Fermenters Can Be Dangerous

Yesterday, I came home to a site that no brewer wants to see, but all brewers expect to happen. A carboy bomb. Now, brewers will know that preventing this type of occurence is the very reason why we use blow-off tubes for a primary fermentation. A small airlock can get filled with pulp and clogged. A tube into a bucket is relatively save. Relatively. Bad things can still happen when you have 10 lbs of fresh press...

Mead Recipe 08M05: Freyja’s Demand

So, this Thanksgiving Jessica ran off and left me. Luckily, I had friends that I could turn to, so I prepared to make my signature squash pie. Luckily, as she so often does, Freyja had other plans for me because the Goddess of fertility didn’t make the squash people have babies. Not finding any good pie squashes, I decided to buy cranberries planning to make a sauce. Still she planned, and my friends...

Mead Recipe 08M06: Bagpipe Braggot

I’m beginning to add my cider and mead recipes to my blog, mainly as a way to track them, but also so that others can have access to the them as well as the notes about them. If anyone is considering making cider or mead but is afraid, feel free to contact me. This is the last mead recipe from this year (6th batch of mead in 2008, got the naming scheme?). I’ll be basically working backwards through my...

50 Gallons of Wine!

And by “wine” I mean “cider” and “mead.” Which is okay because, technically, cider is apple wine, and mead is honey wine. So put away your prejudices about what constitutes “wine,” lay aside your hatred of everything that is not a grape, and enjoy the awesome power of this fully operational winemaker! Here’s a picutre of 10 5-gallon carboys in our office. This...

The Positively Glorious! “Cider & Mead” Feed

blah blah blah announcement blah blah recipes blah blah advice blah blah blah festivals.