Cheers from the Tip of the Mitt

Greetings and salutations from northern Michigan! I'm just getting back into brewing slowly, with mild trepidation, after about a seven-year hiatus (or is that the seven-year itch?). I was a user of the forums here and of BeerSmith back in the day, and I see it has come a long way. In fact, I'd designed the logo and splash screen used on v1 of BeerSmith! Good times...

I brewed my first batch in all those years last weekend, and it's still slowly bubbling away in primary. I was fortunate to get some fresh hops from a local farm, and a yeast harvest from a local nanobrewery (plus they sold me a bag of their base malt, saving significantly on shipping costs!). Nothing fancy--something along the lines of an American Amber with a bit of crystal rye. Despite all those years, my brew day went pretty well, save for a briefly stuck mash; I'm sure I introduced some HSA when I dumped the contents of my MLT, but I'm not going to sweat it. It just felt good to be brewing again.

I'm planning a few other brews in the weeks ahead, like my not-yet-famous buckwheat ale that uses about 35% toasted kasha in the grist and which I'll try fermenting with a Saison yeast. I'm also going to experiment with some SMASH brews (more hops available from the farm, all from a single variety), and after a recent trip to the Bay Area in CA, I became madly infatuated with sour beers of both domestic and foreign origin. There's not much sour beer availability here in northern Michigan, so I'm going to start exploring this for my own. Not sure where to start, but I'm feeling adventurous!

Anyway, it's good to be back and I'm looking forward to being a part of the community again. Cheers!

Welcome back!  I have the same type of wire rack shelving for my MLT and I think I have the same cooler.  I got mine at Lowes.  I also purchased a 55" high wire shelving rack that is three feet long for my top tier.  It's worked wonderfully.

Thanks for the welcome, Scott! The cooler MLT in the picture was the source of a HOWTO article I'd written that appeared on the old Homebrew Adventures "Brewboard" forum; for the past few years I was still occasionally getting emails about it, but it seems to have disappeared. Actually, that forum appears to have all but died, as well...

I'm hoping this winter to take advantage of my neighbor's shop, welding setup and generosity (sometimes it's good living in the sticks!) to build a slightly more robust and permanent brew sculpture. When I last brewed, I had neither a dog nor a 4-year-old running around while I was in the midst of brew day! At least my son now knows cool terms like "mash" and "wort" and has taken an active interest in fermentation ("Ooooh... cool, and gross! Is it beer, daddy?"). One of my first investments will definitely be a wort pump--I found out last week that either my brew kettle full of wort got heavier or I got older, and I'm fairly certain that the laws of physics haven't altered during my brewing hiatus. I'd rather get myself injured as a result of drinking the beer, not making it

cmbrougham said:

after a recent trip to the Bay Area in CA, I became madly infatuated with sour beers of both domestic and foreign origin. There's not much sour beer availability here in northern Michigan, so I'm going to start exploring this for my own.

Click to expand...

First of all welcome!

Second of all I had my first Sour beer at a place in Asheville, NC this spring.  What an awesome pub.  TONS of taps.  Upstairs was all domestic craft.  The downstairs is a Belgian bar, serving only Belgian style beers.  I had a WONDERFUL blackberry sour there.  I might need to look into this myself. 

Welcome back

Mtnmangh said:

Second of all I had my first Sour beer at a place in Asheville, NC this spring.  What an awesome pub.  TONS of taps.  Upstairs was all domestic craft.  The downstairs is a Belgian bar, serving only Belgian style beers.  I had a WONDERFUL blackberry sour there.  I might need to look into this myself.

Click to expand...

I thought you were in Asheville.........Thirsty Monk rocks.  There's a great club there too:  MALT.....http://maltsters.org/

They're also on FB.  Good people. 

http://www.facebook.com/groups/24931508545/

MaltLicker said:

I thought you were in Asheville.........Thirsty Monk rocks. 

Click to expand...

No, I actually reside in the western edge of East TN (right in between Nashville and Knoxville)  Tennessee folk are pretty strange (read proud) about what part they live in.  I wish I was in Asheville.  Awesome town, especially for beer.  One of my favorites was the "Wicked Weed", a relatively new brewery that had tons of different styles.

No kidding.  For a strong beer town, Wicked Weed is on fire.