Yeast Pitching Rate March 17 2015, 0 Comments

Hey Home-Brewers! Have you ever thought about your yeast pitching rate? If not, now is a great time to start! Basically, pitching rate is the number of yeast cells in billions that you add to a given volume of wort (usually in gallons). Pitching rate is extremely important for yeast health to help provide an active, healthy, complete fermentation. In general, the higher gravity your beer, the higher pitching rate you will need. Additionally, lagers need an even higher pitching rate than ales. To calculate your pitching rate, try a free online calculator tool like the Mr. Malty yeast calculator.

Oaking Your Wine February 25 2015, 0 Comments

Winemakers, you STILL don't need to be bored in February! We've been talking about ways to put the finishing touches on your wine at this time of year, and today we're following up last week's post on Cold Stabilization with some tips on Oaking!:

Oaking your wine is a great way to alter the flavor, texture, stability, and character of your grape wines. Putting your wine in contact with oak will improve the wine's stability, soften harsher aspects of young wine, add lovely vanilla flavors, and smooth out the overall mouthfeel and texture of the wine. Even if you don't have an oak barrel handy, you can use French or American oak spirals or oak chips to oak your wine. For a 5 gallon batch, about 1-2 spirals or 3 oz of chips for 4-8 weeks (or longer if you like) is usually about right, but taste your wine periodically and simply rack the wine off the oak when you're happy with the results!

Cold-Stabilize Your Wine February 18 2015, 0 Comments

Ferment Fast with S-04 January 14 2015, 0 Comments

Need to get a beer ready in time for the Packer's final game of the season (aka the Super Bowl)? Consider making an ale using Safale S-04 from Fermentis. This British ESB yeast is a fast and vigorous fermenter that drops out quickly and leaves a very clear beer in as little as a week. This dry yeast also leaves a malty sweetness that is great in everything from pale ales to stouts. Several of our kits use S-04 yeast including our Zombie Sue Pale Ale, Badger Dark Ale, and the super quick Boogiepop Session Ale, which is great for all-day-game-day enjoyment. Check out this great yeast today and GO PACK!

Brew Fast, Ferment Fast December 20 2014, 0 Comments

We recently added a new kit to our lineup: What the Fuggle Session Scotch Ale. This malt-forward beer exclusively features the Fuggle hop and only requires a 30 minute boil. It's definitively delicious. We recently whipped up a batch for the shop, and from brew day to packaging, it only took 7 days! It will be on tap at the Shop soon...

Bonus Tip/Trick: We also pitched the Clarity Ferm additive with the yeast. Clarity Ferm acts as a fining/clarifying agent as well as reduces the gluten levels in the finished product, a bonus for those of you trying to avoid gluten but still craving beer!

Dressing Up Wine Bottles December 19 2014, 0 Comments

Consider using PVC Shrink Caps to dress up your bottles of wine. They're very easy to use: Just place them over the top of the bottle, submerge in boiling water for 1 second, and voila, you have bottles that look as good as the wine inside tastes! And that's a professional look for just under $3 for 30 bottles!

Cooling Your Wort December 17 2014, 0 Comments

When brewing in the winter, you might be tempted to cool your boiling wort in a bank of snow (a la Jack in The Shining). But beware! Yes, that snow will chill the kettle for a short time, but quickly it will start to act as an insulator and have the opposite effect you intended.

A more productive way to use snow would be in your ice bath as you chill. You can also add a copper wort chiller to the equation for optimal cooling.

Utilize the Cold, Make a Lager December 16 2014, 0 Comments

Get winter to work for you in your brewing: make a lager! If you have a space in your house that is a constant 45 - 58F, then you're all set to ferment at the cool temps lager yeasts requires. We have a great selection of lager kits and yeasts, so give one a try. We promise you that they're worth the cold and the time.

