Small Batch Brewing and Brewing in Small Spaces
Sour Power! A Pro Brewer Spontaneous Fermentation Roundtable
Join Jeff Mello of Bootleg Biology for a professional brewer roundtable discussion of spontaneous fermentation process, ingredients, seasonality, locality, and terminology. Participants include Averie Swanson of Jester King Brewery, Trevor Rogers of de Garde Brewing, Dave Logsdon of Logsdon Farmhouse Ales, and James Howat of Black Project Spontaneous & Wild…
The Difficult Art of Simplicity
Simplicity isn’t just for beginning homebrewers. No matter how long you’ve been brewing or what your experience level is, cutting out unnecessary steps in your process can save you time and increase the fun factor. Denny and Drew will talk about ways to simplify your brewing, from equipment to ingredients…
Whirlpool Techniques
Many brewers are afraid to mess with wort after the boil, but a properly executed whirlpool lets the brewer “roll the dice” and do some exciting things. The whirlpool offers a great opportunity to fine-tune recipes and create deeper hop or dark-grain profiles. This seminar will cover whirlpool techniques for…
Wild Beer Curling: Course Correcting and Guiding Your Beer to Success
Brewing wild beers, mixed fermentations, and barrel-aged and -fermented ales can be a long, arduous process, especially as a homebrewer. Along the way, a host of environmental and human factors can impart many variations in the finished beer. This presentation addresses methods to fix some common problems and prevent others,…
Against the Grain: Wood Aging and Barrel Alternatives
Want to wood age your beer but don’t have the space? Interested in varieties of wood other than oak? Ditch the barrels and join Matt Del Fiacco as he discusses the use of wood aging alternatives in homebrewing and the wide variety of options available to homebrewers to produce incredible…
Beer Blending Tips and Techniques
In this seminar, we take a look at the what, why, and how of beer blending. We’ll explore historic blending, standard styles, barrel-aged beers, big beers, and sours. Recipe formulation, experimentation, tips, techniques, and best practices for blending will also be discussed. Learn to use blending to create better, more…
Brewing When You Have No Time (Getting More out of Your Limited Brewing Time)
In a busy world, it’s hard to dedicate time to a long, continuous brew day. This seminar challenges the dogma that you need six hours to brew a batch of beer. Let’s explore ways to brew more using less of your limited time. We’ll learn how to brew more quickly…
Czech Plz! What I Learned Brewing with the Czech Masters
Join 2013 Homebrewer of the Year Annie Johnson as she reveals the secrets of brewing authentic Czech Pilsner at home. We will learn about water chemistry, ingredients, decoction mashing, fermentation, and more, all while enjoying delicious Czech Pilsner. Annie has brewed with master brewers Vaclav Berka of the Pilsner Urquell…
Dry Hopping Effectively
What is dry hopping? At what stage of fermentation should dry hops be added? At what temperature should you dry hop, and what are the differences in perceived hop aroma and flavor for these temperatures? Learn how to dry hop successfully and what you can do to improve aroma in…
Lagers to Lambic: Hard Stuff the Easy Way
Lager, lambic, high-gravity, low-gravity, fruity, and funky—it’s enough to make your head spin! Many brewers might believe that certain styles are out of reach, requiring techniques accessible only to the brewing elite. But these “challenge” styles are within your grasp and easier than you think! Join bloggers Brian Hall of…
pH in the Home Brewery
We’ll follow pH in the brewhouse from water to beer. Topics will include the definition of pH, brewing software and pH control, and the importance of pH in brewing water, mash, kettle, and the finished beer.
