September 15, 2009

Thinking About Elitism

by Josh at 7:43 pm

I came across this article on Linux Magazine today and I was really struck by it.  I’ve been posting the following quote from the article around verious social networking sites today:
How many of you only run Linux and push everyone you meet to do the same? That’s elitism. Elitism causes people to think they’re better [...]

September 14, 2009

Making Beer With Rainwater

by Josh at 4:29 pm

I’ve heard that 5 Seasons Westside is tapping their first keg of “rainwater beer” tomorrow evening.  Rainwater beer is exactly what it sounds like.  Beer made from rainwater collected at the brewery.  The brewery partnered with RainHarvest Systems to set up a system with 6 filters and a UV sterilizers that filters the water down [...]

June 16, 2009

Hop Harvest 2009

by Josh at 7:28 pm

Last year, I harvested my hops in September. That was a little bit late.  They probably should have been harvested mid-August.
This year, I harvested my hops about an hour ago.  It was almost the perfect time to be harvesting them–a whole two months earlier than last year.  Here’s hoping for a second harvest.

June 15, 2009

Final Gravity Craft Brewers in the News

by Josh at 3:46 pm

The homebrew group of which I am a member got some local press recently in Creative Loafing.  The article covers one of our club meetings and the homebrew exploits of some of our members.

May 27, 2009

Group Brew Video

by Josh at 11:12 am

At our last Final Gravity group brew was recorded by one of the members.  I thought I’d share the video of the group brew with everyone.  I didn’t have any hand in making the video, but I am in the video.

April 22, 2009

On Flocculation

by Josh at 7:26 pm

There’s an article in Technology Review called “Brewing with Synthetic Biology.”  In this case the “brewing” refers to fermenting beer, as the articles mentions making modifications to yeast to control the time of flocculation.  Flocculation is basically the process of yeast clumping together and settling out of beer.  I tweeted about this article a little [...]

September 21, 2008

Mead 2: The Explosion

by Josh at 10:55 am

Yes… It’s a learning experience.

This is yet another reason why you don’t want to overfill your fermenter.  Especially with a fruit mead.  The fruit clogged the blow off tube and…  Well, you see the results.  It will be really interesting to see how this mead turns out.  So far, the key word for this experience [...]

September 20, 2008

Mead

by Josh at 2:59 pm

So, I’ve taken the traditional homebrewer’s path and I’ve decided to try to make some mead in addition to making beer.  I tried this morning to make a one gallon batch of a berry mead recipe that I found in Brew Your Own.  I succeded in making a big mess and, in a couple months, [...]

September 1, 2008

A Knitter’s Guide to Beer

by Josh at 9:19 pm

I had to post a link to this blog, just because I think it’s cool.  It’s a blog dedicated to knitting and homebrewing and the similarities between the two crafts.  From the “About the Author” section of the blog:
“A Knitter’s Guide to Beer” is a book project that will find similarities between the craft of [...]

Harvesting Hops

by Josh at 12:58 pm

Of course, just minutes after that last post, I went out to look at the hops and realized that some of the cones were turning brown and needed harvesting.  I harvested them by lowering the fence sections to the ground and clipping the cones off at that point.  It worked pretty well in that I [...]