Well, I got three entries which isn’t too bad. A number of blogger friends warned me that I’d be lucky to get one response based on their past experiences. Three seems like an acceptable enough number to me. First Stater’s mild, Ben’s Kitchen Sink beer, and Stefin’s Surfer Kitten —two of which are posted to the comments, and Stefin’s will get put into a new section along with the other two specifically for recipes.
But the winner is First Stater, and here’s why: (more…)
My friend, coworker, and new BaltiBrew member Lyle Albright just bottled his first batch of homebrew and was kind enough to give me two bottles of his American Brown Ale to sample. While talking to Lyle about his brew — and I haven’t even tasted it yet — it occurred to me to dispense some “I wish I would have done this with my first brew” advice to him and to you readers.
Don’t drink it all too fast. Save a half dozen bottles or so. Store them properly — upright, in a cool, dark place — and taste them periodically over time. Speaking from experience, I can say this is incredibly difficult to do. You made your first beer and you’re supposed to wait to drink it?!?!?! Crazy talk, I know.
But trust me — if you’re interested in learning a lot about how beer matures and ages, AND a lot about yourself as a brewer, it makes perfect sense to squirrel some away. (more…)
I want to wish all of you out there a happy holiday — whichever one (or none) you observe.
This one is a little bittersweet for me. I had plans to fly to Denver to spend time with my family, but last week’s snowstorm put the kibosh on that rather effectively. Instead, I’m afforded time with my wife’s family, who have had a very rough year. Sometimes even when things don’t work out the way we want them to, other things that matter fall into place.
I’d intended to gift readers with reports from the various breweries in and around Weld County, Colorado, but instead I present you with a beer recipe I made using Brew Pal. Just a little 9 percenter to keep you warm over the next few cold months. Recipe is after the jump.
There’s a recipe formulation contest on. Winner gets a So Yeah Dood pint glass, and I’ll brew the winning recipe — and you can join me to direct the process if you live local to Baltimore.
Today is the first anniversary of soyeahdood.com as a site, and like the holiday season in which this anniversary takes place, this seems like a good time for reflection.
Personally, this whole year has been a year of transitions:
But as you might expect in the first year of a site, it’s also been a year of transitions in the life of So Yeah Dood:
One can only hope that next year will surpass this one in terms of challenge and reward.
In the new year, I plan to unveil a new design for the site with increased interactivity, more interviews with brewers, vintners, etc, more event posts, and the occasional contest for all you loyal readers — few as you may be.
As thanks for your readership, it starts today.
Details:
This contest is a recipe formulation contest. To enter, submit a beer recipe in the comments of this post. The recipe can be either extract, partial-mash, or all-grain — all will be judged by the same criteria. A good partial mash recipe would definitely outdo a so-so all-grain. There is no style requirement, but please be as detailed as you can be. Include what yeast you would use, talk about the water profile you would use, talk about when and how you would add hops, etc.
You can use BrewPal, Promash, BeerSmith, etc. to produce you recipe, but submit it via email in plain text or Word format.
I will be judging submissions based on the following criteria weighted in order from the top down:
Final submissions are due no later than 11 p.m. on January 12, 2010.
The winner gets the following:
Get crackin’! I can’t wait to see what you guys submit.
And I’ll post all the recipes for readers to view once the contest ends.
I have barely started this, and I have already determined that this will be at least a three part post. Mashing is that big, and that important. It takes into account understandings of botany, chemistry, thermodynamics, physics, fluid motion… a lot of science. Which is actually pretty funny considering that at its core, mashing is putting hot water on crushed grain and waiting.
The biggest action we’re most concerned about in the mash is the enzymatic breakdown of starch to sugar. This involves two diastatic enzymes knows as αAmylase —Alpha Amylase, and βAmylase — Beta Amylase. If you took basic biology in high school, you may have done an experiment using a chewed up saltine cracker to demonstrate that enzymes — αAmylase to be precise — in your mouth break down the starch of the cracker into sugars. These enzymes — the same as in your mouth — break down the starchy molecules from the grain into sugar molecules that yeast can ferment. (more…)
Just a quick what’s up post. I gave a lightning talk at Ignite Baltimore 4 last night.
Seemed to go OK. I stumbled a few times, but managed to recover all right. 500 people staring at you is kinda scary.
But hey! I got to meet a bunch of cool folks and talk about beer, what more could I ask for?
One of those folks is Adam Borden — who also spoke — of Marylanders for Better Beer & Wine Laws. I’m going to get him over here on the site for an interview at some point, but you should go check out what they have to say.
Missed the talk on how to survive a Zombie Apocalypse, but I can’t wait to check it out when it gets put up on YouTube.
I’ll have a wrap up of how Baltimore Beer Week went soon.