Like many, I have Mr Palmer and Mr Conn to thank for my “expertise”. Recently I’ve been refining my mash and sparge techniques. Someone had planted the thought that frequently stirring would increase efficiency. Seemed to make sense. Then Denny suggested the max fun, max quality, max effective way of only stirring at dough in. By golly, it’s true. My last brew was an IPA, 12# Washington Select, 1 1/2# Munich, 1 1/2# crystal 40, mashed in 6 gallons at 154° for 90 min. Vorlauff was beautiful with maybe three little grain chunks coming through. Efficiency was 80%, which it 10 higher than I usually get.
Whenever I think through a homebrew issue - I invariably say to myself, what would Denny do? Which generally leads me to the most pragmatic approach! I have generally simplified steps in my brew day and overcome issues easily (at times at least). And Jim, your posts have been good ones, too. We are lucky to enjoy this hobby - my wife thinks its great, which helps (I’m home a lot more than the golfers in my neighborhood who chase a ball around a course all weekend long and then stop by my house for beer!)
Well thanks. I’ve had a short and steep learning curve. A combo of listening to everyone, a grain of salt here and there, trying anything once… Its fun to share what we learn.
Yes, a huge thanks to Denny! I have learned so much not just from him, but from everybody on this forum. This membership is probably the most valuable brewing tool I own. I hope that every now and again I pay it forward and give somebody some positive advice. There’s good people and good advice here! Cheers!
I started brewing back in the stone age…about the same time as Denny and remember him from the amazing new internet technology and the stone cool HBD. I loved the camaraderie of the club I belonged to then, but life got busy and I gave up brewing in '95. We later retired, moved to Or. and I was able to start brewing again in '08. Though there was no real local club where I live, Eugene was only and hour away and I decided to check out the club there. I came armed with all my old style guides,etc. to help with a local contest judging.
Guess who the first person to introduce themselves was…Yes indeedy… The legendary Denny. He looked at my binder of stuff and said, “Throw that away. If you haven’t brewed in that long, it’s a whole new world.”
Man was he right. The amount of knowledge available now is phenomenal…let alone the access to amazing ingredients, both in variety and quality. There has never been a better time to be a homebrewer.
Back then you were kind of considered a social deviant. Today you can actually come close to achieving god/goddess status and are surely the most popular person in your neighborhood.
With all of it’s attributes and advances, one thing remains the same. Homebrewers are the best people on the planet. There are Dennys (well not quite) in clubs all over, that bend over backwards to promote homebrewing and help new comers feel welcome and comfortable asking questions. If you’re new in town,
join the HB club. You’ll find lots of new friends in no time. Traveling across country or even out of the counttry? Bet someone on the forum would be happy to join you for a pint.
Denny, I raise a glass to you and to all the Dennys who go by other names. Thanks to all for your friendship and assistance.
Live long, prosper and go forth and multiply.
Cheers!
I guess I’ll pile on, too. I’m an all grain brewer BECAUSE of Denny Conn. I regularly sell the merits of the the Cheap-N-Easy method to newer brewers in our club, or brewers looking to move from extract to all grain. I also often ask myself “what would Denny do?” Maybe we need to make spiffy “WWDD” wristbands. The hitch would be deciding what color they’d be. Deep chocolate like BVIP? “Waldo Lake” amber? I think they’d better be “tie dye.”
Hmm? I needed an experienced brewer that used a reasonably scientific method and brewed a lot, when I was gathering data on mash pH for the Bru’n Water model. Guess who I called?
Denny was our go-to source for the Introduction to All-Grain video series. If it wasn’t for Denny, we would have been using a red picnic cooler like a bunch of fools.
Unfortunately for me, I learned all the bad brewing practices on my own before I even heard of Denny, so I don’t have a blue cooler or any other color cooler for that matter. I’m stuck doing fly sparges on a modified SABCO system. If I had only known.
I fly sparged for years and, after finding a link to the Cheap n Easy site through one of the forums, found out about batch sparging . I was blown away by the common sense simplicity of the process. I bought the mandatory blue Extreme and never looked back. If Cheap n Easy had been around when I started brewing ('92ish) I think I wouldn’t have wasted the first few batches on extract with grains. What literature there was in the day almost discouraged or tried to intimidate people from going AG. Denny did just the opposite - he cut through the BS and showed you how easy it is.
Not only is Denny a fount of wisdom, but he epitomizes the best of the homebrewing community. I started homebrewing back in '09 when I was a “fish out of water” in a part of the country that just wasn’t a good fit for me and my better half. I found myself welcomed by the members of the local homebrew club (and also the awesome LHBS). No matter what else you believed, you were welcome if you believed “malted barley wants to become beer.” Now in NorCal I occasionally rub elbows with plaid-clad hipster homebrewers, and you know, they’re cool folk too (though not really any cooler!). But people like Denny are thought leaders, and his warm welcome to all who practice the hallowed zymurgical arts, and his generous and kind nature, set the pace for everyone else.
Since I am by nature frugal, (wife calls me cheap); a few years ago when I Googled “cheap all grain brewing” Denny’s page was one of the first entries. He has been relegated to the second page now, I suspect from all those ‘late to the party’.
