I too want to get my brewing in line with household consumption. That sure as hell doesn’t mean brewing less. I love when I have enough homebrew and my returnable bin takes months instead of a week to fill up.
My first goal for 2017 is to finish the kitchen cabinet I started in August so I can get my brewery/shop cleaned up to brew.
My second goal is to find a brewing schedule that fits in the rest of my schedule to brew more regularly. Right now I tend have a lot of “Dang it, I have to get something brewed to keep beer on tap” and knock out 4 or 6 batches and then not see my kettle for 4-6 months.
Pretty vague, I know, but it’s all I’ve got right now. My son is employed as a Civil Eng now, my oldest daughter is doing her student teaching and I’ve got one in college and one in high school yet. I can see a light at the end of the tunnel now at least. 8^)
Paul
Mine is to buy Brewing classic styles and keep it simple.
Also get a chiller and a pH meter.[emoji41]
Actually Pete, I want to brew more often, just smaller batches. I only had like 8 brew days in 2016. So hoping for monthly brewing of 3-6 gallons rather than the 6-10 I did for most of 2016
I was just joking that I can’t seem to keep up with consumption.
Gotcha. I could probably keep up if I would quit buying special local releases
After about 3 1/2 years of obsessing on brewing, then a few months of stepping back, still brewing but not obsessing… this year I’m going to work on balance. Brew when I want and what I want, fish when I want, ride my Harley when I want… adding in a dash of gardening, bbqing, noodling around on stringed instruments, camping, checking out the total eclipse etc.
I’m glad I went crazy on brewing and learned what I learned, but now I’m enjoying just enjoying it.
Man, that sounds great. Glad to see you back here posting also, Jim.
I’m not typically a resolutions kind of person, but I guess if I had to come up with some, for brewing, that is, I’d choose to keep it simple, brew the styles I love the most, still working on honing in my low oxygen brewing process while not stressing too much about it, and just brewing because it’s fun, not because I have to to keep beer on tap.
Do you have a barrel in mind or already purchased? If not, a simple solera can easily be created using a carboy instead. Just a lot smaller volume obviously.
Yes. I took my step back last year and then again this past summer. It’s a wonderful hobby, but balance is key. I miss fishing (in fact I didn’t buy a license this year), so that’s also a goal of mine for next year.
We’re planning on moving states in 2018 so my goals for 2017 mostly involve winding down my current brewing and using the ingredients I have on hand without buying much more. I’d rather move beer than grain so I’ll have something to drink while getting settled into a new living environment.
My 2017 beers will mostly be dialing in working with my mixed saison culture, brewing a little more spontaneously fermented beers (very early 2017), a few more sour beers and a handful of hoppy beers to exhaust some of the hops in the freezer.
To what region are you moving?
Mine is to try and turn over my ingredients more efficiently - i.e. not over order when placing orders online.
My resolution is to brew more and continue to refine my system and my practices. I’ve already jumped the gun on my usual annual upgrades, adding temperature controllers to my FVs. I am trying to use my past notes and experiences, more, to understand what it is I am trying to accomplish with a recipe, or a change. I would also like to find more ways to share my results, especially since my output is starting to outpace my ability to enjoy and those of my usual recipients of gifts and bottle shares. I am kind of on the fence about more competitions, mostly because I’ve found it hard enough to schedule my brewing and packaging days without taking an arbitrary submission deadline into account.
We’d love to hear you Brew Year’s resolutions for the podcast! Call 626.765.1ALE…leave your name and a 15-20 second message about your resolution and it may end up on the show!
Getting supply in line with consumption sounds like a good idea. I’ll see you guys in 2030.
I actually started doing this last year. I used to buy lots of sacks of different grains all the time simply becuause I like to brew a huge variety of beer styles and I would tailor each recipe to the countries origin for grain usage.
Many times I would end up not finishing the sack fully and waste some of it as I felt it was not as fresh as it possibly could be for brewing.
Now, I just buy enough for a few recipes in advance and make sure that all of the grains get used. Less waste, more beer.
May have solved the problem by throwing out the supercrappy manometer. If confirmed I will enjoy a resolution-free 2017.
If an obsession exists this year it will probably be fishing. I have both washington and Oregon license, and I recently got into fly fishing. In particular, two handed spey casting Skagit heads, swinging flies for stealhead. So far no fish but at least I’ve gotten to where I can cast the thing lol. With January coming i am looking forward to the winter runs on the Hood and Washougal.
Oh man, you are in some prime location for that! Lucky man.