This weekend is going to be great! We are gathering at Durango Brew Supply as it is the AHA Big Brew location for this years national homebrew day! People will be bringing there brewing equipment and we will be keeping track of how many brewers and gallons of wort we make to report to the AHA!  We hope to have a HUGE turnout as it will also be a Cinco De Mayo bash with a grill out! BYOHB and BYOM (bring your own home brew/meat, but we will have some stuff while supplies last) .  Anyway, this is the first time anyone has done this in Durango, CO and we are very excited to see how many homebrewers we can manage to bring out of the woodwork!  Come on down if you are in the 4-corners area and enjoy the company of fellow homebrewers!

Cheers All!!

-N

This DIY Guy has a great video tutorial on how to build an inexpensive temp controller.  The video is below, enjoy.

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So as you all probably know, it is hot in Australia, and now that I am living here in need to keep my fermentation temps down. Using an old fridge or chest freezer with a temp control on it seems like the best bet. But if I am feeling a little brew crazy and want more than just a few fermentors going at once, I need to think big potatoes. Here is a site with a few people who did just that, use it as a reference, ideas come from all over the place, all you need to do is make them real.

http://www.wortomatic.com/

-Cheers

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vimeo DirektBrewing TV - Dice Hopped

I came across this Brewing TV episode the other day (vid above) and I found it to be a really good idea to help you learn SO much about different malt bills and hop additions.  Basically, these guys brew the same style of beer, but when it comes to 2 specialty grains and  hopping the beers, they have a “liberty” to adjust the recipe as they see fit.  They must choose 2 specialty grains, one of which is your own choice and the other is that of your spouse or girlfriend.  To make it even more interesting, they have a ton of hops in  1oz increments spread into a bunch of cups.  What each brewer does is roll a pair of dice to determine at which point they add the hops and how many ounces.  They grab the cups at random (which are labeled on the bottom) and document what kind and when they are adding the hops.  In the end, they come out with 2 totally different brews, and can look back at the recipes to see how each was influenced by the different ingredients.

I would really like to do a brew day like this but change it up a bit.  I would have a list of ingredients that you must use and some that are optional, and you as the brewer get to decide how much of each ingredient to use in order to produce a preset style.  I think this would be an awesome way to have fun brewing with a friend and get to know the ingredients better.

Go challenge your brew buddies!

Cheers,

Nick