Brewmasters of Michigan - Frequently Asked Questions

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Most of these files come from the HBD archives. Here are links to the frequently asked questions files from

Homebrew Digest
the newsgroup rec.crafts.brewing
on hops (with tables)
and on yeast. Note: this file is out of date. Here's a text-only up to date version. The archives also include
a list of equipment for all-grain brewing, and
a Beginner's Guide in text form, PostScript, or TeX input format
Richard B. Webb, the Brews Brother's 1993 Homebrewer of the year wrote a guide to all grain brewing
On kegs, there's a kegging information sheet, and a FAQ file about the 5-liter "minikegs"ere's a collection of articles from the HBD, May through August 1992 about wort chillers

Association of Brewers Info

The Association of Brewers (parent organization of the American Homebrewers Association) is making information available by e-mail. A message describing how to retrieve this information will be sent to you if you send email to info@aob.org containing the word HELP. They also have a home page

The Pub list lists brewpubs, microbreweries, beer stores, homebrew supply shops, and bars with good beer selections from all over the world
The Virtual Pub has a Brewpub Gallery. It's not as comprehensive, but it may be a bit easier to navigate
Eric's Beer and Homebrewing Page also lists pubs in Texas and North America
Here is a list of suppliers with addresses and phone numbers for most

Formulæ, etc.

I've collected some useful formulae for computing attenuation, alcohol, & calorie content. You can plug in values and get solutions interactively, for some of them
Check out this graph of bottle glass light transmission
Dan McConnell typed in the ASBC hop bitterness analysis methods
Some notes from Kirk Fleming on computing lautering efficiency

How to Brew

John Palmer has written a nice How to Brew Your First Beer document
The Frugal Brewers Guide to Brewing Aids has plans and notes on how to construct many of the things you need to brew beer in a very inexpensive manner. A nice addition to this is Will Self's cheap hop scale construction plans
David Draper put together a short document about culturing yeast and using slants.
Check out Al Korzonas's Reasons for a Stuck Fermentation
Using Enzymes to aid fermentation

Mashing Systems

Here are a couple of "info pages" on constructing "slotted copper pipe manifold" sparging systems for "cooler mashing" in a rectangular picnic cooler and a round "Gott" drink cooler. The first one also contains some instructions for doing the mash. Actually, you should read the first one first, because it's much more detailed. The second one is more about the differences between the round and rectangular set-ups
Alternative methods include: Dion Hollenbeck's How to make a mash/lauter tun out of a GOTT cooler, and Jay Hersh's method
In the summer of 1994, George Fix posted a couple of notes to the Homebrew Digest mailing list regarding when a protein rest should or should not be used. It might be required reading for all mashers!
Marc deJonge has written a FAQ about decoction mashing

Bruce Dudek (bpd@ckuxb.ho.att.com) has done a nice plan for a wooden beer case. Here's a Postscript version of the plan
Immersion chiller by Ken Sullivan -- An interesting design with 4 parallel coils from 50 feet of copper tubing. With illustrations
The Frugal Brewers Guide to Brewing Aids has plans and notes on how to construct many of the things you need to brew beer in a very inexpensive manner
If you're thinking about using oak casks, check out this compilation of advice by Troy Downing.

Ingredients

Bob Devine put together a treatise on sugars used in brewing
Ever wonder about "Klages"? What about smoked malts? And what's the difference between all those "Crystal", "Caramel", and "Cara..." malts? Wonder no more, All About Grains 101 is here to answer your questions

Styles

The AHA has put the 1995 style guidelines and a chart of the numbers on-line at their web site. Kirk Fleming updated my 1994 style guide to incorporate the 1995 changes, and added the missing styles, to boot. If you have a browser that supports tables (e.g. Netscape 1.1), try this tablular version of the chart
Here are the 1994 AHA style guidelines and a table of the numbers. The original numbers file was abstracted from the BRFWARE program by Chris Campanelli, and slightly updated from the 1994 style guidelines