Maybe even try our newest lager kit: Helles Hath No Fury Munich Helles! This beer is the malty, crisp, and refreshing lager that you always see poured in 1 liters in biergartens. Channel Bavaria in your own home!

Yeast Lag Time December 15 2014, 0 Comments

Ever notice how your yeast sometimes take a day or two to start fermentation? It can be concerning, for sure, and you might think that you got a bum yeast packet. But what might actually be going on inside your fermentor is the preliminary step of fermentation, a growth phase for the yeast. During this stage, the yeast cells are splitting, increasing vastly in number, getting ready to eat all those sugars in the wort. Once the yeast has grown up its colony, then begins that active fermentation that creates CO2 (we see in our fermentation lock) and krausen (the foamy head on the fermenting beer), two of the most visible signs of fermentation.
So, next time your beer doesn't kickoff to a vigorous fermentation within a day of pitching your yeast, you may want to wait just a bit longer before pitching more yeast.

Wash and Reuse Yeast November 12 2014, 0 Comments

1. Boil one gallon of water for 15 minutes, while your waiting sanitize one large container (like a 1 gallon jug), a few large mason jars and lids and a funnel. Ideally, you'd boil the jars and lids, too.
2. When your timer is up, chill the kettle of water in an ice bath (like you would wort). 
3. Siphon your beer off the yeast into a secondary fermentor, bottles or a keg. Sanitize and return the airlock to the fermentor. 
4. After your water has chilled, make sure it is at room temperature and pour it into the primary fermentor (that contains the yeast cake). Shake it up!
5. Place carboy on its side and let it settle for 30 minutes. There should be definable layers. The yeast is the milky layer. 
6. Carefully pour that milky, yeast layer into the sanitized 1 gallon jug , leaving as much of the dead yeast and hop particles behind as possible. Place an airlock on this container, and let settle for another 30 minutes.
7. After it has settled, pour into sanitized jars, seal them up and place in refrigerator. 
8. Use within 3 months or so -- as always with yeast, the fresher, the better!

Removing Chlorine/Chloramine from Brewing Water November 04 2014, 0 Comments

Looking for another easy way to improve your beer? Most municipalities use chlorine or chloramine to sanitize their water. While it works well to make sure we don't get sick from drinking our tap water, it can impart off-flavors in beer. Here are a few easy ways to remove chlorine and chloramine from your water:

1. Add campden tablets (our favorite way). Add 1 campden tablet per 20 gallons of water, let sit for 20 minutes (works for both chlorine and chloramine)
2. Boil your water before you brew (works only for chlorine)
3. Fill your kettle the night before and let sit over night (only works for chlorine)

Backup Yeast October 28 2014, 0 Comments

A simple yet important tip. Whether you are a homebrewer or a winemaker, always keep a backup pack of dry yeast on hand. They keep for a few years, especially if you keep them in the refrigerator. Montrachet yeast is a great all-purpose choice for wine and Safale US-05 works for pretty much any ale. You never know when you'll have to save that precious batch with a backup yeast...

Change One Variable October 22 2014, 0 Comments

A great way to experiment with your homebrew is by splitting a batch into multiple fermenters and changing one variable. For instance, pitch WLP001 California Ale into one fermenter and Wyeast 1450 Denny's Favorite 50 into the other. Or, us e the same yeast but dry-hop with Mosaic in one and Nelson Sauvin in the other. Because everything else is the same, it really allows you to notice and enjoy (or not) the differences between yeasts and hops.

This can be a great way to figure out which yeasts and hops you prefer in different beer styles.

Malolactic and Sweet White Wines October 21 2014, 0 Comments

Make sure your white wines don't undergo malo-lactic fermentation. That buttery diacetyl mouthfeel can be avoided by keeping the wine in the coolest part of your house (62 degrees or lower) and keep ing the free SO2 level around 20-30 mg/l or stabilizing it with potassium sorbate post fermentation. Also, if you plan on backsweetening, MLF is the enemy. The result will be a sweet syrupy unpalatable mess.

