Mr. Wizard
Can oats in homebrew lower my cholestrol?
I’ve been writing this column for 12 years now and am always surprised by the creativity of homebrewers, especially when it comes to redefining the daily role of beer in one’s
Upping IBU’S
Is good hop utilization getting you down? Take some advice from the Wiz. Plus: Enzymes can be a great tool in brewing – how do you stop them?
How does silicone affect beer foam?
The professor you are working for is correct to state that some brewers use anti-foams and it is also true that these compounds are silicon-based. Dimethylpolysiloxane, in the form of a
How does tyramine in beer affect people taking MAOI?
I have answered many questions over the years that deal with medical and health topics. The way I go about answering these questions is reading what I can find about these
How do you tame wild yeasts?
Most brewers have heard horror stories about wild yeast and certain bacteria, like Lactobacillus and Pediococcus, setting up camp in a brewery and contaminating everything in sight. I think these stories originated
Extract vs all-grain brewing?
This is a pretty heavy question because it hits to the foundation of homebrewing. The way I see it, homebrewing is about brewing your own beer. Mashing is certainly part of what
Bottling Nitro Beers
I have never shied away from taking pot shots at competitions. I brew beer to please myself and if by chance I get lucky and win a medal in a competition, great!
Trub in the secondary fermenter
Most small cylindroconical tanks have two ports on the bottom; one on the side of the cone and one on the bottom. The upper port is used to rack beer out of
Can homebrewers use twist-off bottles for their beer?
For starters, when it comes to bottle conditioned beers, there is very little difference between methods used at home and those used by commercial brewers. If a brewery like Sierra Nevada can
Green Peach flavors
One thought comes to mind and that is acetaldehyde. Almost all homebrewers know about diacetyl and are often taught to dislike diacetyl with vigor. I am one of those brewers who really
What are the keys to an efficient wort chiller?
So you want a techno-geek essay on heat exchangers? I’ll do my best here admitting up-front that mass and heat transfer are not subjects that I claim much expertise. But wort cooling
Racking to a secondary fermenter
Personally, I like to minimize the number of times wort and beer are transferred because with each transfer there is a risk of damaging the beer either by contamination or oxidation. I,
