Mr. Wizard
American Beers and Prohibition
American beers, pre and post-Prohibition. The Wiz knows…
Silicone hosing lifespan
The hoses used in homebrewing are similar to the hoses used in beverage and food-processing plants, except the industrial-grade hoses are reinforced to increase their pressure rating and usually covered by a
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
Calculate brewhouse efficiency
The easiest way to calculate brewhouse efficiency is to go metric! You need four pieces of information to perform this straightforward calculation. The data you need is: post boil wort volume in
How do I stop enzymes?
I am not sure you have created a monster but you may have a runaway train on your hands! There are only two ways to stop an enzymatic reaction. You can
ID’ing wild hops
Hop variety identification can be done the old-fashioned way of comparing pictures of hop cones of known varieties to the unknown. Although this method is not perfect, it is widely used as
Cleaning a soda keg
Ah, the old birch-beer beer. This reminds me of a time when I screwed up a beer experiment with the remnants of a root beer experiment. We had three groups in our
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!
Dried vs liquid malt extract
There is absolutely no reason not to use dried malt extract (DME) exclusively for your recipes, although there are fewer choices in color with dried extracts than there are with liquid extracts.
Malt extract vs. corn sugar to prime
This is a question I often ask myself when reading recipes. It seems to me that using DME or saving wort for priming is a pain in the neck. The contribution of
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
Can I avoid yeast in the bottle when bottle conditioning
So you’re one of those picky brewers who wants the best of both worlds! Fortunately, there is a way to have bottle-conditioned beer sans yeast cake, but rough filtration is not the
