Brewing - Brewer's Friend - Part 2
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Archive for the ‘Brewing’ Category

A Brief History and Look at Future Trends in US Craft Beer

Saturday, February 17th, 2018

“Beer is more important than armies when it comes to understanding people.” – Alexei Vranich An Early History of Craft Beer Early American beer started with ales from the British settlers; porters, stouts, and pale ales (once kilning took hold as general practice in 1703). It is common knowledge that most of ...

Brewing Water Basics – Putting it All Together

Tuesday, February 13th, 2018

We've covered some of the basics of water chemistry in the last two articles, and now we are ready to put it all together. The first step is to start with chlorine-free water of suitable quality for brewing and reducing the alkalinity if needed. Once you have an understanding of targeting an ...

Brewing Water Basics Part 2

Sunday, November 19th, 2017

This article is a continuation of a three-part series. Check out part one here. You may have heard that you have “hard” water, or “soft” water. Hardness in water is mostly due to the calcium and magnesium ions in the water. A low concentration of these is said to provide soft ...

Brewing Water Basics – Part 1

Sunday, November 19th, 2017

For many brewers, water chemistry is treated as the last frontier of homebrewing. Oftentimes, it is ignored or at least not something homebrewers want to think about. The old adage “if your water tastes good, it’s fine to brew with” may be repeated, and believed. The brewer may work on ...

Aspects of Brewing a Wheat Beer

Monday, October 23rd, 2017

Hefeweizen, weissbier, witbier, white ale… Whatever your preference; wheat beers are abundant, effervescent, and different. They can be served with a slice of orange or lemon, with all the yeast “mit hefe” style, with raspberry syrup, or filtered crystal clear. They vary in color from the light witbier to copper-brown ...

Brewer’s Friend Recipe of the Week!

Wednesday, August 12th, 2015

We're starting a new feature here at Brewer's Friend, Recipe of the Week! This is going to be based on views so only public recipes will be considered. If your recipe is selected as the week's top recipe you will receive 1 year of supporting membership here on Brewer's Friend! We’re ...

Q&A session with brewing author Stan Hieronymus

Sunday, October 27th, 2013

After reading and reviewing For the Love of Hops, I had some follow up thoughts.  Stan Hieronymus was very nice in replying to all my questions promptly in this interview style blog post. Stan has authored several books on beer and home brewing and runs an informative beer brewing blog. He ...

Hops Squeezing and Hops Absorption – More Bitterness Please

Friday, May 10th, 2013

Should we squeeze out the hops bag or not? A recent IPA brew session called for 7 ounces of hops. The recipe is 110 IBU with a lot of late hopping.  For this brew, I did not squeeze out the hops bags and left them behind after draining the kettle. I then squeezed ...

Brewing Water Treatment in 600 Words

Friday, April 12th, 2013

It seems that over the last few years many more home brewers have taken an interest in understanding and modifying their brewing water. And there are good reasons to do so. Depending on the beer that is brewed and the water quality, modifying the brewing water can take a beer ...

Making Sense of Efficiency Definitions

Friday, November 30th, 2012

When using brewing calculators like Brewer's Friend brewers are inadvertently confronted with the concept of efficiency. While efficiency is an important tool in making the brewing process more predictable, there exists a lot of confusion around various definitions for efficiency. Let me clear up most of them. In brewing, just like ...

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