Doughing In

Well, I have a recently created a model railroad blog, so why not one now about my other main hobby, brewing beer?

I guess next will be birding ... Hey, we're getting pine siskins at the feeder here in Roanoke, Va., and the cedar waxwings are migrating through this week!

Anyway. Beer. I've made it. Lots of it. Almost exclusively ales, since lagers don't turn me on all that much. Not to say that they won't someday. But for now ales are exciting, easy and ready pretty quickly, with the exception of those high-alcohol ones.

There are just tons of homebrewing resources on the Web, among the best of which is John Palmer's How to Brew site, so I won't reinvent the wheel by explaining how to mash, sparge, make manifolds, save yeast, etc. I'll just post pictures of my brew sessions and any random thoughts I want to pass around.

Palmer's site is, in fact, a gold mine. Take some time to read that, and perhaps a copy of Charlie Papazian's "Complete Joy of Home Brewing" for when you are away from the computer, and you will be well on your way to making beer that's better than nearly anything you can buy.

As long as I am putting up links, the Recipator is what I use to create, size and tweak my all-grain recipes. I don't do extract any more. I started out doing several of them in 2004, when I took up the hobby, but quickly moved to the more gadget-intensive and, I believe, flavor-superior all-grain brewing.

Many people sing the praises of ProMash, but the Recipator is free, and I spend enough money on hobbies as it is.

For calculating strike temperature and mash volume, I use the calculators at the Green Bay Rackers site. That's also free ;-)

I am a very short-time member of the Star City Brewers Guild here in Roanoke. These guys make some pretty awesome beers, and have beautiful brewing set-ups! They also put on a lot of events, hold contests, and are great proponents of the hobby.

As a dad of a recent teen and another soon-to-be teen, however, I find my Saturdays to be very important times to be with my family. So that's another reason for this blog. I can't be a hard-core club guy, so this site will hopefully give me an alternate way to connect with other brewers.