… Into the mash. Presenting the Blood Bag Pale Ale #1
In an impromptu collaboration with Rafael Rios at Rios Family Farm, we decided to explore the world of alternate sugar sources. The fruits of this experience is an admittedly mediocre beer with an amazing color.
The last few months have been busy outside the brewery. After much consideration (and nine months of work on her part) AJ and I decided to bring an assistant brewer on board. He joined us in early September, and we’re just pleased as punch to have him with us. He hasn’t gotten his feet underneath him just yet, but that is just a matter of time. He’s already running the show, though, and we’re running around trying to keep up!
μBrew has a House! We’ve joined forces with the Rogers Experimental House to bring homebrewing to the community! We’re moving our hardware projects into Downtown Rogers only collaborative space, the Rogers Experimental House. Take a little tour with me (and my brand-spanking-new lavaliere microphone) as I discuss some upcoming projects.
I’m really excited about the non-intrusive fermentation monitoring. I hate having to risk a batch of beer just to find out if it is done.
Given the need to clean some exceptionally krausen-ey carboys and blow-off-tubes, I felt it was time to put together a down-and-dirty prototype carboy washer. Check out the vid!
After talking about this idea for a number of years, I’ve finally worked on this crazy idea. We’ve hypothesized, we’ve designed the experiment, we’ve run it through to completion and now there is some data to parse. But, let us start at the beginning.
I’m a huge fan of cilantro. There’s a bright, green flavor in fresh cilantro that I can hardly get enough of. Salsa and guacamole of course, but also chimichurri, and a large part of my inspiration, phở , these delicious dishes all have that cilantro flavor that I want to harness. Being a brewer and an engineer, I of course looked out on the Internet to see if someone else had the perfect recipe for making this herbed beer. If someone else had a silver bullet method of infusing this flavor into an ale, I would have a starting point to experiment with. As it was, I didn’t find much out there in the Google, and thus had to then back up, with a touch of science and brewing art, what I’d been talking up with my brewing siblings. It was time to find the best way to infuse cilantro goodness into beer greatness.
Find yourself in need of an upgrade? Come across a hot deal for an old AB keg, or just have one laying around? Here’s simple method to mod a keg to work as a perfectly simple brew kettle.
This upgrade will take you away from the stovetop brewery, so be sure to consider a propane burner and all the accessories. Moving to a kettle this size will get rid of any boil over problems, especially in 5 gallon batches, and remove the need to boil extra water to top up your volume.
I can’t just say “Hello, World!” now can I?
Welcome to μBrew, where we’ll make equipment, make beer, and make whatever the hell we want.
The plan is to do a combination of articles, blog posts and videos detailing our adventures in brewing. We’ll try to keep the tangents to a minimum, but I cannot promise I won’t squirrel out from time to time. I intend to work on all my projects with equipment I already have in my shop. I also plan on using the video equipment I already own and free software to produce my content. This is a learning process for me, so bear with me until I figure out how to half-ass it. The only exception to the free software plan is my home seat of SolidWorks, which comes from my employment. We’ll be messing around with alternate versions to make sure everyone can follow along at home.
AJ and I are passionate about brewing and making, and we want to provide a way to lower the barriers of this amazing hobby.
Keep coming back for more!
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RDWHAHB!
-J
