New Brew!

OK, so more new news than brews.

I'm entering the ranks of professional brewer!

A friend invited me to join him at a new brewpub, as the head brewer.  You can check out more at my "other" beer blog, LiveLoveBrew

Today, my sweet wife brewed a beer for the Queen of Brew competition.  You may recall that she brewed on the 14th for practice.  Today was the Real thing!  She had an absolutely great time.

Bonnie brewed an extract batch.  Mostly because she didn't want to bne the only one slowing down the day by doing an all-grain. When she got home, she said "I HAD NO IDEA IT COULD BE SO EASY!!!"

Well, that's a huge fail on my part.  I mean, yes- I did go all-grain right away and complicate things.  The issue for me was dinero.  I mean- all-grain is half the cost of extract.  Really.  So- it's like everything else- trading money for time.  Oh sure, I would be doing all grain anyways because of the control factor and because i just love the process.  For her- it was the time saving and the ease of the process.

If you brew 4 or 5 times a year, extract is a perfectly good way to make great beer that you can be proud of, be creative with, and win medals with if that is something you want to do. 

If you brew 60 times a year, you will be broke if you just do extract :)

Another exciting thing today- I drank my own beer, off my own tap, in my own house!  My kegs were ready so yesterday I went and got new beer line hose. Today I flushed the line and tap 3 times with PBW cleaner and 3 times with Star San sanitizer, and I'm sure that if there was anything in there, it's gone now.  Conveniently, I also cleaned out and sanitized 3 kegs.  THEN- I filled 2 of them up with beer.  Yep- I have already outgrown my kegerator!

This leaves me one keg left to fill with delicious delicious beer... if I ever have a chance to brew again at home.

On the other hand, maybe Bonnie will keep the tap at home flowing!

Prosit!