Big Bang Brewery

Next weekend, we will be brewing a new version of one of our recurring beers! Dark Matter is our Belgian Dark Strong Ale aged on currants. Dark Energy will be our BDS recipe aged instead on local dates from the Ojai Farmers Market!... As an added bonus (or perhaps challenge), we hope to finally achieve rock-solid mash temperature control by running our brand new RIMS system! It's sure to be an exciting brew day! Stay tuned for pictures and, perhaps, rants!

Yesterday, we brewed up a Marzen, since Oktoberfest is just around the corner! The problem is it's just so dang warm, and our fermenter is so large, that getting the wort down to 50 for primary just wasn't in the cards for yesterday. We are delaying pitch until this evening, when we hope that our wort will be at temperature. In the meantime, WTB better chilling solutions!

Sunday brewday! Hefeweizen comin' at ya

Sunday Brewday! 11 gallons of Berliner Weisse comin' atcha. After coffee.

Incoming: Upgrade. Goodbye forever to impossible-to-clean carboys, to the hazardous and often imprecise splitting of yeast prior to pitching, to the surprisingly inexact science of dividing 11 gallons of wort evenly between two fermenters. Hello to sexy, shiny, easy-to-clean stainless.... The only question that remains to us is this: What beer shall we brew for the inauguration of our new 14 gallon brewbucket?

Today is the anniversary of the first time I (Dave) ever brewed anything. On this day in 2011, I pitched a gallon of simple mead in my parents' kitchen in a Carlo Rossi jug that I had purchased, tasted, and dumped. I pitched store-bought bread yeast. It took a year for the stuff to be mellow enough to enjoy. I used a balloon with a hole poked in it for an airlock. I sanitized with bleach.... This kicked off an era that is on-going. It's a long road from that jug to where we are now. Where does it lead? Time will tell.

Sunday brewday! Today we brew that Buffalo Trace barrel Russian Imperial Stout!

Oddly enough, this weekend we will be brewing ANOTHER Russian Imperial Stout! This batch is, excitingly, destined for a buffalo trace bourbon barrel! In collaboration with other members of our homebrew club, we will be filling the barrel by having multiple people brew the same recipe and then combining the beer into the barrel, where it will age for months to a year. Can't wait to get our share back!

Breaking radio silence. We haven't brewed in three months, which for us is downright criminal. This Sunday, we dust off our equipment and brew again! Not only that, but we're brewing a beer we've wanted to make for years but never attempted! This Sunday, we tackle...... The Russian Imperial Stout. Stat tuned, and stay thirsty.

So, listen, clearly you all follow this page because you are interested in our homebrew operation, like beer, or are hoping to score FREE beer. We understand. But, you probably saw that we make MEAD, too! And why? Because we love vikings! #segue Some very talented friends of ours (who also like beer and mead) have this new viking roleplaying game coming out on Kickstarter quite soon! Honestly, who doesn't love to enjoy beer and/or mead whilst sitting around and playing a ...game with friends? And if that game is an awesome and extremely fun viking game, more's the better! Check it out! And now, again, back to beer.

Skål! 43 bottles of "Grey Wolf Blend" mead, aged 15 months! This is a blend of two five-gallon batches of mead that were made to differing strengths. One batch dried out, COMPLETELY. We're talking FG 1.000. The other finished at a pleasant 1.020, so we blended them together for a super nice lightly sweet tasting mead at 12% ABV. Now, back to beer...

How we make our yeast starters, in photographs. When you brew a beer that is high in alcohol, like nearly all of our beers, making yeast starter is a crucial step. First, it multiplies the amount of yeast you have by several times, which is a lot cheaper than buying all of the yeast you need at $8 a packet. Second of all, it gets your yeast active and multiplying before you put it into your actual beer. This yeast starter is for this weekend's brew, 11 gallons of Belgian Golden Strong Ale. In this particular example, we are using 3 packs of yeast, and when the starter is done, we will have as much yeast as would come with 8-10 packs!