OctoberFAST Beers October 14 2014, 0 Comments

Hopefully you had a wonderful Oktoberfest this year! If you aren't ready to give up the wonderful, malty drinking of this time of year and you don't have the equipment to lager, consider brewing an ale version of all the tasty Oktoberfest l agers.

Try using Wyeast 2112 California Lager, which can ferment at low ale temps and preserve that clean lager character.

Or consider using WLP029 Alt/Kolsch yeast for a malt-forward fermentation.

Finally, our new Prost! OktoberFAST kit has been super popular this year, which is an ale version of an Oktoberfest.

Apple Cider Ideas October 07 2014, 0 Comments

Looking to make hard cider for the first time or want to try something different? Here are some fun options:
-- Try a different yeast option. Our favorite is the White Labs English Cider yeast, which leaves a nice apple flavor without being too sweet. Make a dry cider using champagne yeast. Try a Belgian beer yeast for a truly unique cider. Or just let nature take its course and see what happens (only works with unpasteurized cider).
-- Add a flavor. Add some spices, like cinnamon, clove, allspice, nutmeg, and orange peel. Add some honey. Try some raspberry flavoring. The choices are endless.
-- Make a sparkling cider by adding a little sugar in each bottle (make sure to use champagne or beer bottles). If you've made sparkling cider, try a still-cider.
-- Drink it as is, it is quite yummy. And great for the kids!

Adding Malolactic Cultures to Wine October 07 2014, 0 Comments

Have you added your Malo-lactic yeast culture yet? The 2014 harvest has been a turbulent one for most grape varieties. Creating a bit of havoc when trying to control Volatile acidity. Malo-lactic will help smooth out the puckering bite of malic acid in red or white wines. Use one Wyeast pouch ($7.99) or White Labs vial ($6.99) for 6 gallons.

Carbonating Wine with Juice September 19 2014, 0 Comments

Here's one method to try while making sparkling wine. Save some unfermented juice from your batch and use it as your dosage when you bottle condition. The reserve juice is a truer expression of your source grapes. Also a simple sugar solution may dry your wine out much more than is prefered, depending on how much yeast is still in your young wine. Cheers!

When to Harvest Grapes September 09 2014, 0 Comments

If you have backyard grapes and are wondering if they indeed are ready to be harvested, there are a couple ways to tell.

1. Crush up enough grapes to fill a test jar with juice. Then use your hydrometer to read the brix* (sugar) in your sample.
2. Use a refractometer, an instrument that refracts light in order to read brix*. The advantage being that you only need a grape or two to fill the refractometer slide with enough of a juice sample.

*Typically, a normal brix range for white wine varietals is 17-20; for reds 20-25.

Gluten-Free Brewing August 26 2014, 0 Comments

Got a friend or family member who wants to try your homebrew but is going gluten-free? There's a couple of great ways to make a tasty brew without the gluten. Instead of using malt extract or brewing from malted barley, you can use sorghum extract, Belgian candi sugar, brown sugar, molasses, rice syrup solids, or corn sugar to make up your fermentables. Maltodextrin can be used to add body and mouthfeel to your beer and you can roast your own naturally gluten-free grains like wild rice, millet, quinoa, or gluten-free oats to add flavor and body as well. You can easily make everything from an IPA to a stout with these ingredients.

Above and beyond that, you can make a normal beer recipe into a almost-gluten-free beer by adding Clarity Ferm at the same time as your yeast. This wonderful clarifier will reduce the ppm of gluten below 20, the current international standard for gluten-free.

Using these tips, gluten-free doesn't have to be flavor free!

Make a False (Second) Wine August 21 2014, 0 Comments

Finishing Fermented Wine August 18 2014, 0 Comments

Hey there Vintners, Garagistes, and winos! A few tips for your now brand new wine from this years harvest...have you cold stabilized? AKA, lowering the wine temp down to near freezing for a few weeks to drop out the tartaric acid in the wine. You will really tell the difference in mouthfeel next spring.

