Jay's Brewing Blog

Oh how I love to make wine.  I find myself making wine when I get bored making beer.  If I end up getting in a stump on what recipe I should make next, usually I’ll turn my attention to making a batch of country wine. Making wine in general is pretty easy.  In a lot […]

We all brew beer but it’s done in different ways.   I hear a ton of different approaches.  Usually people will fall into one of the following personalities when brewing. My Garage Is A Tool Shop Brewer These homebrewers will make everything themselves.  Name a tool that you need, they have two of them.  Most […]

There is one phrase that is commonly said in homebrewing, “99% of brewing is cleaning, 1% is following directions.” So what is clean? Well there is really 3 levels of cleanliness in my opinion. Taking a quick look at what it takes to clean and sanitize to make sure that you beer turns out the […]

There are a few tips and tricks make you tilt your head and say, “Ah yes, time to share this one and look really smart.”  Well this is one of those. Fairly frequently, I hear about extract brewers getting darker color beers then what was intended.  I still hold the notorious, “tang” flavor as a […]

There is no reason why your beer can’t be clear when you pour it into your glass.  While clarity does not affect the taste of the beer, some homebrewers feel that appearance is half the battle.    Here are a few tricks that will help your beer clear up. Irish Moss This is an adjunct added at […]

Barley Wines are a beer that are often looked over and usually are rarely conquered by homebrewers.  It’s a shame though because they are a great style of beer and one of those that you can make for gifts or a special occasion if you know ahead of time. So really what is a barley wine?  A barley wine […]

Sorry it’s been a while since the last post.   We’ve been working on some  major projects that will be revealed early in 2012, they are time-consuming to say at the least.  Personally, I am very excited and can’t wait to show them but until then we’ll just leave it at that. I came across […]

A lot of times, you need a reference chart in order to help convert from DME, LME, Grain and back.   This makes super fast work of converting LME and DME as well as grains.   Honestly this is one of the better cheat sheets that I’ve seen.  Really does make fast work when your in […]

Most Belgian beers are funky yeast-driven flavorful beers and are perfect for high temperature fermentation (perfect for when you have a fermenter near a heating duct). I have read accounts of brewers in Belgium fermenting their beers at over 80 degrees! Even after they are bottled, these beers may like it hot.  A customer of […]