Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Finding My Way to Brewing (Part Six, final section)
As mentioned earlier I have been Homebrewing for about eleven years. I started out as an extract brewer and after about a dozen batches started grain brewing and using exclusively liquid yeast cultures. As of this writing, I am at batch number 90. So, that’s an average of about eight batches a year. Some years I have done many more than eight and other years I have done none. Often it was my living/working situation that kept me out of it the years I didn’t brew any.
I am still doing five gallon batches but I want to go up to ten gallon batches. Right now, I live in Africa and have not been able to find the right equipment locally and ordering and shipping it here from the states is cost prohibitive, so the ten gal batches will have to wait for awhile. I am patient. I started kegging just this year, for example.
I brew almost exclusively Ales mainly because I haven’t been in one place long enough that I felt comfortable setting up a temperature controlled fridge…but one day, who knows. My forays into lager yeast fermenting is just that, a foray . I occasionally do a CA Common Beer and I have had good results when I have done them. All in all I have been satisfied with the quality and tastes of the beers I have made so far. I have never entered any competitions and have not had that much interaction with other home brewers. So, I really don’t know how it stacks up with others. Most of my feedback comes from friends and family I drink the stuff with. Most of the time, when I match the style with the person, they are very happy. I have to say that I am too.
I have brewed beer in the following locations: West Point, NY, Montgomery Al, Wiesbaden Germany (on two different tours), Port au Prince Haiti and Dakar, Senegal. One could probably surmise that I was in the military accounting for the moving around and the locations. This is true but now I am retired and I am with another part of the government where I move around a lot too.
So, the latest batch is a Weizen. I make a lot of Weizen because my wife likes them. Also, I was stationed in Germany on three different occasions. As such, I have had a lot of the real deal and I like it.
I am still doing five gallon batches but I want to go up to ten gallon batches. Right now, I live in Africa and have not been able to find the right equipment locally and ordering and shipping it here from the states is cost prohibitive, so the ten gal batches will have to wait for awhile. I am patient. I started kegging just this year, for example.
I brew almost exclusively Ales mainly because I haven’t been in one place long enough that I felt comfortable setting up a temperature controlled fridge…but one day, who knows. My forays into lager yeast fermenting is just that, a foray . I occasionally do a CA Common Beer and I have had good results when I have done them. All in all I have been satisfied with the quality and tastes of the beers I have made so far. I have never entered any competitions and have not had that much interaction with other home brewers. So, I really don’t know how it stacks up with others. Most of my feedback comes from friends and family I drink the stuff with. Most of the time, when I match the style with the person, they are very happy. I have to say that I am too.
I have brewed beer in the following locations: West Point, NY, Montgomery Al, Wiesbaden Germany (on two different tours), Port au Prince Haiti and Dakar, Senegal. One could probably surmise that I was in the military accounting for the moving around and the locations. This is true but now I am retired and I am with another part of the government where I move around a lot too.
So, the latest batch is a Weizen. I make a lot of Weizen because my wife likes them. Also, I was stationed in Germany on three different occasions. As such, I have had a lot of the real deal and I like it.
# posted by CrankyFrankie @ 10:58 AM 
