Mary Izett, author of the new book “Speed Brewing” joins me this week to discuss rapid brewing of all grain beer as well as mead, cider, Buch and Kefir beer. She provides some great tips on how to create a variety of fermented beverages on a short time scale.
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Topics in This Week’s Episode (40:18)
- Mary Izett, author of the new book “Speed Brewing” (Amazon affiliate link) joins me this week to discuss how to brew beer faster as well as ways for making a large number of other light fermented beverages including mead, cider, Boozy Buch and Kefir beer. Mary is a nationally ranked BJCP beer judge, former President of the nYC Homebrewer’s Guild and co-host of the “Fuhmentaboutit” live weekly show on the Heritage radio network.
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- We start with a discussion about what speed brewing is and what Mary is really trying to cover in her new book
- We discuss the merits of speed brewing vs conventional brewing techniques
- Mary introduces chapter 1-2 which cover ingredients, equipment and speed brewing beer using Brew-in-a-bag (BIAB) techniques
- She shares some tips for getting a beer out the door more quickly while still producing a drinkable, refreshing result
- Mary talks about how to make “short mead” or a lighter mead that can be fermented out rapidly
- We discuss some of the differences between brewing beer and making mead
- In Chapter 4 her book covers rapidly making cider – which can be done relatively quickly since apple sugars are highly fermentable
- We discuss how to rapidly produce a good tasting cider
- She introduces Boozy Buch and Kefir Beer which are very low alcohol beverages that can be done very quickly
- We also cover Sodas and how you can make both conventional soda and low alchohol sodas to enjoy rapidly
- Mary wraps up with a discussion of a few other fermented beverages from around the world
- We discuss her radio show “Fuhmentaboutit” which is available on the Heritage Network
- Mary shares her closing thoughts
Thanks to Mary Izett for appearing on the show and also to you for listening!
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3.5 hours is short?? I do half batch all grain BIAB and can be done in 80-85 minutes if you stay on schedule. 10m to get the water to mash temp (mill while it’s heating), 20m mash (85% eff if you stir at 10m), 25m heat till flameout (about 18-20m of that is boil, clean while boiling, start rehydrating yeast at FO), 5m rest, 10-15m chill, then pitch and 10m to clean up. No DMS (myth on the homebrew scale), no infections, tastes wonderful.
Loved the episode – got some ideas for some new types of brewing… My wife and I make Kefir (traditional milk Kefir) on the counter and have for a couple of years now and since one of the primary cultures in the Kefir grain is lactobacillus, I’ve been wondering if I could use the grains to sour a small beer batch. This certainly gives me some very interesting ideas on how I might use this constantly reproducing resource! That said, has anyone had experience with using Kefir grains to sour a beer?