Archive for the ‘Geek-Out’ Category

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Brew Pal

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Dave Parker, the creator of BrewPal — a bit of software for the iPhone that I’ve posted about before.  I’ve raved pretty extensively both on this site and to people in person about how awesome this app is. There’s definitely some geek speak going on in the interview — discussion of operating systems, user interfaces, etc. — but there’s also plenty of brew talk as well. What’s really amazing is that Dave built this software on his own time, and he’s only charging $0.99 for it. If you have an iPhone and you brew, there’s really no reason not to have a copy.

Here are the results of the interview:

So Yeah Dood: How long have you been brewing?
Dave: I actually started just over a year ago. My friend got a Mr. Beer for Christmas (in 2008) and we used it on December 28, 2009, so it was a year old, and of course the yeast was no good. It was a disaster, but I loved the process
Dave: ended up buying more yeast and dry malt extract at the local homebrew shop
So Yeah Dood: Nice!
So Yeah Dood: What was it that inspired you to build the app?
Dave: I have a collector mentality, so it doesn’t take much to push me over the edge… I think it was about two weeks before I had a starter all-grain setup.
So Yeah Dood: That’s impressive.
Dave: My day job is computer programming and I really fell in love with brewing quite quickly. Always been a beer guy
it seemed pretty natural. I found I was constantly looking stuff up in How To Brew or online, and I wanted it in the palm of my hand.

So Yeah Dood: Did you start out using some other application like BeerSmith, or ProMash?

Dave: Nope, I had only — and have still only — used online calculators and such. (more…)

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How do I do that? Mashing pt. 2 Building a Mash/Lauter Tun.

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

In the last installment of “How do I do that?” I described what’s happening chemically during the mash.

This time I need to tell you how to build a mash tun, but that will also require me briefly describing the ways in which you can sparge your mash. Spargeing is just rinsing the grain bed to remove sugars that have been left behind from the mash runoff. This step actually comes after the mash, which seems a bit like putting the cart before the horse.

Why would that matter?  Because how you sparge will have a large effect on how you build your tun.

  • If you intend to fly sparge — i.e. slowly drizzle water over the top of the grain bed to rinse the grain — you will probably want to build a manifold for your filter.
  • If you intend to batch sparge — i.e. drain all of your initial mash liquid and then add your sparge water to rinse the grain — you can save money by building a tun with a stainless steel braid for your filter.

Building a manifold will not negatively affect your results if you batch sparge — in fact I’ve heard reports that it will increase your efficiency greatly — but you shouldn’t fly sparge with a stainless braid filter. More on that later on.

So… since we know what the mash is, we can start talking about how to build a mash tun and why we choose the parts we do for one.

It’s best to use a vessel for the mash tun that will maintain a relatively static internal temperature. It needs to be insulated, and since we’re going to be modifying it a bit, it should be relatively cheap. (more…)

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Posted in Beer, Brewing, Geek-Out | 2 Comments »

This Rules.

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

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How do I/They do that? Malting

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

I wrote about malting a little bit in a post about the first BJCP class. You may notice the slight difference in the title from previous “How do I do that?” posts. The explanation comes down to my honest belief that malting, while something you can do yourself, should be left to the experts. This shouldn’t deter anyone from wanting to know how it’s done, what’s going on in the process, and ultimately how they might do it at home. But I can tell you that I probably won’t ever do this myself. Why? Lack of patience, lack of practical experience, a genuine respect for the companies that do it well; any of these reasons is enough to discourage me from trying it. But don’t let that stop you if you’re interested in it.

What I find most interesting about the malting process is that it’s done so well that it’s made techniques like decoction mashing obsolete. Grains are now so well modified that we don’t need to go to the trouble that brewers of the past did to achieve the same results. But let’s get down to brass tacks. What is the malting process?

At its core, malting is a controlled germination of the grain. What this germination does is convert some of the starch contained within each kernel of grain into sugar, but most importantly is the production of enzymes within the infant plant  — or Acrospire — that are then activated during the mashing process. (more…)

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My First — semi-real — Judging Encounter

Thursday, June 11th, 2009

Got out to the Guild picnic last week at Patapsco Valley State Park with time to sit down at the judging table for the wheat beer competition that was held.

While I’m not an examined judge, the event wasn’t sanctioned, and my votes wouldn’t have counted toward an official result, it was good experience for my exam in August.

I got to taste the finalist round of beers, all of which were pretty good.

My scoring was within four or five points of both Les’s scores and Walter Ames’ scores. Both of these guys have taken the exam, and both of them know what a wheat beer should taste like, hopefully this bodes well for my chances on the exam. (more…)

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BJCP 10: Recipe Formulation + Belgian Sours

Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009

My BJCP class met for the last time yesterday, and it was the best class of the whole course.

We began tasting and judging the same beer we sampled the first day of class. To Les’s credit, my ability to describe a beer has improved considerably — with my responses bearing little resemblance to the monosyllabic, one-word, vague descriptors of my first attempt. My ability to make an educated guess as to what kind of beer I’m drinking blindly has gone from extremely basic to pretty accurate. The beer in question was Clipper City’s Winter Storm, which according to Kurt —one of the brewers at Clipper City, and a class member — is stylistically an Extra Special Bitter, which is what I guessed it to be and judged accordingly. Not quite to style considering its higher than normal ABV, but otherwise a pretty good example. We didn’t score the beer.

Next we tried another beer blindly, but were told to judge it as an English Dark Mild. I gave the beer a total score of 36, noting that it should probably could have benefitted from a litle less attenuation, or increased maltodextrine that would provide body, sweetness, and reduced the roast-malt astringency I experienced. The beer turned out to be Les’s Mild brewed at Big Brew about a month ago. He agreed that the beer deserved to be in the upper 30s, but not quite a 40.

All in all, I feel pretty confident that my abilities have improved, and my palate as developed significantly. I still have no problem drinking a Miller Lite, but I have to note that I’m more inclined to drink bottled beer at establishments I don’t know well, or have experienced the effects of dirty taps at. (more…)

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