Messages

61

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: To Share or Not to Share

« on: September 14, 2012, 09:32:51 am »

I'm happy to share.  If I know a function is coming up at work and I'm brewing something soon... I'll just throw an extra 5 gallons of it into a fermenter/keg and serve it at the party.  It's cheap when you buy ingredients in bulk, people love it, and it's fun educating those interested in knowing more about it or homebrewing.  Over the past few years, I've dispelled many myths and turned a coworker onto the hobby.  No need to horde, I can easily make more.  Of course, I often run into the "have too much beer" category because I enjoy making it so much that supply easily outstrips household demand.   

62

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: BJCP On-Line Exam - did you finish?

« on: September 12, 2012, 02:41:35 pm »

I took it at lunch while at work, on a whim, with no reference materials....and just barely squeeked by.  I thought I was done, and then had a few unanswered questions *that I thought I had answered*...my intent was to fail to get an understanding of what they were asking, but I passed by the hair on my chinny chin chin (as they say).

The wording of such entrance exams are designed to throw you off....after all, it is beer nerds testing you to see if you are worthy of being in the club.

The real challenge is finding a testing slot within a 12 month window.  I have one in March 2013 *I think, and I tested just after the opening of the new on-line exam in April 2012.  There are at least 5 exams scheduled in my area in the next 12 months, and to my knowledge, I got the last slot.  I even checked my old home town (fly to test) and the 3 or 4 scheduled in the next year were also booked.

That is the biggest problem with the BJCP exam process.  I want to study,take, and pass the online test. But..why if there are no testing slots in the major metro area I live in (Los Angeles)?  I can travel either 3-4 hours south or 5-6 hours north and "maybe" find an open slot.   Seems like a major headache...just so somebody can wave a wand over my head and say "you are a beer judge".  Yet everytime there is a comp..they are hurting for judges and will take just about anyone.

I totally agree with what you are saying about the lack of slots in LA.  I plan on taking the online test soon, but just to see where I stand on knowledge.  I've pretty much given up on the thought of taking the next level of exams due to lack of availability.  If something pops up for me, great... but otherwise, I can live without it.  I'm hoping that the online exam is only a small part of the testing overhaul, and that they will iron out the rest eventually.

63

Zymurgy / Re: We need your brew dog photos!

« on: June 15, 2012, 09:45:16 am »

Buddy says, "Cheers".

64

Equipment and Software / Re: GIve Up on ProMash??

« on: June 07, 2012, 09:30:07 am »

I finally gave up when BeerSmith 2.0 came out.  Probably won't go back unless a new version really knocks my socks off and offers more than BeerSmith.

65

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: What's Brewing This Weekend - 5/25 Edition

« on: May 25, 2012, 12:08:32 pm »

Local brew pub is doing an event at the end of June where the brewer gave out the recipe for an IPA and is asking people in our club to brew it and bring some in for a big group comparison.  I'll be making that this weekend.

66

Equipment and Software / Re: Re: Beersmith recipe Cloud

« on: May 17, 2012, 08:28:24 am »

You could also keep your recipes on a free cloud service like Google drive.  How many recipes does 5GB store?   

+1
 In addition to the recipes, I run my BeerSmith software using the Gdrive directory for the database files. This allows me to work with my equipment profiles on multiple machines. Uploading equipment profiles to the BeerSmith cloud does not appear to be an option at this time.

Kyle


~Sent through this great digital frontier using my Dinc.

+1... I do the same thing with DropBox.  It allows me to access everything and update my inventory from any computer. 

I wish he had designed his cloud to work that way that instead.  Couple that functionality with a mobile app and I'd consider throwing $14/year his way.  As is, he really hasn't offered me any functionality in the BeerSmith cloud that I don't already have for free with DropBox.

67

Zymurgy / Re: What's number 1 on your brewer bucket list?

« on: May 14, 2012, 09:31:17 am »

I would really like one of my beers to win BOS in a competition.

68

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: What's Brewing This Weekend - 5/11 Edition

« on: May 09, 2012, 11:12:53 am »

Brewing a Doppelbock this weekend.

69

Equipment and Software / Re: faucet locks

« on: May 08, 2012, 09:13:22 am »

My future plans are to return to using picnic taps, push them inside the keezer and I already have the hasp installed for the pad lock.

That's probably the easiest, cheapest, and most effective solution.  It also allows you to easily hook up lines to the faucets for a party if you want to.

70

Equipment and Software / Re: faucet locks

« on: May 07, 2012, 09:00:53 am »

You'll need to put a lock on the kegerator door if you want the faucet locks to have any chance at working.  Otherwise, they'll likely figure out pretty quickly that they can just open the lid and get into the keg with a picnic tap.

71

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: 1st round NHC results

« on: May 04, 2012, 08:47:54 am »

If your life long goal is to win a medal (or ninkasi) then you will be there to sign up for it. ITS THAT SIMPLE.

Damn straight. If someone isn't willing to take a day off work to enter the NHC, they probably aren't a very good brewer anyway.

Why would you need to take a day off of work?  I thought there were available sites to enter for a few days?

72

Beer Recipes / Re: Brewing 'to the comp'

« on: May 02, 2012, 09:44:13 am »

I also entered an all ivanhoe hop rye IPA and got decent scores (low 30's) and both judges were very up front about the fact that while the beer was technically very good, no off flavours or other faults, they did not score it as highly as they might have because they didn't care for the particular character of that hop. This is fine, it was cat 23 so I suspect subjective measures make a huge difference there. but in a more specific category, cat 9 for instance, it seems like there should be a lot less room for that and blind tasting the commercial examples would provide some measure of that bias.

I find the "judge doesn't prefer that type of hop" result annoying.  i had my blond ale dinged because the judges didn't like the hop selection.  The comments specifically told me to try a different hop next time.  I could understand if I was using an English hop in an American style or something, but that wasn't the case.  The judge just seemed to not like it.  That kind of feedback does me no good since others like the flavor, including the judges that gave it a gold medal at another comp I sent it to.  LOL

73

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: 1st round NHC results

« on: April 27, 2012, 11:27:36 am »

I hope that guy won something, it's almost 5% of the total entries for the region!

I heard there was a dude in texas that entered there with 70+ entries!

 

74

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Swift kick to the nuts!

« on: April 24, 2012, 09:46:04 am »

Last year I had a porter that got beat to hell at the OC County Fair... it then took a Gold Medal at the LA County Fair.  It got a decent score at another comp as well.  Same batch, bottled on the same day.  I have to assume that either the OC County Fair got a bad bottle or there was a mix-up.  Honestly, the feedback was so far off the others and what my wife and I could detect in the beer that we still believe there was a bottle mix-up during the judging at the OC County Fair.  LOL

This was the most extreme case of differences, but I've seen many other small cases of it.  I try to enter 3 or 4 comps with the same beer to get a good evaluation.

75

Kegging and Bottling / Re: last 1/5 of keg foams

« on: April 10, 2012, 04:52:24 pm »

It's pretty common at my house that the last couple of quarts will be very foamy, but I don't know why.  It's not nearly the last gallon though., just the last few pints.

Same here.  I kinda like it, actually.  It lets me know the keg is about to blow.