August 2023

It’s August and the heat is on. Enjoy a good summer fermentation, whether it be a hoppy IPA, a glass of rosé, or a nice crisp lager. And, if you haven’t, it’s time to start thinking about brewing your Oktoberfest!

Monthly Meeting

• Date: August 19th

• Time: 11 am – 12 pm

• Location: Old 121

• Address: 1057 S Wadsworth Blvd, Lakewood, CO 80226

This month we’ll go over two different brewing programs commonly used by brewers for recipe development, BeerSmith and Grainfather.  To do this, we’ll create two recipes on the fly and go over some of the functionality of the programs, including:

• Basic features

• Equipment profile

• Water profile

• Adding the recipe

  • Malt

  • Hops

  • Yeast

• Adjusting the mash pH

• And other tricks we’ve learned

We’ll take an interactive journey together, so don’t hesitate to ask questions along the way!

LFC Tumblers Fundraiser

Do you want to help us do even more great fermentation stuff and have  you seen the LFC tumblers? They’re so rad! These are for sale and available for purchase at the meeting! Paid Member fee is $30/tumbler and non-paid member (including for a plus 1) fee is $40/tumbler. 

September 2023 Quarterly Challenge

Our next challenge is a good one! It’s a Food Pairing challenge - an excellent opportunity to look beyond beer to flex those fermentation muscles.  For details and how to enter, please go to our website by clicking here. You’ll have to brew fast if you haven’t done so already but there is still time!

GABF

As a club let’s go to the member session together, it is September 23rd from 12- 4pm. We’ll have specific meet up details in our September Newsletter…

Education Corner

As we start a fermentation, a primary (or first) fermentation vessel is used during the initial fermentation, this usually lasts a few days. Older homebrew literature discusses moving fermentations to a secondary fermenter, to move beer off of yeast and trub. The thought being getting the fermentation off of this will help the fermentation clear faster and not extract off flavors.  But is this necessary?

Today, we have healthier yeast than we did 25 years ago and leaving a fermentation in the primary vessel for a few weeks is not as concerning. We’ve grown in our knowledge of processes as home brewers.  A huge example being, with every transfer, off flavor development from oxygen exposure or contamination is risked. So before you transfer from a primary, ask yourself if it is worth the risk and is the transfer needed?  So often it isn’t.

Yet, there are reasons to use a secondary. For example, in wine making, moving to secondary and tertiary fermenters is often used for clarifying and aging. Another example, for beer, racking to a secondary for fruit or aging is a good practice. Happy fermenting!!