Embrace Homebrewing with Michael Tonsmeire – BeerSmith Podcast #124

by Brad Smith on April 15, 2016 · 1 comment

BSRadioMichael Tonsmeire, the Mad Fermentationist, joins me this week to talk about embracing homebrewing and shares many of the advantages that home brewers enjoy versus professional beer brewers.

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Topics in This Week’s Episode (52:39)

  • Today on the show Michael Tonsmeire, the author of the book “American Sour Beers” (Amazon affiliate link), and author of the “Mad Fermentationist” blog at TheMadFermentationist.com. Michael has been on the show four times before, most recently in episode #95 discussing Home Brewing Secrets.
  • We discuss some of the new projects Michael has been working on
  • Michael introduces the concept behind his presentation – embracing things that home brewers can do that are not feasible or in some cases even allowed for professional brewers
  • He starts with the idea of blending wine and spirits with beer – either in the keg or mixing beer with other drinks when you drink them
  • We discuss how breweries can’t easily blend wine/mead into their beers making things like Braggot
  • Michael walks us through how you can concentrate your beer to get a higher alcohol content by freezing it and removing the ice (as is done with an Eisbock)
  • We discuss alternatives to hops including a variety of traditional spices
  • Michael explains why you should “embrace inefficiency” – in that homebrewers often are not as efficient as pro systems but can also use that to their advantage
  • We talk about going outside the BJCP style guidelines to try new ideas in brewing that may not be popular or cost effective
  • Michael explains why home brewers can create beers that really would not be commercially feasible for pro brewers
  • He closes with the one area he believes home brewers can really learn from the pros – and that is specialization in one area of brewing

Sponsors

Thanks to Michael Tonsmeire for appearing on the show and also to you for listening!

iTunes Announcements: I launched a new video channel for the BeerSmith podcast on iTunes, so subscribe now! At the moment it will only feature the new widescreen episodes (#75 and up). Older episodes are available on my revamped Youtube channel. Also all of my audio episodes are on iTunes now – so grab the older episodes if you missed any.

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