We just got exciting news - apparently the books are roughly a week from the warehouse. Meanwhile, Denny and I both have received our author copies and samples have been whizzing all around the country - which is kinda awesome and allows me to take a shot in my dining room like this:

Very exciting stuff! It's the culmination of a little over 18 months of work. When first approached by the publisher in March 2013, I was deep in the depths of finishing the Everything Hard Cider Book. I knew I had about a month more work on the book. (and a publisher very, very eager to get me in somewhat close to deadline. Don't they always?) so I couldn't engage immediately. Fortunately, I knew someone who could and who wanted to work collaboratively. That would be the world "Beer Famous" Denny Conn.

Through the whole process we had to start from the premise of the title - "Experimental Homebrewing" and decide what that meant. Was it trying to out radical Radical Brewing as our publishers originally envisioned the book? Quickly, we decided that's a foolish concept - you can't out "Randy" Randy. Instead we settled on not only showing you how we brew, but how to discover what works best for you and how to give that information back to the community. Our single sentence pitch for the book after much cajoling is "Mr. Wizard meets Click n Clack down at the pub for a couple of pints".

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In the search for what we wanted to do, we eventually went through three editors, including Thom, our last acquisitions editor and fellow homebrewer, who kept kicking our cans as we missed a few deadlines. He challenged us constantly to push what we were tackling. Thanks Thom! (An acquisitions editor is responsible for shepherding a title from birth to print. It's a tough job as they literally are the champions of the book and the best of them help shape the project. When you see the book and how gorgeous it is, please give the hat tip for that to the editing and publishing staff at Voyageur Press as we're both all thumbs at design.

If you've been listening to Denny and I talk about the book, you may remember - we submitted the final draft way the way back in March - 7 months ago. (See here) So what the hell took so long? Basically, there 's a lot of work that most folks never see. Scottish publisher, Floris Books, put together a little infographic to show all the stuff that happens. Back in March we hit that "Author rewrites" stage. Everything else? Well, that's been the last seven months!

All of this is to say - watch out boys and girls - Experimental Homebrewing is ending it's long journey next week as it arrives in our publisher's warehouse and should be available everywhere fine books are sold (see above) on November 1st!

Well, after living with the first 2 versions of the American Mild for a few weeks now, I have some thoughts and ideas about the direction of this project.....

I ended up dry hopping the second batch in order to try to give it more flavor. The taste of both batches is pretty good, but as I feared, they're both pretty thin. My wife refers to them as "water beer" because of the mouthfeel and the fact that the flavor is pretty watered down. So I think that instead of the incremental changes I was gonna make, it's time for a rethink and change of direction. I've considered the fact that maybe I need to bump the OG up to 1.045 so I can get more ingredients in there, but I'm going to try a different grist bill first. With that in mind, here's where I think the next batch is heading....

4 lb. Great Western Munich 10L
2 lb. Rahr pale malt
1 lb. C60
1 lb. carapils

I may chicken out on that much carapils and dial it back to 1/2 lb., but the beer sorely needs something to give it some body and mouthfeel. In addition, I came to the conclusion that I really didn't care for the Special Roast being the primary carrier of flavor. It seemed a bit harsh, so I decided to just remove it completely in this version. I'll keep the BU:GU ratio about 1:1 or a bit less with most of the hop additions in the last 10 min. or so, and likely will dry hop it again. I'm really liking the no sparge technique for this, so I'll keep that. I bumped the mash temp up to 165 for the last batch, so I don't have a lot of room to play with there. An interesting discovery from doing that is that the change from a 153 mash temp to 165 really didn't change the body or sweetness much, if any. It certainly didn't change the fermentability. Both batches started and finished at the same gravity. That's contrary to the conventional wisdom about mash temps, but in line with research presented by Greg Doss of Wyeast at the 2012 NHC in Seattle. So I think I'll stick with the 165 mash temp, since I seldom mash that high and this is a good chance to collect some data about it.

I had expected this project to be a challenge, and I'm certainly getting that. The flavor of the first two batches is actually pretty good...there just isn't a lot of it there. I'm hoping I don't hit a brick wall on this, but only more experiments will tell!

