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 a class handout, and rather chatty.  You’ve been warned. Clarifiers  

This is a couple of years old, and very chatty, but I apparently used it as a class handout some time ago.  I do a number of things differently now, but this might still be useful…it’s copyrighted, folks. Elspeth Payne Class Handout A plug for varietals (different kinds of honey), [...]

N.B. This is not my work, it is a file I have kept for several years.l  do not know to whom to accredit it.  If you recognize it, please send me the details so I can accredit this properly.  Fermentation reaction The fermentation reaction C6H12O6 → 2 C2H5OH + 2 [...]

 This is a basic mead recipe from a class I taught in 2009.  Now, I could not possibly break it down this simply, but thinking like this got me started and served me reasonably well for a lot of years.  Honey: 2.5 – 4 lbs per gallon of water. Water: [...]

Class notes from a class I taught in the Fall of 2008. Beer There are three primary ingredients in a beer:  malted grain, hops, and water.  Yeast is used to ferment the beverage and carbonate it.  Ale (widely used in period) is beer without hops:  malted grain, water, yeast.  You [...]