I wrote last year about the importance of setting some goals to keep improving as a brewer.  Since it’s the time of year for this kind of thing – I thought it might be a good idea to recap what went down in the last 12 months and setup some new things to strive for in twenty-ten.

• Mission Impossible from 2009 was to win a medal at the National Homebrewers Competition.  Mission Accomplished.
• That lead to a bunch of other cool opportunities including the trip of a lifetime to Sierra Nevada Beer Camp.
• I managed to eke out a modest 30 batches from the garage brewery in 2009.  Just over one every 2 weeks – not half bad.
• I published 77 posts to this blog – hopefully you found at least 1 or 2 of them helpful!
• I started a Twitter account – which you can follow along here – and finished the year at ~480 followers.
• My picture appeared in Zymurgy twice (Sept/Oct 2009, Jan/Feb 2010) and on the new AHA website (awesome!).
• Gained an immeasurable number of new friends.

All in all not bad, but I think I can do better.  While all very cool – some of the things that happened were a bit of a fluke.

For the new year, I want to focus on things I can actually do – and maybe the rest will work itself out.  With that in mind here’s what I’d like to accomplish this year.

• Publish an article in BYO or Zymurgy.
• Publish at least 50 articles (and coming soon videos!) on this blog.
• Put on some unique beer events to raise money for local charities.  There can’t be enough of this.
• Get to at least Certified rank in the BJCP.
• Send 50 beers to the National Competition.  There’s very little control over the outcome, but I can improve the odds by entering lots of high quality brew.
• Brew 50 batches of beer.  That’s nearly once  a week – and I’m fermentation-space-challenged but practice makes perfect.

What about you?  Do you have any brewing or beer related endeavors you’d like to undertake this year?  Share them with us in the comments.  And if you’d like I’ll check in with you throughout the year to see how it’s going.

It’s audience participation time and the question of the day is this;  Where do you find the inspiration for the recipes you brew?

For me it comes from lots of places.

Classic Styles

I still brew “to style” beers pretty often.  Usually for competition, but sometimes the mood strikes for a particular style.  Then I try to imagine what it’s like drink the beer in its place of origin.

A pub ale for example – makes me think of sitting in an English bar, drinking a few pints fresh off of the cask.  It strikes me that such a beer might be a little malty sweet with low carbonation and just the right serving temperature for a rich creamy mouth feel.  So I try to get all of those little details just right to emulate the experience.

Other times I might drink a particular beer -  fresh Anchor Steam in San Francisco or a certain Belgian beer.  And then decide to brew my own version of them.

Beyond the Basics

But what about beers that don’t really fit into a style or have some exotic ingredient or process?  Like many Dogfish Head beers, or this BrewDog beer (Watch the video – they sent an IPA out to sea for 2 months to emulate the voyage from England to India).

I’m still trying to figure it out myself – but I’m certain that a big part of it is just keeping your eyes open to what’s going on in the world around you.  That and tons of experimentation!

Lots of people are into the local food thing lately.  A trip to the Farmers’ Market could result in some interesting ingredients.  There’s probably a whole series of “Will it Ferment?” beers to be tried.

I’ve also heard 2009 touted as ‘The year of the session beer’.  With lots of banter about lower gravity, full-flavored versions of ‘Extreme’ beers.  I like this idea so I recently started a project of my own to brew some examples.

Your Turn

So that’s what I’ve been thinking lately.  Now let’s all hear your ideas.  Share them up in the comments section and with any luck we’ll all find some new inspiration!

A refractometer can be a great addition to your toolbox, but there are a few quirks to using it.

I recently decided to pick one up from the Northern Brewer table at NHC since they were offering a nice discount.

If you’re not familiar with the refractometer, it’s basically a device that measures the degree to which light bends passing through a liquid.  Refractivity is the same principle that makes a stick appear bent when you put it into water.  And in our case we’re measuring the refractivity (that’s a word, right?) of sugar solution, or wort.

