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A silly idea occurred to me not long ago - how much crystal malt can I put into a beer? Today's post is about taking a good thing to silly extremes. This is the first in what I hope will be a fun little series of posts where I push the limits of various aspects of brewing.

If you still haven't entered, this is your absolute last chance for a shot a nearly eight thousand dollars worth of prizes in this year's BrewUnited Challenge. Headline prizes are a 7 gallon Chronical Fermentor from SS Brew Tech and a loaded 10 gallon Spike Brewing kettle from HomeBrewSupply...

After receiving our shipment from the AHA (our latest sponsor, and one of the biggest in terms of dollar value), the 2016 BrewUnited Challenge is up to a mind boggling almost $8000 worth of prizes! However, the hard entry deadline is upon us, and the remaining spots are limited (in some...

As of today, the SMaSH category is completely full for the 2016 BrewUnited Challenge. I will be setting up a wait list for those who would still like to enter it; last year, we had several cancellations, so if you missed the initial entry period, all is not yet lost. Our American beers...

The 2016 BrewUnited Challenge is now about 70% full. We are down to only one spot left for SMaSH beers, and the American Division isn't far behind that. The prize list continues to get crazier - we're up to nearly $7500 worth of prizes. Beer doesn't have to be to the judges until...

My eighteen year old son just got home from a six week trip to Germany. He brought thoughtful gifts home to everyone in the family, but Dad made out the best of all. He gave me a killer drinking horn with a pewter dragon on it, as well as an absolutely beautiful stein. if you care to see...

Last year's BrewUnited Challenge - with its funky ingredient requirements and awesome prizes - was a huge success. The 2016 incarnation has been open for entries for about ten days now; I've been debating on whether to post about it here at HBT, but decided that it ought to be appropriate to do...

To those who say that liquid yeast more than a few months old is dead, I say "neener neener". I recently spun up some WLP037 that was nearly a year old, and it's doing great. Full post here, with pics and video.

Yesterday, I was at the reddit homebrewing sub, and saw a guy make this long, detailed reply about what you need to get started with kegging. He referenced the fact that it was a long copypasta of his, and it just struck me that it was so good, so thorough, that it needed to be formatted up as...

Hannison Woodworks has done of great job of "giving back" - they are sponsoring the reddit homebrewing competition for the second straight year, and are also sponsoring the BrewUnited Challenge this year. For the BU challenge, they are giving three winners their choice of a custom tap...

Basically, I've decided to put together a couple of competition beers on short notice. I got a very late start, and ended up with a long (very late) brewday. If you care to read, see the pictures... or, perhaps, point and laugh, the full post is here.

Matt Chrispen wrote an excellent, comprehensive article on how to prep for a competition. It is well worth the read.

Everybody knows I have kids (see my username), and I'm often asked questions along the time of "how do you find time to brew"? The tl;dr of this post is simply me talking about how I make it all work. Brewing with Kids.

Just a heads up, folks. A little more than a week into registration, we have more than 200 beers entered, and have room for less than 100 more. If you are interested in entering (you know, you'd like a shot at the nearly $3200 in prizes that we have), please note that while we won't be...

I admit it. I have never cared for BIAB, largely because I must suck at it. I make a mess, I have issues with temp control, and so on. Recently, Rex from The Brew Bag contacted me to become a sponsor for the 2015 BrewUnited Challenge, then talked me into trying one of his cooler bags as a...

Sure, it's nothing revolutionary, but I'm proud of it. This one will calculate your gravity after dilution or boiloff, your gravity after blending beers, or the volume you need to achieve a desired target gravity. Boiloff/Dilution Calculator

Okay, so that's a bit of a teaser title. :) But HomebrewDad.com is down for good - BrewUnited.com has fully taken its place. All of the old links (the various calculators and such) are still up, they simply forward silently to the new domain. I did do a blog post with the rationale...

I am so, so, so stoked about this. We are officially open for registration, folks! If you are interested in a slightly different kind of competition, one that asks you to go above and beyond in less than ideal circumstances to still make great beer... this is the competition for you. And...

The 2015 BrewUnited Challenge opens for entries in two days, and I'm beyond excited. Right now, we have almost $2500 worth of prizes from our sponsors! So, I wanted to show them off. Check out those prizes!

Okay, I admit it - I originally just wanted to share the news of our newest baby's birth, and show off the awesome onesie that my wife got for her. But then I started thinking about a commemorative beer, and before I knew it, I'd come up with a legit beer-related post. So, if you enjoy...