Tip #2: It is time to oak your wine, if you so desire. If the barrel route is cost prohibitive, try oak spirals. They come in American and French and are quite effective. I just threw one French light toast into my 3 gal. wild ferment Marquette and another into my 3 gal. 60%Noiret 40%Marquette.

Tip#3: Draw a sample on your palette, look into the future and be creative now, while the wine is still in its infancy.

Softening Hard Water August 15 2014, 0 Comments

Hello fermentation specialists! Here's a tip for the homebrewers out there. Because Madison has very hard water, which can lead to mineral or chalky flavors in finished beer, it's not a bad idea to dilute your brewing water with Reverse Osmosis or distilled water. When I brew malty beers or Pilseners or the like, I use between 50% to 75% RO water. If I'm brewing hoppy beers (which I usually am), I use 25%-50% RO water and add a little gypsum.

Extract brewers can use all RO or distilled water, because the extract has enough of the micro-nutrients that your yeast want. For more information on your tap water, contact your local municipality and ask for a water report for your area. And as always, if you have any questions about water treatment or anything else, stop on in.

Taking Gravity Readings August 13 2014, 0 Comments

Remember your hydrometer is calibrated for 60F (and meant to be read from the bottom of the meniscus). Hydrometer readings are useful in calculating ABV % and for checking on the status of your fermentation. 

Refractometers are also great tools for reading gravity (in Brix). We suggest only using them for gravity readings pre-fermentation because the post-fermentation alcohol content can skew your reading.

Easy Sparging August 11 2014, 0 Comments

Homebrewing Tip About Rinsing Steeping Grains / "Sparging": When you're rinsing your grains (aka "sparging"), it's helpful to use a strainer or colander that can seat inside your kettle and hold the muslin bag and steeping grains, which will allow you to safely pour the hot sparge water over/through the grains and into the boil kettle. 

Keep this step in mind when calculating the volume in your boil kettle BEFORE you start your brew. And also note that this sparge step is not an essential one on your brew day, but it helps rinse more of the sugars and "character" from your steeping grains.

Wine on Tap August 10 2014, 0 Comments

Do you have a homebrew kegging system but also like to dabble in home winemaking? Try kegging your wine. Kegging is best for wines consumed young where freshness is key. With that in mind, wine needs to be under nitrogen gas mix (75%N,25%O2), so that your wine remains still when poured. Lastly, a Nitro regulator is a necessity. Normally Stouts and Porters are served under Nitro, try wine on your other tap! Last but not least, you will need some dedicated beverage line.

Use a Sparging Bag August 09 2014, 0 Comments

Consider a sparging bag for those indoor brews. These bags make steeping or partial-mashing (or even full mashing) a breeze because they're coarse enough to allow water exposure to all the grain, fine enough to prevent any grain from sneaking into the wort, and equipped with a drawstring for easy rinsing/sparging. You can also clip it to your kettle with binder clips and avoid any hassle of it sinking into the wort!

Don't Fear the Foam August 08 2014, 0 Comments

When it comes to making beer and wine, it's sanitation first! When it comes to keeping things sanitized, we love the Star San. This foaming, acid-based sanitizer foams up to get into every nook and cranny you need to keep free of potential harm to your brew. However, DON'T FEAR THE FOAM! Star San is no-rinse sanitizer for good reason; the foam breaks down into very simple nutrients that can be beneficial for your yeast.

Star-San will “last forever” if RO or distilled water is used to mix it and it stays enclosed like in a spray bottle or in a covered plastic bucket. It lasts a long time anyway and can be used multiple times or up to about 3 months. If it starts to turn cloudy, it's time to dump it and make a new batch.