This is what you see in the viewfinder. The line that seperates white/blue is the Brix reading.

Using the device is pretty easy.  The sample goes on the prism at one end and you look through the viewfinder on the other end to read the scale. Since the sample size is only a few drops, this is much easier and faster than having to collect and cool a whole hydrometer jar worth of wort/beer.  All you need to do is place a few drops on the prism and close the lid.  Make sure there are no air bubbles or dry spots and take a reading.

Homebrewing/Winemaking Refractometers usually measure on the Brix scale. You’ll need to do a conversion to figure out the gravity points, but it’s roughly SG = Brix x 4.  So 10 Brix is about 1.040 SG.  If you use Beersmith (some other programs might have this feature as well), you can do a calibration against wort measured with a hydrometer to get a more precise conversion, but the 4x number should get you within a point or 2.

Of course the first thing I did upon arriving home was run out to the garage and grab a sample of wort out of a carboy to try out my new toy.  And the readings didn’t make any sense.

The conversion factor only applies to unfermented wort, sugar in water solution.  Once alcohol is present you need a much more complicated formula to convert Brix to SG.  This is because alcohol has a different specific gravity than water.

Fortunately there are a couple of easy options.  MoreBeer has a great spreadsheet, and of course Beersmith will do the calculation as well.  In both cases you’ll need to know the original starting gravity of the wort, but that shouldn’t be a problem because you wrote it down, right?

We’ve jumped ahead a bit, but you’ll also want to calibrate your refractometer.  Just like with a hydrometer, you’ll need some distilled water at 60ºF (or whatever the calibration temperature of your refractometer).  It should read 0 Brix.  If it doesn’t, adjust the calibration knob or make a note of the difference.

It’s also worth noting that some models feature Automatic Temperature Correction (ATC), but it usually has a finite range – not anywhere between boiling and freezing.  Check the manual for the specifics on your model.

I’m still trying to get the hang of using it, but overall it’s a welcome addition.  If only for the fact that I don’t have to throw away a whole hydrometer jar of beer to check the gravity during fermentation.  Being able to take more gravity readings pre-boil and during the boil will help to make sure I hit those starting gravity numbers as well.

I’ll probably keep doing hydrometer readings just as a sanity check for now.  But once I get my revised sample taking technique down (I’m good at making a mess), then the hydrometer will probably go n the shelf for good.

Randall. Doin' his thing...

By far the most viewed article on this site is Build Your Own Beer Filter/Randall.  But I never got around to finishing it.  Until now.

Its just a household water filter with some fittings to make it connect to a keg on one end and a faucet on the other.

In this case, a cobra/picnic faucet, but you could also attach it to the tailpiece on a regular kegerator faucet.

Randall’s Parts:

There’s a full list of parts on the previous post.

Just find a suitably sized water filter (this one is 10″) and a pair of bungs to adapt the water filter inlet/outlet – probably 3/4″ – to 1/4″ threaded fittings.

The rest of the parts should be at your homebrew store:

- 2x 1/4″ male threaded to barbed fittings

- 10′ of 3/16″ Beer line (5′ on each side)

- 4 hose clamps

- 1 faucet, you pick the style

- 1 liquid keg quick disconnect.

If we were building a time machine this would be the flux-capacitor!

The only piece you’ll need to “make” is the center “filter” that holds back the hops while allowing the beer to flow through.  The one I made is a piece of stainless steel tube cut to the same dimensions as the filter media that goes inside the housing.  Then I drilled a few holes around the bottom to let the beer pass.

The hops will float to the top of the housing – leaving about 2 inches of beer at the bottom – so you only need holes at the bottom of the tube.

There are probably a few different ways to make this piece, maybe one that doesn’t require any tools, but this way seemed most obvious to me.  You could probably improvise something with some stainless steel screen, or silicon tubing – but it would need to be reinforced so it doesn’t collapse under pressure.

