that doesn't match up to a genuine Belgian Tripel such as Karmeliet.   I decided to try out the Brewer's Best kit. The ingredients in the box include: 6.6 pounds of light dry liquid malt extract (CBW) 3 pounds of Pilsen light dry malt extract 4 ounces of Aromatic Malt 1 pound of what the instructions says is Belgian Candi Sugar but what was in the box was just a soft white sugar 1 ounce of Northern Brewer hops 9.6% alpha acid 0.5 ounces of UK Golding hops at 4.9% alpha acid 1 sachet of S-33 Fermentis Dry Yeast Muslin bag Bottle caps Priming sugar The brewing process described in the instructions is: Put the Aromatic Ma...