Extract Beers Too Dark? August 01 2014, 0 Comments

Are your extract beers coming out a little darker than you would like? One trick is to add half of the extract before you begin your boil and then add the rest with about ten minutes left in the boil. It's quite easy, with about ten minutes left in the boil, turn off the heat, stir in your extract, bring back to a boil, then finish the boil. This will help lighten the color, reduce caramel flavors, and increase your hop utilization.

Adjusting Brewing Gravities July 31 2014, 0 Comments

Gravity too low on brew day? There's an easy fix: Always keep a bag of Dry Malt Extract (DME) on hand just in case! Here's a handy link from John Palmer's How to Brew that walks you through how to calculate the amount of DME to add: http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter3-4.html.

If your gravity is too high -- just add water.

Mitchell Vineyard Update July 28 2014, 0 Comments

Looks like Dave and company will start picking Saturday, August 28th. For more details, check out Mitchell Vineyard.

Happy winemaking!

PBW and Straight-A July 26 2014, 0 Comments

While it may be too cold or muddy for some of you outdoor brewers, that doesn't mean you can't take advantage of this time: spring cleaning doesn't just have to be for your house. Give your brew equipment a good soak or scrubbing in some cleaner. Our favorite cleaners are PBW and Straight-A. Then your brewery will be as good as new for that first spring brew!

Adding Fruit to Beer July 25 2014, 0 Comments

Brewing up a fruit beer this summer? It's awesome to use real strawberries or peaches, but you can also supplement those natural fruit flavors with some of our fruit flavors and extracts. Just a little goes a long way in creating that summertime flavor and feeling!

If you are adding actual fruit, our two favorite times to add the fruit are:

1. Right when you turn off the heat of your boil and start to cool down the wort. This pasteurizes the fruit so you don't get an infection without cooking off too much of the fruit character.
2. In the secondary fermenter. If you do this and you're using fruit you picked or bought, we recommend either pasteurizing, blanching, or using metabisulfites to kill off any bacteria that may be in the fruit. If you use a canned puree or fruit base, you can just add it directly to the secondary, it's already been pasteurized.

If you are adding the fruit flavorings or extracts, you can add them at any point, we recommend doing it right at bottling or kegging, so you can nail the amount perfectly.

A great way to get a fantastic fruit character in your beer, cider, or mead, is to start with actual fruit and then supplement the character with the fruit flavorings at bottling time if necessary.

Cool Your Wort Down Faster July 23 2014, 0 Comments

When it's really hot out, it can be tough to get your wort cooled down quickly, since it's so hot and the ground water is quite warm. Here's a tip or two if you're brave enough to brew on hot days.

If you're an extract brewer, put your top-up water in the fridge a few hours before you brew to cool it down. If you're an all-grain brewer and use an immersion chiller, while chilling, either stir the wort with a spoon or use the chiller to get a whirlpool going. This will cool your wort down more quickly and efficiently.

Fermenting Lagers July 21 2014, 0 Comments

For lager fermentation, try following this fermentation schedule:

1. Pitch into cold wort, around 45F.
2. Allow the beer to free-rise up to your primary lager fermentation temp, 52-55F, and ferment at that temp for the duration of primary.
3. Once primary fermentation is complete, preform a diacetyl rest, which entails raising the temperature to around 68F and holding it at that temp for 2-3 days.

Carbonating Lagers July 18 2014, 0 Comments

Brewing Tip: Want a crisp Octoberfest for the fall? It's not too early to get to brewing it. Crisp lagers benefit from long cold-conditioning, which means brewing it sooner rather than later to get that authentic German lager character. 

If you bulk-lager in the fermentor before bottling, you'll want to add some yeast back at bottling time. Try the CBC-1 dry yeast. It's in-part designed for bottle conditioning, so it'll carbonate the beer and drop out fast and fully, allowing your friends to marvel at your crystal-clear Octoberfest!

Also, try brewing up our Gemutlichkeit Octoberfest kit or our brand new Prost! OctoberFAST kit (a faster fermenting, yet clean, malty ale).