Drew and Denny talk to Brad Smith of Beersmith...

Our good friend Chip Walton of Chop & Brew filmed an interview with us back in June at the 2014 AHA National Homebrewers' Convention in Grand Rapids, MI. Maybe you should take a gander and enjoy the back and forth silliness of us.

TLDR - Read this about some meadmaking adventures I've had Anniversary Meads - A Tale of Honey and Fun!

One of the things I have no clue how it happened - how did brewers decide to incorporate Mead in their bailiwick? Well, not legally of course. If you want to open a meadery in most states, you need a winery license. A brewery license won't cut it. But, homebrewerly speaking, mead seems to be a well adopted brewer thing. Maybe it's the fact that so much of early homebrewing was about adapting British techniques and styles that we just naturally scooped up British/Celtic mead traditions in the mix and went "eh, why not?" Or maybe it's that once you're used to heating up water and performing fermentation, mead seems too damn easy to ignore.

Regardless, when I can get up the gumption (and money for the honey) to make some mead - I do and I never regret it. What does this have to do with Experimental Homebrewing?

Two things!

1. The use of staggered nutrient feeding vs. no nutrient vs. all the nutrient at once is a great experiment. These days the preponderance of results indicates that staggered feeding works like a charm to make great mead faster
2. The wine world has a base practice of always tasting and adjusting even as you head into the package. I think brewers can learn an awful lot from that.

I just wrote this up for the Maltose Falcons' 40th Anniversary Party where we took 78 pounds of honey and made 25 gallons of mead. Additionally, I made five additional flavor variants using some of the techniques we talk about in the book - so read on up!

More talking about the book! This time, Denny flies solo!

http://klcc.org/post/mad-science-pursuit-great-beer

In the realm of Experimental Brewing, Marshall over at Brulosophy.com has established quite a name for himself in regards to homebrew science experiments. He got his hands on a copy of the book and was kind enough to write up a review for the book. Take a moment and read his review before diving headlong into his ExBEERiments, including his most recent on perception biases that covers a topic that Denny dearly loves and talks about in the book!

And many thanks to Marshall for his kind reivew

The boys (and Beevo) over at the Brewing Network were kind enough to have us on their main show full of jokes, asshattery and beer news you can use.

Denny and Drew talked to Justin and the crew for an hour or so covering a wide array of subject and even got good ole Doc to twitch when Drew slagged on decoction mashing, again! So sit back and give it a listen via your favorite way to play mp3's

No book ever makes it to your library's shelf without an error or two - fortunately in this day and age we can keep track with an Errata page!

So, thanks to Jeff Rankert - we have our first catch - somehow the Queen's Diamonds Barleywine is set to 15 pounds of Maris Otter when it should be 25.

See - here's the proof!

One of the biggest attention getters in the book is that we feature a couple of "Meat" based beer recipes, like Jeremiah Marsden's "Pork Soda" or Charlie Essers'"Bacon Helles" or our own spin on Digby's Cock Ale. The recipes certainly grab your attention and make you cock your head in such a way as to go "huh?" (There's a real reason too.. read to the end of the article)

Why the meat talk? Because thanks to our kooky friends at Dogfish Head - meat beer is back in the news - since apparently they are producing a Scrapple Beer for their Beer for Breakfast.

Scrapple. is a quintessential Pennsylvania Dutch breakfast speciality largely associated with PA and Delaware. Delaware is home to Rapa - the largest producer of Scrapple in the world and Dogfish Head. So naturally, the two should meet up!

To make scrapple, you basically take everything left over from a pig - head, heart, liver, bones, ribs, etc and boil for 3-4 hours until everything falls apart. You remove the bones and fat. Reserve and grind the meat and then boil cornmeal in the remaining broth to make some sort of terrifying polenta/grit mush. You mix in the meat, a whole bunch of savory spices (sage, pepper, etc) and then cook for a while longer until it's super thick. You then put the scrapple into pans and allow to cool and solidify overnight. In the morning, you slice and fry the scrapple and serve with eggs, maple syrup and whatever else you desire. It sounds terrifying, but it's fairly tasty.

