Basic Brewing Radio

On the last episode of 2008, James and Steve help listeners air their frustrations with the remarks of the uninitiated.

Chris Colby, editor of Brew Your Own magazine, tells us about smoked beers and how to make our own at home.

Michael Tonsmeire, The Mad Fermentationist, leads James, Steve, and Andy through an exercise of blending beers together to create better ones.

We celebrate Thanksgiving week by remembering our beer dinner with the Brett Pack. Join James and Andy for dinner with Adam Avery, Vinnie Cilurzo, Rob Tod, Tomme Arthur, and Sam Calagione.

Home brewer Kai Troester joins us again to take us through his extensive experiments on the factors affecting attenuation in the mash tun.

Chris Colby, editor of Brew Your Own magazine, give us tips on how to build our own kegerator at home. Chris also updates us on the world hop situation.

A collection of short interviews from Denver: David Myers of Redstone Meadery, Pro-Am brewer David Schollmeyer, author Maureen Ogle, and Greg Koch of Stone Brewery.

We talk to home brewers Vickie Watson and Ken Dollar from Mississippi, where home brewing is illegal. We also talk to Mazen Hajjar, owner of the first brewpub in Beirut, Lebanon.

James and Andy get brewing tips from Jake O'Mara from Odell Brewing Company and Taylor Rees and Alan Johnson of Great Divide.

In our first episode back from the Great American Beer Festival, we talk to the winners and runners up in the Sam Adams LongShot competition.

James and Andy sit on the deck, talk about how to take care of homegrown hops at the end of the season, and answer some listener e-mail.

Steve Mazylewski, brewer at The Hog Haus in Fayetteville, Arkansas, sits down with James and Steve to sample his Oktoberfest, Pumpkin Spice Ale and IPA.

Andy Davison, chairman of the Australian National Homebrewing Conference, talks with us about preparations for their inaugural event. Also, Brett Joyce, president of Rogue tells us about their venture into growing hops.

Chris Colby, editor of Brew Your Own magazine, explains the process of sour mashing. Whether you're adjusting pH or making a sour beer, Chris says sour mashing is easy to do.

Home brewer Kai Troester explains the concept of attenuation, the factors that affect it and how we can test the attenuation potential of our wort.

Home brewer John Chubick of Bloomington, Illinois joins us to talk about his homebrew hop dryer, stir plate and temperature controller.

James and Andy try out one of the hop stretching methods explained by Chris Colby on the previous show: steeping hops in a French press coffee maker.

Chris Colby, editor of Brew Your Own magazine, explains some tips on how to get the most out of our precious hops. Also, how to use a French press coffee maker in the process.

Home brewer and coffee roaster Scott Koue of San Francisco joins us to talk about roasting our own coffee. Home roasted coffee can add more creative control into home brewed coffee beers.

This is Fred Johnson's paper comparing fermenter shaking vs aquarium pumps for wort aeration.

Scientist and home brewer Fred Johnson of Apex North Carolina shares his experiment comparing fermenter shaking against aquarium pumping for aeration. Also, advice for cleaning Better Bottles.

We sit down with Mike Dewey of Mt. Carmel Brewing Company in Cincinnati, Ohio - a commercial home-based brewery.

Chris Colby of Brew Your Own Magazine explains the Belgian technique of turbid mashing, which makes the most of limited mash tun space.

Our National Homebrewers Conference coverage from Cincinnati concludes with an interview from Randy Mosher. Randy talks about Belgian beer history and culture he found in a rare book.

Our National Homebrewers Conference coverage from Cincinnati continues. We have interviews with Ant Hayes, Greg Doss, Ray Daniels, Ken Schramm and Craig Ballenger.