The KISS-Centric Brewer

There are 10 types of brewer in the world. Those who understand binary, and those who don't.

OK, it's an old joke, but it illustrates one of the major differences in philosophy I see among home brewers -- For some brewers, half of the fun is in building brewing gadgetry. I've seen a lot of brewers expend considerable effort, time, and skill in building some truly amazing brewing rigs, up to and including nearly automated systems driven by PLC controllers or homebuilt microprocessor systems. While I think it's a very cool and admirable hobby, I tend to try to go the other way, and strive to keep my brewing rig and brewday as simple as possible. The KISS principle applies, in my brewhouse.

Wait. What? Yes, I'm an engineer. I like to tinker. However, my experience shows me that the more complicated a system is, the more time you have to spend babysitting it. With all the pressures of family life, the time I can spend on my hobby is limited. I'd rather use the time to make the beer, instead of fixing the stuff to make the beer. It's a personal choice. I really like the automated style of brew systems, and I may even build one in the future, but for now, the KISS principle applies.

What's that mean? Well, I definitely believe that there are certain gadgets that are fast, cheap, and effective. I love those gadgets. They either make the brewday faster and easier, or provide enough of a quality improvement that they are worth the extra time, trouble, and storage space. I have no desire to write code as part of my brewing process. I'd rather write recipes.

As this nascent blog evolves, I'll add some information on my favorite KISS brewing gadgets. The driving mantra for my brew stuff right now is this: Fast, Cheap, Effective. I want all three from any gadget I throw at my beer.

So, here's my first KISS-centric brewing gadget. It has to do with aerating cool wort. Most brewers know the importance of oxygenation to improve yeast reproduction and make tasty beer. Lots of people shake their carboys to aerate. others inject a stream of pure oxygen through a diffusion stone. I like this gadget:

Once my wort is cool, I whip it up with a sanitized wire whisk until it's frothy on top. The kettle you see in the photograph is a holdover from my extract brewing days. I don't use it anymore, but the whip still has a place in my brewhouse. It's fast, cheap, and effective - The perfect KISS-centric brewing gadget.

Frozen Balls, and you

Being the typical suburban handyman, I like to do around-the-house chores myself. For example, I drain and winterize my sprinkler system, instead of paying somebody $40 to do a half-hour job . This involves shutting off several valves, opening others, and draining the water out of the sprinkler lines. For those of you from warmer climates, we do this so things don't freeze and break over the winter.

Anyhow, a couple of years ago, I did the usual winterizing schtick. However, in the process, I neglected to re-open a particular valve on the vacuum breaker after I closed it. This mistake trapped water inside the valve, which froze and broke over the winter. Whoops.

What does this have to do with brewing?

Well, a while back, a poster on Homebrew Talk remarked that he'd had an infection that he traced back to the same problem. He'd drained his boiler through a similar valve, then stored the kettle with the valve shut. The wort trapped inside the valve got a nasty case of "teh funk", and caused him troubles in a batch of beer.

So, just a reminder to my brewing friends: When you clean up, make sure to wash your valves out, and store them at least halfway open, so you don't get funky balls. At least all I had to do was buy some new stuff at the hardware store and sweat a couple of pipe joints. That's less painful that having to say sayonara to a ruined batch of beer and five hours of weekend brewing.

In the Naked City

Like any home brewer, I've daydreamed about operating my own brewery / pub, and spending every day working and playing with beer and brewing. One of the regulars over at http://www.homebrewtalk.com recently did just that. The fruit of his labors is the Naked City Brewery and Taphouse in the Greenwood neighborhood in Seattle, just north of downtown around 85^th street and Greenwood Avenue N.

Since I was in Seattle last week, I just had to stop by and get a look at the fruits of his and his business partner's hard work. I called a work buddy who lives nearby, and gave him directions to meet me there.

The neighborhood is kind of an eclectic mixture of ethnic eateries, bars, art galleries, and the usual businesses you encounter at the urban/suburban border, although it tends more to the urban side of the scale.

The taphouse itself is still obviously very new. The bar is beautifully built, large enough to seat crowds, and the bartender was of the multiply-pierced urban hipster variety. She obviously had great knowledge and enthusiasm for beer, and we spent a pleasant few minutes pouring over the beer list.

And what a list it was. Please forgive the photo quality, but I did manage to grab a shot of the draft list, which included a lot of PNW regional specialties, as well as Naked City's own Dubbel, which is not currently brewed onsite, until the brewery is up and running. The dubbel was a great abbey-style Belgian ale, with plenty of abbey character, wonderful malt profile, and the stern kick of a well-brewed dubbel. Belgian styles seem to be a particular favorite here, as shown by the very well-stocked list of Belgian styles of bottled and tap beer. Everything from the lighter wits and saisons to the strongest trippels was represented.

I originally arrived about 7:30 on a Monday evening, and the bar was fairly empty. However, by 8:30 or 9 PM, the taphouse had filled in nicely and was full of lots of people, all of them having actual conversations, and not paying any attention to the TV's above the bar. My friend Steve and I spent a fair bit of the time we were there chatting with the younger Don's wife, who already had some fun stories about building the taphouse. All in all, it was a really enjoyable visit, and Naked City Brewing is now on my “must visit” list for those times I get to Seattle.

Hogback? Brewing?

So, why the name?

I live on the far Southwest side of the Denver Metro area, near a really cool geological formation called the Morrison Hogback. It's a knife-thin ridge, several hundred feet tall, and not many more thick, that stands about a mile East of the foothills of the Front Range. If you've ever driven West into the mountains from Denver, the first roadcut you pass through bores through the Morrison Hogback.

It's got some nice hiking trails, plenty of cool stuff like dinosaur footprints, petroglyphs, fossils, and killer views of Denver on one side, and Red Rocks ampitheater on the other.

"Brewing" is for my primary hobby (as of now), brewing beer. I like to drink it too. I started brewing with a college buddy in about 1994. I took a few years off thanks to apartment living, family, work, and such, but roared back into it with a vengance not too long ago. There will be much more about beer and brewing in the days to come.

So, that's it for now. Welcome aboard, and I hope to see somebody look at this someday.

-Joe

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