Colorado Kitchen Brew

It's been five years since my last blog post . I had no idea so much time had passed. It's almost shocking that this site hasn't been turned off by Google to free up server space.  Being laid up at home with a certain thing that made 2020 pretty much the worst year ever is what inspired me to hit the restart button and bring this blog back to life. It's time for more brewing articles that people will hopefully find interesting, helpful, or both. Plus the occasional article that has nothing to do with beer . A lot has changed in five years.  I moved from the mountains to the city, which caused me to drop my old tagline about brewing at 7,734 feet. One kid is in college and the other will be soon, meaning my wife and I are about to become empty nesters. There's also an '81 Chrysler project car in the garage that has a very interesting backstory . My brewing setup also got a bit fancier, although not  too  fancy. This blog did start out focused on brewing without a...

2014 turned into quite the year of transition for me. I went from brewing two times a month to around once every two months. Because of that, my blog has been rather thin since May. That said, I feel I covered some pretty decent ground. The kind folks at Deschutes sent me a bottle opener and a knit cap for my Red Chair clone , which means I must be doing something right. I also had great fun with my Wood Aged Beer adventure. My first Sour emerged too. I realized a while back that the internet is awash in homebrewing websites. With that in mind , much of my effort has gone toward material for my nascent (and not quite ready for prime time)  Buzz Free Brewer  blog. Over there will eventually be a lot of material on non-alcoholic beer that you'll be hard pressed to find on other brewing blogs. This site will live on, however. I have quite the backlog of obscure beer styles to brew and generally off the wall experiments. This site is the perfect space for them. Happy...

There are a lot of Homebrew sites out there vying for people's attention. This one is relatively young, and hasn't exactly been brewing outside the box of the more established sites. That's about to change. Many of my efforts will focus on a new Buzz Free Brewer blog devoted to non-alcoholic homebrew. How's that for thinking outside the box? For those who didn't stop reading at "non-alcoholic", the new site reaches an audience that no other homebrew blog has ever paid much attention to. So head on over and let me know what you think. This site is now devoted to brewing obscure styles like Sahti and Kentucky Common, in additional to truly experimental creations. The first of these brews will be up soon. Until next time, happy brewing.

I'm off on my Honeymoon, so I put CO Kitchen Brew on auto-pilot to publish itself while I'm away. This is the first non-homebrew beer review on my blog and definitely not the last. I can't think of enough good things to say about Taddy Porter. I feel it's the consummate English Porter. It's also one of my gateway beers from the mid 90s that spurred me onto homebrewing. Because of that, it holds a special place in my beer hierarchy. Taddy pours with a deep chocolate brown hue. Its head is tan, firm and stays with the beer. The only weak point is the lack of lace down the glass. My bottle left only tiny patches. The nose is very complex and slightly sweet. Blackberry, dark cherry, chocolate and black grape aromas are nicely mixed. In the mouth, an initial sweetness gives way to perfect sweet/bitter balance. Tastes of bakers chocolate, cherries and black grapes have great interplay. The finish is dry. Some hop bitterness lingers initially, but gives way to a ...

I'm happy to report that I finally found a local homebrew shop that sells the full line of malts from Colorado Malting Company . Boulder Fermentation Supply is my new home for these great local grains. Since they only recently opened up, this is my way of giving them a quick shout-out. I love supporting local businesses, and now I can support two of them at once (three, if you count the fact that BFS shares its space with a bike repair shop). From here on out, you'll see a lot of Colorado grains showing up in my brews. Several of the CMC grains are quite unique. So much so, that their catalog has thrown my 2014 brewing plans a curve. It's led me to amend a 2014 brewing calendar that was drawn up months in advance (I'm a little OCD. Just ask my fiance.). With malted Amaranth, Red Proso Millet (in base, crystal and chocolate, no less), Teff, Sunflower and Buckwheat on the menu, in addition to Cottonwood Smoked Malt, I'm officially open to recipe suggestions...

