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Lots of New Stuff at Homebrew Dad!

Posted by homebrewdad on 11/17/2014 at 02:55:14 PM

 

This last week was, quite honestly, a really good one for Homebrew Dad.  There are a lot of exciting things going on, and I'd like to share with you some of the irons that are currently in the fire.

First off, I have been contacted by Homebrew Talk and asked to write a guest article for them.  I'll admit that I thought about this one for a bit; I do tend to focus my creative energies on this site, and for some reason (six kids, two jobs), I don't have a ton of free time.  However, being asked to contribute to the largest online homebrewing resource is no small thing, so in the end, I decided to accept.  I'm going to be doing an article for them focused around recipe creation; this will mostly be about my own process, which is a mixture of art, science, and instinct.  Hopefully, it will be well received... but if not, feel free to mock away!


Next up, I got an email from the folks up at JaDeD Brewing who wanted to know if I would be interested in demoing one of their award winning wort chillers.  Well, I had to really think long and hard... I'm kidding.  I couldn't send an enthusiastic response email quickly enough!

Their only request was that I follow their tips on optimizing the chilling process, and that I write an honest review of my experience.  Considering that I was happy to do the same for the Omega PHH-7011 pH meter (which I did "just because" - I had already bought the meter), and considering that I was eyeballing one of the JaDeD chillers as a future upgrade (perhaps a Christmas present?), I was obviously delighted at this opportunity.

My brand new Hydra arrived at my house on Friday, and will be employed this Saturday as I brew my take on Hofbrau's amazing Oktoberfest.  Look for my review the following Monday (or so).  And since this will be a decoction mash, look for a tale of another comically long brewday by me.


Then, as you may be aware, I released my own Yeast Starter Calculator utility here on the site, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive.  Not to toot my own horn, but let me toot my own horn for a moment - I feel like this calculator is already the very best of its kind anywhere on the internet.  Do you overbuild starters (i.e. intentionally make your starters bigger than needed so as to save some off for future brews)?  If so, the calculator will account for that, and tell you exactly how much starter wort to save to hit your desired overbuild cell count. 

Do you do lagers, or need multi step starters?  The calculator will factor in your flask size and figure those multiple steps for you automatically - up to four total steps. 

But it's not done yet - I've had several requests for new features, and have already built three of them in.  There's more to come!


Finally, I was contacted over the weekend by a gentleman from the UK who is starting up a brand new blog devoted to achieving the perfect homebrewed kolsch.  He wondered if I would be open to a guest post or two from him, as well as an ongoing symbiotic relationship between our sites.  Obviously, his content will be of interest to a decent chunk of my readers, so I let him know that I'd be more than happy to do this.  After all, I envision a day where any Homebrew Dad member can post their own blog entries whenever they see fit, and I'm perfectly fine with people linking to their own standalone blogs; I feel like doing so will do nothing but improve the community, overall.


Well, there you have it.  There are a lot of great things coming up here at Homebrew Dad.  Stay tuned!





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Tags for this post: upcoming, news, homebrewtalk, JaDeD, hydra, yeast starter calculator, blog, partnership, homebrewing

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