I’ve been brewing for a number of years and over that time I’ve developed several specific interests. One interest is related to methods of understanding and improving the brewing process.<\/p>\n
I’ve always been a science-oriented person.\u00a0 I like being systematic. Consequently, when I brew something, I like to brew in a series of steps during which each step is only one change away from some standard. It may take quite a few brews to be able to arrive at the end product that I desire.\u00a0 A few years ago, I spent a LOT of time working on a Bavarian-style weissbier.\u00a0 I experimented with different grain bills and yeasts to arrive at what I was shooting for.\u00a0 When several people told me that the weissbier tasted identical to what they had consumed while in Germany, I felt like I had accomplished my goal of brewing a quality product, but it took a while to get there.<\/p>\n
I am fascinated by yeast.\u00a0 It is quite amazing what those little buggers can do! One of my “Medieval” interests in yeast is the transition from thermo-tolerant strains to the cryro-tolerant strains in the 15th or 16th century (depending on who you reference!). I find it interesting to consider what the beer might have tasted like during that transition.\u00a0 Also, how did this transition transpire? Did cryro-tolerant yeast arrive in Bavaria from an outside source?\u00a0 There has been some very cool (pun intended) research on this latter possibility that has shown up in the literature recently. [I’ll be writing more about this soon!]<\/p>\n
I am also interested in the unusual. This is probably the reason I became interested in a digestif called Nocino. This drink with purported Medieval roots (I’m working on finding Period references) is made from unripe walnuts (hull and all!). Modern Nocino usually has a variety of spices, herbs, citrus zest, and other ingredients combined with the quartered walnuts and steeped in a neutral spirit. It is an acquired taste!\u00a0 I’ve been experimenting with several different ingredients and I have a project planned for this spring that will involve steeping the ingredients in several different liquids, not all of which are neutral. [More on this in a later post.]<\/p>\n
Finally, I brew the occasional mead (I have a preference for metheglins), concoct several cordials, and cook up many different styles of beer.\u00a0 So, feel free to follow my blog and leave comments and questions!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’ve been brewing for a number of years and over that time I’ve developed several specific interests. One interest is related to methods of understanding and improving the brewing process. I’ve always been a science-oriented person.\u00a0 I like being systematic. …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brewing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5IN7p-1p","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socpsy.com\/casks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socpsy.com\/casks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socpsy.com\/casks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socpsy.com\/casks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socpsy.com\/casks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.socpsy.com\/casks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104,"href":"https:\/\/www.socpsy.com\/casks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87\/revisions\/104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socpsy.com\/casks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socpsy.com\/casks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socpsy.com\/casks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}