Beer Brewing

Biotransformation was the concept that finally explained results I’d been seeing empirically without understanding — certain yeasts pitched into dry-hopped beers produced tropical flavour compounds I hadn’t added as hop varieties and couldn’t account

Reverse osmosis water was the solution to a water chemistry problem I couldn’t fully solve any other way — the bicarbonate alkalinity in my municipal water source was high enough that the acid additions required to hit pale lager target …

The phosphoric versus lactic acid decision for mash pH adjustment is one I revisited after a few years of using lactic acid exclusively — the flavour contribution of lactic acid at the doses needed for significant pH correction in high-alkalinity …

The sulphate-to-chloride ratio was the water chemistry concept that most changed how I think about flavour balance in beer — I had been adding minerals to hit target ppm values for individual ions without understanding that the relationship between s

Water chemistry was the brewing variable I understood last and improved most dramatically when I finally engaged with it seriously — I’d been removing chlorine with campden tablets for years and thinking that was the full extent of water chemistry …

Automatic keg washers occupy a specific niche in homebrewing equipment — they address a genuinely unpleasant task (manually cleaning corny kegs involves significant physical awkwardness given the keg geometry) with an automated pump-driven system tha

Switching to forward-sealing faucets was one of those equipment improvements I resisted until I was sufficiently annoyed by the alternative — standard rear-sealing faucets allow beer to dry and crust in the tap body between pours, requiring soaking a

CO2 regulator quality is the equipment area where I’ve seen the most correlation between purchase price and actual brewing outcomes — a poorly made regulator with inaccurate pressure gauges and unreliable creep causes carbonation problems that look l

Digital refractometers solved a friction point I’d accepted in brewing for years — measuring pre-boil gravity by waiting for a hydrometer sample to cool was a 15-minute interruption in a time-sensitive part of the brew day, and the Tilt Hydrometer …

Pure oxygen oxygenation was the last major process variable I addressed in high-gravity brewing, and the improvement in yeast health and fermentation completeness was immediately measurable — the stuck fermentations I occasionally had with 1.