2013 was a good and busy year. I did a lot of new things that really expanded my brewing knowledge and techniques. Hopefully some of them helped people who've stumbled upon this site. I brewed my first SMaSH Beer, Sour and Wheatwine . New stove-top Mashing techniques were introduced. 2012 beers were revisited after time in the Cellar. Non-Alcoholic beer was also tackled. I even threw in a Clone for good measure. Oh, and I went auto racing , which has little to do with beer (or does it?), but it is my blog, so I can write about what I want to. That's a lot of ground covered in just one year. So where do I go from here? How do I keep things fresh? Thankfully, there are still lots of new things I want to try. More Sours are definitely in order, with a proper Lambic at the top of the list. With that in mind, Turbid Mashing will join my list of stove-top Mashing techniques. More wood aged beers are also in the pipeline. Since my desire to brew Big Beer has waned, ...

I stake no claim to being the Greatest Homebrewer in the World TM . There are plenty of homebrewers out there who have been at this longer than me. They have brewed many a fabulous beer. All I'm doing is showing people how to brew really good beer without taking out a second mortgage. A simple setup , proper sanitation and practice, practice, practice are all it takes. Having admitted I'm not an AHA master, I like the beers I brew (with the exception of this one anyway). Some beers come out better than others , but I have yet to dump a batch. In addition, I've made plenty of friends and colleagues happy. With the backstory out of the way, I'd like to focus on what I call the Freshness Factor. Over the years, I've reviewed several kegs worth of beers on Beer Advocate . Since I returned to brewing, a pattern has emerged. The scores I give now are generally lower than what I used to give. I don't think this means I've suddenly become a BJCP...

I was wandering through the liquor store the other day and noticed just how inexpensive 30-Packs (a.k.a. Suitcases) of really cheap beers are. Especially if they're on sale. I've seen some suitcases for as low as $13 before tax. That's roughly 43 cents per beer. Call me insane, but I became curious. Could I go to my local homebrew store and buy the ingredients to brew my own beer of similar strength for the same price, or less? Saving cash is part of this blog's ongoing theme , so I had to find out. To meet my challenge, I decided to think light (not Lite). No big Belgians or Barleywines here. A refreshing, mildly hopped and easy to brew Blonde Ale should do the trick. The prices below are what my local homebrew store charges, rather than the absolute lowest prices I can find. Usually to get discounts, you have to buy in bulk. Since there are no grains that I use an entire sack of in a year, or hops that I need a pound or more of, I didn't pursue that route. ...

After a night of pretty decent sleep, it was time for the final day of the 24 Hours of LeMons 2013 B.F.E. Gran Prix . Sunday started out well enough. The car fired right up and sounded much better than the night before. All those fixes must have done the trick. I was first up to drive. On the second warmup lap there was a loud pop, followed by a clang. The tractor sound was back. Our spare bolt and J-B Weld exhaust manifold "fix" had obviously failed. Thankfully, the car was still revving freely. As long as I had power, I could handle the extra noise from the exhaust. After Saturday's timid approach at the wheel, I got the confidence up to be much more aggressive. I trusted my tires and was holding my own in the curves. The power was enough to pull away from people in the straights. A white Toyota and I were going at it pretty good for a few laps. He was catching me in the corners, but my power kept him from passing when the course straightened out. It ...

LeMons Day One was both terrifying and exhilarating. None of us had ever been on this, or any other track. Other than getting to walk it Friday night with homebrew in hand, we had no idea what we were really up against. No matter. At 10:15am, our Team Captain was out there, surrounded by 61 other cars, driving a track he'd never been around, in a car that hadn't gone further than around the block in who knows how long. What could possibly go wrong? His stint went remarkably well. The car was humming along and lap times were more than respectable. The "massaged" engine, combined with sticky tires and light weight made our car one of the fastest ones out there. Plus, due to the inevitable breakdowns that happen with terrible cars, the field had already thinned. Lining up to hit the track. Our first trip to the Judges. Driver two was less lucky. His times were good, but he went off the track, resulting in our first Black Flag. It was off to the J...

