News flash for some folks: you can make apple juice from any apple, but you can’t make good hard cider – I mean the fermented stuff – from just anything.  If you buy all your apples at an American grocery store, you’ve probably forgotten what an apple can really taste [...]

Proper yeast nutrition means your brew ferments faster and cleaner, leaving fewer off-flavors that have to age out.  We’ll call that a good thing.  Yeast is a pretty complex little organism, though, with a lot of nutrient requirements that change from life phase to life phase.  So how do we, [...]

I’m getting to brew a recipe from last year’s American Homebrewer Association’s national competiton – the Underwood’s “Blasphemy at GobblersRoost” (you’ll need an AHA login to view their Homebrewopedia); it’s a sack with buckwheat honey, raisins and oak aged with whiskey.  In getting ready, I’ve been mulling over yeast starters and [...]

This is from the class handout for a Brewing 101: Everything You Needed To Know class I taught in Fall 2008. Nota bene: I don’t pasteurize my honey any more; the heat breaks down some of the flavor and aroma compounds.  I use Ken Schramm’s cold method. Mead Mead is [...]