Ok, back to the beer - DFH's plan - Make a breakfast stout with Maple Syrup (from the grounds of the high school where Sam met his wife), Applewood smoked barley, lactose, cold pressed coffee and 25 lbs of lean scrapple from Rapa. Since this is a brewpub only special I think it's safe to say - it's a small batch - 5-15 barrels so approximately 0.8-2.6 oz of scrapple per gallon of wort. (Anyone know the size of the DFH brewpub system?)

What do we have then? A smoky milk stout with spices and coffee. Subtract the meat from the equation and I think we can see that the beer itself isn't that unusual. How would I go about making this?

We'll start with one of my favorite stouts - Mac's Gone Oat Malt Stout - an attempt to replicate some of the magic of the old Maclay's Oat Malt Stout. It uses malted oats which you'll find from Thomas Fawcett. To get our smoke, we'll use a little cherrywood smoked malt (from Briess) or if you have the gumption - smoke up your own. (March/April 2010 Zymurgy - "Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em") (AHA Members Only). Lactose, to give the milk. Cooked cornmeal, because that's what's in Scrapple along with pork. And then spices - pepper, sage and bay are the common flavors. Since they're boiled in scrapple, we'll boil them here. The coffee is cold steeped and added at packaging. Also for the maple flavor - since maple syrup goes bye-bye - I'd use a good extract like Olive Nation's Maple Extract - just a touch!

Voila - tasty Scrapple inspired beer - minus the actual pork.

Mac's Scrapple-esque Breakfast Stout

For 5.5 Gallons at 1.057OG, 43 SRM, 28 IBUs, 5.1% ABV
Malt/Grain/Sugar

Mash
Single infusion mash - 153F for 60 minutes
Hops (Pellets)

Extras

Yeast
Wyeast 1318 London III (or your preferred) - ferment in the lower 60's to encourage the spices

When last we left our intrepid homebrew experimenter, he was struggling through forests of formulation in the quest for a new, low alcohol beer style known as the "American Mild". His search seemed never ending and at times fruitless...but he forged on.... (read about the previous batches here: v1, v2 and v3 )

OK, OK, enough of that...here's where things stand on the American Mild project. I've brewed 3 batches of the mild so far. The goal is to come up with a low alcohol, flavorful beer with enough body to make it worth drinking. And I wanted to keep it "American", using all domestic ingredients and a hop centered flavor profile.

The first batch, consisting of mainly domestic pale malt with a lb. each of crystal and Special Roast just had nothing there...my wife called it "water". Ouch.

The second batch replaced a lb. of pale malt with a lb. of domestic Munich. Better, but still extremely light on body and flavor. On the other hand, the hopping was in the ballpark.

For the third test batch, I made some major changes. I used domestic Munich and pale malt in equal amounts and included a lb. each of C60 and carapils. I also decided to use a hop stand after the boil, steeping an ounce each of Amarillo and Simcoe at 170F for 20 min. well, the grist seems to have worked really well. Good flavor and increased body. The hop stand worked almost too well. I got huge hop flavor and aroma and an increased bitterness. They pretty much overwhelmed the beer to the point where you can hardly tell there's malt there unless you search for it! I guess this is kind of a case of "be careful what you ask for".

So, I'm thinking about test batch #4. I think I'll use the grist from #3. The balance of pale and Munich seemed to work well. And if it doesn't, next time all the pale will be replaced with Munich, although I'll kepp the C60 and carapils. I still haven't decided which way to go with the hops. I'll either use the hop schedule from #2, or I'll go totally off the wall and do all the hopping as a whirlpool addition, a la Pelican Kiwanda Cream ale. It will be a few weeks until I have a chance to brew another test batch, so I have some time to cogitate (perfect for a codger like me!).

Now, where did I leave that machete and elephant gun?

You may be aware that one of my favorite beers is a chanterelle mushroom infused wee heavy that I call "Wee Shroomy" (recipe in Experimental Homebrewing"). I'm extremely luck y to line in the Pacific Northwest for a number of reasons, but one of the biggies is the surfeit of wild mushrooms we have here. During mushroom season, I can walk out of my back door and usually find the several pounds of mushrooms I need to make a batch of it.