When its magic time:

- Open the filter housing and insert the center tube.

- Add about 2 oz. of whole leaf hops around the outside of the tube.  Don’t let any fall into the center or it will clog.

- Put the lid on – don’t forget the o-ring.  If its not well sealed it makes a giant mess.

- Attach the side labelled “In” to the keg and “Out” to the faucet.

- Open the faucet and the housing wil fill with beery goodness.  Dispense.

- Drink!

More Tips:

- Its going to foam.  Try lowering the serving pressure a bit.  And try to keep everything cold if you’re not pouring the beer very fast.

- If you need to open the housing, or when you’re done serving.  Vent the pressure from the keg, not the Randall.  The excess beer will run back into the keg and then you can open the Randall without toom much spillage.

So what’s the effect like?  Awesome.  A face full of hops in your glass – huge aroma and added flavor.  Creamy, foamy head too!

So if you’ve stumbled across this site and decided “Hey, this home brewing stuff looks pretty cool” then in addition to the fine articles here, you might want to check out some other popular sources of beer-making-knowledge.

This is by no means a comprehensive list – just the ones I use to get my learn on every day.  If you have a favorite that’s not included, share it in the comments below.

Internet Radio/Video/Podcasts

The ones I listen to the most are from The Brewing Network and Basic Brewing.

The Brewing Network has 3 different shows;

The Sunday Session, which has a morning radio show format and generally features reader mail, event coverage and guest interviews (frequently professional brewers).

The Jamil Show (now “Can You Brew It?”), which covers a different beer style in each episode (and now that they’ve run out of unique styles, a clone of a different commercial brew).

BrewStrong, which tackles the technical details of home brewing topics.

If you don’t mind a little adult humor, all 3 shows are quite good.

Basic Brewing consists of 2 shows; an audio podcast and a video podcast.

The audio and video versions cover different topics – but usually feature interviews, stories and advice on home brewing.

Both The Brewing Network and Basic Brewing offer very high production quality and cater to all skill levels.  They also have several years worth of archives – so there’s no shortage of thing to learn from either of them.

Internet Forums/Mailing Lists

These sites are particularly nice for asking questions.  You can post a message and usually get a response in short order.  Plus they feature searchable archives where you can find lots of answers.  In no particular order:

HomeBrewTalk.com

Northern Brewer Forums

MoreBeer Forums

The BrewBoard

Occasionally the Burgundian Babble Belt

If you join the American Homebrewers Association you can get the daily AHA Tech-Talk e-Mail as well.

I don’t really actively read it, but the HBD board is probably also worth a mention.  The design is quite old, but it has several years worth of archives.

Blogs

You would think that in writing a home brewing blog that I would also read a large number of home brewing blogs.   Oh well.  If you have a good one let us know in the comments!

The Mad Fermentationist – Michael brews lots of crazy beers that frequently defy style.

Fermentarium – Deege writes about all things home brewing, wine making and general beer geekery.

Beersmith Blog – Brad is the creator of Beersmith brewing software and also writes this blog about brewing techniques and styles.

Brewpoll – Kind of like a Digg for beer.  User-submitted links with popularity ranking.  Not strictly homebrewing, but a decent amount of it is.

Books

Ok, so technically these aren’t websites, but they are still nice to have on hand.

Brewing Classic Styles – Over 80 recipes for almost any style you can imagine.  Excellent starting point if you’re brewing a style for the first time.

How to Brew – Great information for the novice as well as experienced brewers.  You can check out the first edition for free over on HowToBrew.com

Brew Like a Monk – Must have if you want to brew Belgian Abbey/Trappist beers.

Designing Great Beers and New Lager Brewing are also good, but might be a little too technical if you’re just getting started.

Any Others?

I’m sure there are more out there, but these are the ones I’ve found most helpful.  Do you have another favorite?  Post it up in the comments so we can all check it out.