Brewing
Homebrew recipes, fermentation logs, and brewing notes.
My Brews
Active batches in progress and completed brews ready to drink.
Cherry Mead
A sweet cherry mead made with Maker's Mark Premium Wildflower Honey, whole frozen cherries, and Red Star Premier Blanc yeast. Primary fermentation with fruit in a mesh bag, then a second cherry addition in secondary for flavor and color.
Strawberry Wine
A fresh strawberry wine made with pureed strawberries and a unique Camden tablet treatment to eliminate wild yeast before fermentation.
Blackberry Mead
A deep purple blackberry mead started without an original gravity reading, fermented to dryness, then sweetened back and bottle-pasteurized. Lessons learned from a first attempt.
Dandelion Mead
A bright, floral mead made with foraged dandelion flowers and Ambrosia honey. The dandelion tea brings a subtle herbal quality that pairs beautifully with the honey's sweetness.
Brewing Articles
Articles and notes about brewing techniques, equipment, and experiments.
Intro to Making Mead
A complete beginner's guide to making mead at home, from equipment and ingredients through fermentation, back-sweetening, pasteurization, and bottling.
Bottling Day: The Final Stretch
From siphon setups to pasteurization and the danger of bottle bombs, here is my guide to successfully bottling a 1-gallon batch.
The Tilt Hydrometer promises 24/7 gravity and temperature readings straight from your fermenter. I wanted to love it, and in some ways I do—but a few persistent flaws keep it from earning a permanent place in every batch.