The Obligatory First Post

I've been meaning to do this for a while, but it's taken me until now to get started.  Lazy? Procrastination?  Busy with kids and family?  Probably guilty on all accounts.  Oh well, better late than never.

Just to get this out of the way, here is a very brief recap of my brewing experience:

-Started brewing in October of 2010
-Got through about a half dozen extract kits before I left the kitchen stove behind for a turkey fryer setup in the garage
-Brewed a few more extract kits before moving to all grain and devising my own recipes
-Transitioned to a single tier 3 burner stand with keggles last summer thanks to some welding help from my dad
-As of this post, I've brewed 107 batches total

Current Brewing Rig

There have been some ups and downs along the way: a few medals won, maybe a batch or 2 dumped down the drain, but overall, brewing has been an amazing experience so far.  Sometimes I still can't believe how interested I am in the hobby, but I think that speaks to how many different aspects of brewing can keep a person intrigued.

​Lately I've just been trying to brew enough to mostly keep the 4 taps on my keg fridge flowing, usually with a mix of lower ABV hoppy beers for me and roasty beers for my wife.  This hasn't led to a lot of wacky or innovative beers, but it has let me begin to get comfortable with my newish rig, brewing with pumps, batch to batch consistency, etc.

The Keg Fridge

I haven't introduced any automation into my brewing yet, I suppose mainly because of cost.  But I think going forward it will be one of those things I look into pretty seriously, if for nothing else than to help me bring some consistency into my brewing.  Not that it's been completely lacking, but I have struggled a little hitting my numbers from time to time.  I try to be diligent about note taking and repeating certain processes the same way each time, hopefully leading to more consistent results.  I think as I continue to get more comfortable with my new setup that consistency will return.

I'll wrap this post up for now, but before I do I'd like to mention a few folks that have inspired to me get started here.  They've also, in one way or another, had a great influence on my brewing.  I really can't say thank you enough for that.

Scott at Bertus Brewery
-I think Scott's blog is one of the first I came across not long after I started brewing, and it really helped me out tremendously with my water chemistry and my hoppy beers.  Reading his posts really changed the way I approached certain aspects of my brewing (hop stands, fining with gelatin, water adjustments).  I always look forward to his posts, he really gets into the technical side which I appreciate.

Lewy Brewing
-My mainstay pale ale is a direct credit to Lewy's 4 Rings Session IPA, I just turned it into an experiment of rotating single hop beers.  But I love the idea of using flaked wheat mashed above 170F to add unfermentable sugars to help the body of the finished beer.  Genius.

Thanks Lewy!

|Brulosophy|
-This is a bit more of a recent influence for me, but that doesn't diminish the impact they've had.  Dispelling myths like the Jamie and Adam of the homebrewing internet blogosphere, Marshall and his crew have done an insane amount of cool work over there.  I love what they're doing with that site, and I'm excited to see what new content they come up with in the future.

Ed at Ales of the Riverwards
-I appreciate his ardent defense of the NEIPA (hazy, juicy IPA, whatever) style.  It's also really cool to see some of the things he's doing with his sours, and I think he's pushed me into trying to at least attempt a kettle sour in the near future.  Thanks Ed!

Michael aka The Mad Fermentationist
-I think his work speaks for itself; if you're not reading him then stop reading this and go immediately to his site!  And yes, I own a copy of American Sour Beers!

​Derek at Bear Flavored
-He's gone pro and written a book, so that's awesome.  Also, he's got so much cool content on his blog you could spend days just reading through all of it.  Fantastic stuff.

Eric at JABlog
-Even though he dives into commercial beer and beer tourism more than homebrewing, I'm still including him here because of his dedication to constantly posting new material.  He's done an incredible amount of brewery reviews in and around the Minneapolis area, the upper Midwest, and frankly the whole U.S., so you should definitely check that out!

I'm sure I'm missing several other great sites, but that list above is at least a start of places I can thank for my continued brewing passion.