Special Mushrooms for Beer

Well, I also have some great neighbors who are mushroom hunters, too. Last Sunday, my neighbor Gary dropped off a bag with 3 1/2 lb. of matsutake mushrooms in it! I don't even want to think about how much those would cost if I had to buy them!

After some thinking and consultation with Drew, I've decided to brew a Belgian Golden Strong Ale with them. I'll be sticking to the classic Duvel recipe of pils malt and sugar and using WY1388 fermented at about 58 in order to keep esters and phenols to a minimum. I want a bit of those, but I want to be sure to not cover up the delicate spiciness of the shrooms.

I'll do my usual processing of the shrooms to get them ready for the beer, although they're sturdy enough I'll be able to do a bit more cleaning with them than I can with chanterelles. Then I'll chop them, vacuum pack them and freeze them. (Notice I never mentioned sanitizing.) After the beer is fermenteed out, I'll thatw them out and add both the shrooms and all the liquid in the bag to a secondary fermenter and rack the beer on to them. A week or two on the shrooms should do it. I'll taste as it sits (tough, but it's gotta be done ;) ) to determine how long to let them sit.

If I end up anywhere near the beer I have in mind, it'll be incredible!

FOLLOW UP:

First steps in the Golden Shroomy....a Belgian Golden Strong ale with matsutake mushrooms! A neighbor brought by 3+ lb. of matsus he'd found. I chopped them up and vacuum sealed them. They'll go into the freezer for a few weeks until the beer gets brewed and is ready to have them added. When I thaw them put I'll add both the shrooms and all the liquid they've exuded. I can almost taste it now!

This is research, y'all!
I'm trying to lay out some of the differing personality aspects that make up the homebrewing world. Here's what I've got so far:

• Those who brew using traditional processes because it's what's right to do
• Those whose favorite aspect is messing around with equipment
• The process geeks who get deep into understand the effect of a millimeter difference in mill gap setting
• The crazies who think - you know what sounds good - a saison that tastes like guacamole
• The bug hunters to whom Sacchramoyces is so last century
• The guys who will ferment anything and we mean anything.
• The folks who've specialized in doing the small things because renting a bigger apartment requires a promotion and an inheritance.

Who else do you think exists?

From the Guardian - more proof that wine tasting is bunk:

To summarize - small winery owner with a background in science began running a series of wine tasting experiments with the California Wine competition. The same wine presented in a flight would be scored very differently by most judges within minutes. It also summarises a few of the same studies that Denny talks about in the book. Even judges who were consistent varied from year to year. (e.g. a super consistent judge one year might be super variable in follow up years)

But.. before you get to feeling all high and mighty - don't think that beer judges don't fall prey to the same type of follibles. The problem lays with the susceptibility of human perception. Beer is extraordinarily complex with plenty of pitfalls for our palates to trip up on!

Well, with the year end madness over and the new year's madness not quite in full gear yet, it seems like a good time to share what I've been up to in the homebrewing world....

The American mild project is dead in the water at the moment. But that doesn't mean it's dead. The three test batches I've brewed so far haven't been stellar, but none of the totally sucked and they've given me some signs of where to take things. I'm looking forward to doing more experimenting with the recipe, but for now it will take a back seat to a couple other experiments. Not to mention brewing some beer I know and love in order to keep the beer fridge full!

Yesterday, the matsutake mushrooms went into the BGSA I brewed a few weeks back. Usually when I do an experimental beer like this I have at least some idea of what the finished product will be like. This one is likely to be a total surprise. The one light in the darkness is that when I added the mushrooms, the aromas of the beer and the mushrooms seemed complementary. Let's hope the flavors are, too! If you look closely at the pic below, you can see some of the shrooms floating in the beer.

