Back to brewing?

I have been taking a noticeable leave of absence from brewing over the last few years. Once I was done with presenting at the Homebrew Conference in Philly I felt that I had been spending so much of my spare time on brewing that I needed to take a break. A long break. After all, this is just a hobby and if that’s true I should be able to stop anytime I want. Deadlines are something left to my day job.

At said day job, responsibilities were also picking up and combined with other hobbies that left little time for brewing science and and brewing itself. While I brewed on and off to keep myself from buying every beer I drank, it felt more like a chore than a hobby.

Key to having fun brewing again was the move to 10 gal batches instead of 5. That reduces down the number of brewdays needed to supply myself to just one or two sessions per month with a nice opportunity for doing split batch fermentation experiments. And getting a 10 gal system to work efficiently is a whole new challenge. More on that in future posts

While I don’t want to jump back into the frenzy of brewing message boards, I might find the time to attend to some of the unanswered emails and comments.

At the time of writing this I’m enjoying a home brewed American Stout. I’m starting to like dark beers now and I had, and still have, a whole lot of dark grain samples from my malt pH experiments.

Cheers.

10 thoughts on “Back to brewing?

  1. Welcome back, your site helped me a lot when I began brewing (still does) so it’s nice you are getting into the swing of things again.

    It’d be nice if you could post some of your experiments even if they aren’t vigorous and are low upkeep (even just a picture with a side by side on instagram would be nice :)).

  2. You’ve been missed! I’ve also enjoyed the move to larger batches as well, has really introduced new avenues for creatively getting two different beers out of one brew day.

  3. Thank you for all you’ve done for the community. I’ve been brewing for the last 21 years and truly enjoy the wealth of information you’ve made available, allowing me to continue to grow my skills and produce better beer. I am doing far more Lagers now than ales, and have been spending time visiting Bavaria. I am very impressed with the knowledge shared by you, and am grateful to you for now being able to brew beers I enjoy more than my go-tos (twos) Spaten and Pilsner Urquell. Cheers, Prost, Prosit, Sláinte, and Na zdraví!

  4. Kai brewing can take your life over. I just brew and it sometimes is too much. When your the teacher, answerer of all questions, researcher for all, totally understood. I went a step further, I brew 12.5-20 gallons. It became a job of filling way too many mugs. I felt used up and done. Now I like the ability to try 3 yeasts and narrow down the favorites. You have helped so many in this hobby. Gracious to the 10th Kai. I hope you find that brewing Zen again. I wish you lived on the other side of town, because I’d share this amazing Kolsch you helped me make.

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