Greetings from Western MA

Hi everyone,

I have been a long time lurker on this site, and figured it's time I introduce myself. I live in Agawam, MA and have been brewing extract beers off and on for around 8 years, but up until this year I was only brewing a batch or two a year. This year I stepped up my game and built myself a keggerator and temp controlled fermenter box and so far this year I have brewed 8 batches of beer (7 of which were in the last six months) and 1 batch of hard cider. Currently I have two taps on the keggerator with stout and a nut brown ale in the kegs. Will be expanding to 4 taps in 2012.

I still consider myself a bit of a novice but I am learning so much more as I brew more, learning to be patient with my brews was probably the most beneficial thing. I have picked up a great deal of knowledge from this site, so many experienced brewers on here. I would say I defitely have caught "the bug", I now have a never ending wish list of beers I plan to brew, such a rewarding hobby! On deck this for weekend is NB's Warrior IPA extract kit, after that I have some research to do on an octoberfest lager that I would like to get started on in early 2012. For now it's all extract brews for me due to limited space, but once I move to a bigger place would like to transition to all-grain.

Well, that's all for now, happy brewing! Cheers

Of course your welcome, but looking at your membership date you're not a noob here. I have lurked her too and have recently decided to step it up.

Happy brewing. Cheers!

I feel like everytime I post a welcome to a Mass brewer, ten more show up! Great to see you finally saying hello, good luck

I grew up right across the river from you, in the lovely town of Springfield!

I feel a little silly "welcoming" someone who obviously joined the board several months before I did, but what the heck... Welcome to the madness!

One of my first brews was an Oktoberfest, beginning of this year. We're lucky in New England to have cold enough basements to manage that sort of thing without a whole lot of fancy equipment. That said, I'm guessing I built my fermentation chamber about the same time you were building yours!

Calichusetts said:

I feel like everytime I post a welcome to a Mass brewer, ten more show up! Great to see you finally saying hello, good luck

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Thanks! I see you are from Plymouth? I actually grew up in West Plymouth, went to Mass Maritime Academy in Buzzards Bay, moved to Western MA in 2003.

stratslinger said:

I grew up right across the river from you, in the lovely town of Springfield!

I feel a little silly "welcoming" someone who obviously joined the board several months before I did, but what the heck... Welcome to the madness!

One of my first brews was an Oktoberfest, beginning of this year. We're lucky in New England to have cold enough basements to manage that sort of thing without a whole lot of fancy equipment. That said, I'm guessing I built my fermentation chamber about the same time you were building yours!

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Thanks, yeah I joined a while ago, but just getting around to making myself known now:cross:

I built my chamber this summer so I could continue brewing year round, stays warm in our basement. We actually have a condo with a walkout basement and neighbors on both sides. So it stays fairly warm in the basement, even now, it stays above 70 without the heat on.

Westfield native here, when I first saw you were from Agawam, I actually thought maybe you were my nephew finally taking my advice and signing up here.

Anyhow, welcome, and happy brewing!

Welcome from Ashby....

Greetings from Northampton!

Welcome aboard!

Thanks for all the welcoming wishes everyone

stratslinger said:

I grew up right across the river from you, in the lovely town of Springfield!

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That's a joke, right?

luke2080 said:

That's a joke, right?

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As evidenced by the fact that I'm now a resident of the state of CT, absolutely.

For those not familiar with the area, Springfield is basically the armpit of Western Massachusetts.

Welcome from Feeding Hills. I getting started again and looking foward to sharing info on this site.

North Grafton, MA here. Deaf going try home brew beer for first time soon, now looking for kit to purchase soon.

Howdy from Boston

Greetings from a former 413 resident

Made my first batch on Jan 1st with True Brew all malt brown ale. It is in secondary glass carboy. Ferment is done. Waiting for yeast to settle down before bottle next week. Just bought Strange Brew blueberry ale to start this Saturday.

Whoa there pmzjr69 - slow down!!! Made your first brew 4 days ago, and it's already in secondary? That's super fast - slow down, let the yeast finish their work!

Keep reading up around HBT, and you'll start to find that most of us subscribe to the idea that more time = better beer, and that secondaries are almost completely unnecessary (the real exceptions being when adding fruit or if you've only got a single primary fermenter and need to free it up - but the best answer there is to collect more primary fermenters!). Most of my brews these days sit in the primary for about a month, and then get kegged (or occasionally bottled) from there.

You're still gonna make beer at your pace, but it'll be better if you give the yeast time. They've got a lot more to do than simply turn alcohol into sugar - there's all kinds of clean up they still need to do!

Ok, the guy at LHBS says I could transfer to secondary after airlock bubbles stops, and let it sit there for two weeks.