My friend Mitch Scheele, who writes the homebrewing column for the Northwest Brewing News, contacted me about doing an evaluation of the effects of different sugars on beer flavor. Next Tues., we'll be brewing up 10 gal. of a pretty standard wort (pale malt with a touch of C60). At the end of the boil, we'll split it into 4 different fermenters and add different sugars to each. We'll be using honey, molasses, D-45 (from candisyrup.com) and muscovado sugar. When fermentation is done, we'll try to guess which is which in a blind tasting. But the main objective is simply to evaluate what each tastes like, not so much to decide which is "better". In a couple months we'll do another round with another batch of sugars.

In the world of "normal" brewing, tomorrow I'll be whipping up a batch of my Milo's Alt recipe (named for a dear departed cat) and after that a batch of Dean Larson's classic "Christmas Tree Ale" version of Sierra Nevada's Celebration.

So, let's hear about what you're brewing in the new year!

Feds seize $2 million of illegal Chinese honey - (source: Modern Farmer)

Seems that the Feds are still on the trail of a metric crapton of illegal honey flowing into the country. See way back in 2001 the Chinese decided to start flooding the American market with cheap honey. The undercutting of American honey growers would lead to a real crisis in the States. Not only would we lose a domestic agricultural product, but we'd also lose a main source of income for the bee keepers who help pollinate an amazingly large percentage of American crops. It's estimated that at some point most of the major American bee colonies end up in California to pollinate the majority (80%ish) of the world's almonds! What's the government to do? Slap a tariff on the Chinese imports to pull the price back up and over American honey. We do this all over the place sometimes good and sometimes bad (looking at you Big Sugar in Florida)

Then of course there's the other reason - Chinese food controls are terrible. Remember the dog food scares? The poisoned milk, etc. We know already that Chinese honey production uses antibiotics we don't approve for consumption. There have been batches from both China and India with heavy metals found in them. Most nefariously is the proliferation of "honey sauces" (aka a blend of honey and high fructose corn syrup) sold as honey.

So why am I, a brewer, rambling on about agricultural stuff? Because it's not just honey that this sort of stuff is going to happen with. China is a huge beer market with a growing barley industry - how long before we start seeing Chinese barley? I cannot stress the importance of knowing the origin of your ingredients and buying from reputable sources.

When I started homebrewing, the friend who introduced me to it said that 90% of homebrewing is cleaning. Now, I've never tried to measure the exact percentage, but I do know that if you don't do the work, the results will show up in your beer. Like most homebrewers, I'm cheap so for years I've used Oxiclean Versatile (without the TSP sub that many think is necessary) to do my cleaning. Once in a while I'd pick up some PBW which seemed to work even better, but the cost kept me from using it as often as I would have liked. I was recently sent some samples of cleaning products from Craftmeister, a division of the company that makes BTF iodophor. I received Powdered Oxygen Wash, Powdered Alkaline Wash, and Keg and Carboy Cleaning Tablets. It just so happened that I had some kegs and bucket fermenters that needed to be cleaned so I couldn't resist filling the stuff with hot water and tossing in some tablets (1 per 3 gal. recommended dosage). I mean. how much easier could it be? Wanting to see just how they worked, I didn't even bother agitating the tablets in the water after adding them. When I went back a few hours later, not only had they completely dissolved but the fermenters and kegs were squeaky clean. Even better, they rinsed so easily that I couldn't believe it! Compared to Oxiclean, or even PBW, the rinsing happened quickly and completely. I went on to try both the oxygen and alkaline washes with similar results. The bottom line? Craftmeister is now my cleaner of choice! Sure, it costs more than Oxiclean, but it's cheaper than PBW and more effective and easier to use than either. Between the fast and easy dissolving and rinsing and the amazingly effective cleaning power, it's worth every cent of what it costs. Try it!

I've been homebrewing for 17 years and in that time have brewed about 475 batches of beer. Nearly every one of those batches has been on my "Cheap'n'Easy" cooler mash tun system, as I chanted the mantra "The brewer makes the beer, the equipment doesn't". While I still love my cooler system, I may have to rethink that mantra.

The good folks at Picobrew (www.picobrew.com) sent me a Zymatic system to try out and I have really changed my opinion about the role of your brewing gear. Sure, "Cheap'n'Easy" still works great, but the Zymatic represents something stunning both in functionality and design. It's been referred to as the "Keurig of Homebrewing" and while it's not exactly that, it is a new, different, exciting way to make beer at home.

