Jonas Rembert

Home brewers are full of questions.  It comes with the territory.  One that comes up regularly: Is it OK to top off my wort with water?  Well, that depends.  Yes and no. For extract brewers it is routine and expected to add water to concentrated wort. For all-grain brewers, it may be Ok, but the […]

Raw wort can tell you a lot or a little about your beer.  This partly depends on how developed your palate is at that moment.  It will hint at what sort of beer it will be, subtle characteristics to reveal how quenching or delicious its potential. Raw wort hints at the characteristics of a beer.

Your brew session is wrapping up.  Whether one hour for a beginner or eight hours for an advanced all-grain brewer, the next stage is the same.  You must cool your wort and quickly.  Your window for effective cooling is 30 minutes, 40 minutes at the absolute outside. You can cool your wort by adding cold

Fermentation is the exciting part of beer making.  It is where all the action happens.  For ales it lasts 7-14 days on average.  For lagers, much longer, 21-40 days.  Belgian yeasts are also unique organisms and their fermentation can last 14 days to 6 months…yes, I know.  When exactly is it finished? Fermentation is finished

Hitting your target OG (Original Gravity – amount of fermentable sugar in raw wort) correctly is like most things home-brewing, easy to learn about, taking time to get right. The good news is that you have a lot of latitude when brewing beer.  It is your beer; you are the judge and the jury.  If

Mashing is the key that unlocks real beer.  When you make the jump from extract to all-grain brewing you have made a fundamental jump in skill and awareness.  In no way will I detract from the efforts and fine beer made from extract.  For beer hobbyists, it is a fine realm to dwell within. Mashing

I have always used a bottling bucket to transfer my beer more easily to bottles.  It was an old converted plastic fermenter fitted with a spigot and made priming and packaging more streamlined.  Some people prefer minimalist set-ups, so the question remains: do we really need the bottling bucket? Bottling buckets are an easy to

Brewing beer is an adventure from start to finish.  At least that is how I viewed it.  The smallest task is as vital as the largest, most complex.  Such is the case with priming sugar.  We add priming sugar upon packaging to bring life to our beer, bring bubbles and naturally carbonate.  What happens if

The standard batch of home-brewed beer is five gallons.  A question you may ask yourself, is five gallons too much? Can I brew one-gallon batches instead? There are pros and cons to both approaches.  I will guide you through. While Five gallons is the standard size for a batch of homebrew, some choose to go