The Judges rule that we cheated! The Friday before a LeMons race involves the Tech and BS Inspections . Tech inspection is pretty straight forward. Your safety gear is checked out and the car is given a general inspection to make sure nothing is too terribly wrong with it. Our car passed with flying colors. The BS Inspection was where things got interesting. We had to convince the race Judges that we really did only spend $500 on our car. That clean and shinny engine bay with all those new looking parts? That was really just the result of diligent prep work! We never would have broken the budget by installing new belts, gaskets and hoses! Our Badge of Honor. The Judges didn't buy it and slapped us with two penalties. The first was sticking our group of rank amateurs into the fastest racing class. Welcome to Class A, the land of BMWs , Porsches , Mazda RX-7s and other performance cars. Our dreams of beating up on AMCs and a Checker Cab were vanquished. We were also ...

I interrupt this homebrewing blog to talk about endurance racing! For some unknown reason (that definitely involved beer), I was convinced to join several of my colleagues in an automotive endurance race. Well, not exactly your typical endurance race. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Unless; of course, you find racing $500 cars that should never be allowed near a racetrack to be a good idea. The race I'm talking about was the 2013 B.F.E. Gran Prix at Colorado's High Plains Raceway . It's part of the riveting 24 Hours of LeMons race series. The original endurance race for $500 cars. To use the organizers' own words, "It's not just an oxymoron; it's a breeding ground for morons." The car under construction. Of course, you can't just grab any old beater, get it running and throw it on the track. There's a lot to do before hand. Believe it or not, the organizers want you to be safe out there. That means the car needs a pro...

I've decided to make a change with how I handle my Out of the Bottle articles. As much as I like to bloviate about my beers, I feel it will be much more useful to present tasting notes from the family and friends who actually drink them. Some of them are craft beer aficionados. Others are perfectly happy with one of the Big Three on a hot day. Of course, I drink my beer too and will continue to give my thoughts. However, I feel hearing what others have to say is much more useful to me and hopefully to readers. I recall hearing a quote from Michael Jackson a few years back about how brewers should brew beer that they’re passionate about. For homebrewers, that’s great advice. I’m not a huge American IPA fan, so I rarely brew one. On the other hand, I’m obsessed with Trappist beers and frequently experiment with them. Mr Jackson's advice is all well and good. But to me, brewing is more than just following my passions. That’s because I see beer as a very soci...

The weather is getting progressively warmer and I'm officially suffering from what I call "Big Beer Burnout." Although Colorado's spate of April snowstorms provided cold nights of inspiration for bottles of warming Barleywine , Quad and Tripel , I'm ready to shift gears to lighter beers. Heavy, alcohol-laden brews have officially fallen off my radar. I have quite a few of my big beers left that I can store in the cellar until Winter. I'll drink and write Out of the Cellar blogs about them when the cold returns. With that in mind, nearly two cases of my big beers from this year and last have been boxed up and put into cool storage. Unfortunately, this leads me to my latest dilemma: bottles. A few months ago I recycled a huge quantity of them. The reason I did it, is because I had just re-inherited several cases of old-school returnable and swing-top bottles from my brother. I figured that with those in the fold, I was never, ever going to fill every bot...

Yes, that's really me. I've had a lot of fun writing this blog for the last eight months or so. A lot of ground has been covered, but there's much left to do. My New Year's resolution is to take my brewing to a new level (which I imagine is the goal of all homebrewers). Drew Beechum's "Brewing on the Ones" article in the November/December 2012 issue of Zymurgy has inspired me to start experimenting with the SMaSH (Single Malt/Single Hop) brewing technique. My goal behind trying SMaSH is to get a better handle on what impact individual ingredients have on my beers. This is because it can be challenging for me to tell exactly what's doing what in a beer with six grains, six hops and a blend of yeast strains. Of course, I'll also pop out the more adventurous brews too. But my focus will definitely be on doing more with less this year. In addition to the new beers, you can expect more brewing advice gleaned from my experiences and those of fe...

Welcome to Colorado Kitchen Brew. This site is inspired by my quest to brew great beers economically, using simple setups that anyone with a little time on their hands can duplicate. Over time, I will cover brewing all-grain and partial mash beers on the stove-top, growing hops, making your own specialty grains, culturing yeast and anything else I, or my friends come up with. "In the Fermentor" articles will chronicle the fruits of my kitchen adventures. "Out of the Bottle" provides tasting notes on the finished products. Reviews of commercial brews will pop up from time to time as well. I hope anyone who stumbles upon this site enjoys what I have to offer.