The Zymatic is a gleaming stainless box approximately 20.5"x14.5"x17" in size. There's an opening in the front where you insert what they refer to as the "step filter". The step filter is a plexiglass box with screens above and below where you place up to 9 lb. of grain. At the back of the step filter are 4 containers for hops or adjuncts. Each container can hold up to an ounce of whole hops. It can also use pellet hops if that's your preference. On the right side of the Zymatic are 2 connections for tubing that terminates in ball lock connections. One piece of tubing has an inline filter to make sure pieces of grain don;t get through and clog things. The other has a sample port so you can take gravity samples. On the top front of the unit are the power switch, an OLED display, and a know for selecting the recipe or cleaning mode you want to use. The heavy duty power cord is on the back and thoughtfully terminates in ground fault protector..in my opinion, a must when using electricity and water! It's an indication of the attention to detail that's found in every piece of the equipment that's included. Also on the back are connections for ethernet and USB. It sells for $1999.

What you don't see inside that built-like-a-Ferrari stainless steel box is what makes the Zymatic so unique and the design so mind boggling. Aside from the electronics, there's a heating element, a pump, and a rotating arm to deliver water or wort to the proper place at the proper time. To begin, the arm is positioned above the grain. The Zymatic pumps water from the keg and recirculates it through the heating element. You can watch the graph of this process in your PIcobrew account. When the water temperature hits the correct temp for your pre programmed mash temperature, it begins pumping it into the grain chamber. The best way to conceptualize what's going on here is to think if the Zymatic as a no sparge RIMS system. The water/wort continuously recirculates all through the mash. It found it right on the money at hitting and holding my temperature.

You use Picobrew's online recipe crafter software to create your own recipe, choosing from built in lists of grains and hops. You can also use recipes from the Picobrew community library. The recipe crafter software allows for additions of various adjuncts and water treatments. Once your recipe is built, you save it to your library of recipes. There are 2 mash schedules built into the Zymatic, a single infusion schedule and a multistep "high efficiency" schedule. You set the mash temperatures in the recipe crafter, but you can use an advanced mode to really dial in your mash times and temperatures. In the recipe crafter software you specify the time for each hop addition.

One thing that isn't obvious from the Picobrew website that you must have an internet connection to use the Zymatic. When you turn it on, it first connects to your home network either via ethernet or WiFi. It then logs into your account at Picobrew.com. The recipes in your account show up in the display on the Zymatic and you turn and press the knob to select the one you want to brew. The average recipe is for 2.5 finished gallons of beer, although you can make larger batches by brewing a higher gravity beer and diluting it. To get started, you fill a ball lock corny with the amount of water specified in the recipe, hook it up, and select the recipe you want to brew. You load your grains (up to 9 lb.) and hops into step filter and place that into the opening in the front of the Zymatic. You then tell the Zymatic to start your brew session. And that's pretty much it until you end up with a keg of wort ready for chilling! All the time the Zymatic is working, your account at Picobrew.com will show you a graph of times and temperatures so you can track your progress. And as I found out, it's also useful for analysis by Picobrew staff if things don't go as planned. I also found that if your internet connections drops out, the Zymatic will try to reconnect to the website. Failing that, it will just proceed with your brew, but without the real time logging.

The Zymatic does not have a chiller built into it. I say that not becasue I expect it to, but because I've been asked so often! I've been chilling by putting the corny into a tub of ice water. With water and ice changes and swirling of the keg it takes about 30-40 min. to get down to the pitching temperature you specified in your recipe. Keep in ind that as the chilling is happening, the pump in the Zymatic is recirculating your wort the entire time. That speeds the chilling. Judging by the amount of foam I saw in the keg during this phase it also appears to aerate the wort. For faster chilling you can put a plate or counterflow chiller inline between the Zymatic and the corny.

