418Brewing
Well-Known Member
Typically I skip the introduction thing on a forum, especially where it's strongly encouraged or "required". For some reason, however, I feel like participating in it here.
My home brewing started the way most Americans get into it, I suppose, with a search for a favorite brew. I am especially lucky to be married to a woman that values a good brew at least as much as I do. What's better, we have very similar taste in beer (and wine, and most other things) with the notable exception of her interest in pumpkin flavored beers (or most anything else pumpkin flavored.)
But I digress. In our search for the ideal beer(s) we came across several that we like a lot, but with the exception of our house standard Warsteiner Dunkel, most of our favorite beers come from the "you want how much per bottle?!?" side of the price range. So I planted the idea that we could probably make a good beer for less money ourselves, and my wife gradually warmed up to it.
We started in the usual way: an inexpensive starter kit and an extract kit (Munton's Bock). We've done that a couple times, expanding our tool kit and tinkering with the recipe. I believe we've nearly "perfected" a base recipe that is to our taste, but there are at least half a dozen more variations to test. Hard work, this brewing. Hard, tasty, delicious work.
Tomorrow we're bottling what looks to be an excellent Dark Maple Ale we brewed from a partial-grain kit purchased from Midwest Supply, and we'll be starting a Bavarian Dopplebock from them. Probably a Tempranillo wine the next day.
Eventually we'll be getting a BC and going into all-grain, and I'm kicking around the idea of a small-time yeast bank, but that's a much lower priority and interests me primarily from a geek/scientist standpoint. Before either of those I need to get a better control over fermentation temps, and that'll involve a temperature control and a fridge/freezer of some kind.
That's about it for now.
My home brewing started the way most Americans get into it, I suppose, with a search for a favorite brew. I am especially lucky to be married to a woman that values a good brew at least as much as I do. What's better, we have very similar taste in beer (and wine, and most other things) with the notable exception of her interest in pumpkin flavored beers (or most anything else pumpkin flavored.)
But I digress. In our search for the ideal beer(s) we came across several that we like a lot, but with the exception of our house standard Warsteiner Dunkel, most of our favorite beers come from the "you want how much per bottle?!?" side of the price range. So I planted the idea that we could probably make a good beer for less money ourselves, and my wife gradually warmed up to it.
We started in the usual way: an inexpensive starter kit and an extract kit (Munton's Bock). We've done that a couple times, expanding our tool kit and tinkering with the recipe. I believe we've nearly "perfected" a base recipe that is to our taste, but there are at least half a dozen more variations to test. Hard work, this brewing. Hard, tasty, delicious work.
Tomorrow we're bottling what looks to be an excellent Dark Maple Ale we brewed from a partial-grain kit purchased from Midwest Supply, and we'll be starting a Bavarian Dopplebock from them. Probably a Tempranillo wine the next day.
Eventually we'll be getting a BC and going into all-grain, and I'm kicking around the idea of a small-time yeast bank, but that's a much lower priority and interests me primarily from a geek/scientist standpoint. Before either of those I need to get a better control over fermentation temps, and that'll involve a temperature control and a fridge/freezer of some kind.
That's about it for now.