Cleaning is the part of the brewing process that every homebrewer dreads and the Zymatic makes it about as easy as it makes everything else. when you're done brewing, you dump out the grain and hops and replace the step filter into the unit. You then run the built in rinse cycle. There's also a cleaning cycle Picobrew advises you to run after every 5 brews, using cleaning products they provide. Then the step filter, screens, and hop containers go into the dishwasher! I love it!

OK, so here's the bottom line....the Zymatic is an incredible piece of technology that makes homebrewing simple, easy and fun. Homebrewing is a hobby and to my mind these are three things that should always be foremost. It's also a great thing for people like me who need to crank out a bunch of batches to experiment with different ingredients, for brewers or breweries looking to prototype recipes, for people who brew indoor with limited space, or for people who have physical conditions that may otherwise keep them from brewing. Is it something that every homebrewer will use? No, not likely. Besides the price, there are a lot of homebrewers who prefer a more hands on approach or who want to brew bigger batches. I know that when I first saw it my immediate impression was "DO NOT WANT!". Then I learned that Annie Johnson, the AHA 2013 Homebrewer of the Year and Pilsner Urquell Master Homebrewer was involved with the company as their Master Brewer. That told me I needed to rethink my position and I'm glad I did. Also in the plus column is the great customer service and support I've received from Picobrew.

Is the Zymatic perfect? Not yet...there are things that I found have room for improvement, most of them minor. First, there needs to be more information in the owner's manual and it needs to be readily available online for people thinking of purchasing. I'm told that a new manual is on the way soon, though. Nowhere do they tell you that internet access is required. That would be great to know for people looking to purchase. The database of ingredients is limited and it would be great to be able to add to it. I'm told that's in the works. It would be helpful if the hoses to connect your corny were a bit longer or if Picobrew sold extensions for them. Right now the length of the hoses limits how you can position the Zymatic.

The biggest improvement I'd like to see is the ability to operate in an "offline" mode, so you don't have to have an internet connection when you brew. What I envision is creating or downloading a recipe to a local laptop, tablet or phone. That device would connect to the Zymatic through WiFi, ethernet, or USB to transfer the recipe to the Zymatic and provide the logging functions locally, rather than over the internet. After the brewing session, all the info on the local machine could be transferred to your Picobrew account at a convenient time. I hope this is something Picobrew will seriously consider, as it would make the Zymatic even easier to use.

Is the Zymatic the future of homebrewing? Maybe not, but it is _A_ future and it's looking like a darn good future!

Denny's been making the rounds to a bunch of events here on the West Coast. (He has the great advantage of being retired which grants extra flexibility in terms of availability) But we're about to hit the silly season of summer with two great conferences where we'll be speaking together on our "grumpy old men" tour.

2nd Congress of Homebrewers in Florianopolis, SC Brazil - May 1st-May 2nd
Denny, Drew, Scott Bickham (BJCP) and Michael Tonsmeire (aka The Mad Fermentationist) are going on a road trip (ok, plane trip) to the lovely city of Florianopolis to talk beer. Denny and Drew will be doing their Experimental Dance. Scott is running around teaching everyone the judging thing. Mike will be talking about his love, sour beers. Denny will also talk Pragmatic brewing and Drew will be offering up lessons in 3 ways to design recipes. In between our yabbering, local speakers will cover local law and how to go professional in Brazil.

AHA Conference in San Diego - June 11-13th
This is the big show! 3 days in the beery town of San Diego! 4000 homebrewers! Holy crap! There were worries early on that the conference would sell out in 2 minutes, so the AHA put all these measures in place, but now it looks like there are enough tickets for everyone, so stop staring and go get your ticket to the biggest gathering of homebrewers on the planet. 90 breweries in the area, over 60 talks on tap, 3 big parties, etc, etc. Denny and Drew will be doing more "Experimental" talk - focusing on how you setup an experiment. Also, you'll have a chance to drink some of Drew's beers including the collaboration beer with Denny - the Clam Chowder Saison!

So, join us won't you!

Or as the AHA folks put it:

If you like Saisons (and who doesn't) and really want to know a lot more about them - I just dropped a new guide to Saison over on MaltoseFalcons.com. Help me out and let's get the rest of the yeast table filled out!

A Guide To Saisons and Saison Yeasts