A Timeline for Sour Beer: How to get the Flavors you Want, When you Want Them
This seminar's focus will be on attaining a wanted flavor profile without the all the fuss, specifically in Lambic and Berliner Weisse styles. Does age always matter? How does an imagined profile become reality when brewing wild beers? This presentation will look at traditional versus modern production—how to produce what…
Brew Naked! (One Gallon at a Time)
Learn the process and benefits of ultra-small batch brewing. One gallon batches are perfect for those with limited brewing and fermentation space. For those with larger brew systems that want to dial in recipes or experiment with ingredients, this is the perfect way to do so at minimal cost. One…
Farmhouse Sabbatical: What I’ve Learned from Brewing Saison (And Only Saison)
In September 2014, Kyle decided to start repeatedly brewing saison in an attempt to dial in a recipe and refine his fermentation process. The seemingly harmless exercise quickly turned into a year-long (and ongoing) exploration of these wonderful beers. This presentation will demonstrate how repeatedly brewing one recipe or style…
Fast Lager Yeast Fermentations
Mike “Tasty” McDole describes shortening the fermentation and maturation time for cold fermented beers. By increasing the fermentation temperature during primary fermentation, "lager" beers can be produced in times more commonly associated with ales.
Gas Stripping Hot Wort
Hot gas stripping is an experiment to determine if hot air or gas stripping can remove volatile esters and sulfuric compounds in hot wort and increase hop utilization, with the goal of improving final quality and the economic scale of the finished beer through enhanced processing techniques. Our aim is…
How to Brew Like An All-Star
Denny and Drew take a look at the different personality types that infuse our hobby and hone in on the practices used by All-Star Homebrewers of each type. How many homebrew seminars can you think of that name check Carl Jung, Federal law and the intimate brewing answers of a…
Identifying and Avoiding Oxidation
Oxidation causes more than just cardboard flavors. Learn how oxidation affects all parts of the brewing process, including malt and hops, and causes a variety of off flavors. Come away with tips and tricks to avoid oxygen in your processes.
Mock Lagers: Cutting Contentious Corners
Space and time are major constraints for most things in existence, but they are at a particular premium for homebrewers! Save both of them by leveraging the benefits of modern malts, high Alpha hops, and any available refrigeration, which allow homebrewers in the here-and-now to tweak traditional style-specific brewing techniques…
Modern Perspectives on Traditional Methods: Applying New Knowledge To An Ancient Craft
Just a couple decades ago, those who chose to make beer at home were met with many hurdles: a general lack of quality ingredients, proper gear, and knowledge about many aspects of brewing. Though stories of contamination, diacetyl bombs and undrinkable beers abound, we have these brave early homebrewers to…
Small Barrel Strategies
The increasing availability of five- to 20-gallon oak barrels gives homebrewers the opportunity to brew both “clean” and sour barrel-aged beers, but best practices on how to use these barrels successfully aren’t so readily available. In this seminar, award-winning homebrewer brothers CJ and James Shamas will detail the steps brewers…
The Chemistry of Mashing
Mashing is the process that converts grain and water to sweet wort. We will discuss the structure and functions of the enzymes involved, and how they are influenced by temperature and pH. Factors that affect pH during mashing will be covered.
Troubleshooting Off Flavors in Beer
An in-depth look at common off flavors in beer and their causes. This seminar will cover in-depth how to detect off flavors as well as how to fix them. Topics include diaceytl, DMS, esters, phenolics and tannins, as well as sour beer infections. For each off flavor, the top causes…
Waste Not, Want Not: Water Conservation for the Homebrewer
Homebrewers spend a lot of time and effort to improve their brewing efficiency, seeking to make best use of quality ingredients and even replicating the water profile for a favorite beer. But one area that is often overlooked is efficiency in using water. A typical homebrewer can use 30 gallons…
Water Made Easy
Beer consists mostly of water. Most homebrewers understand the vital importance of brewing water but can be intimidated by the wealth of information available. This talk will focus on simple steps that all-grain brewers can take with regard to their water so they can make better beer.
What’s New In The How To Brew
Homebrew Con Baltimore features over 90 speakers, and more than 60 seminars for your brewing enjoyment. When the presenters of “Don’t Fear the Fungus…” had to unfortunately withdraw shortly before the conference – we were thrilled to hear that John was willing to step in and offer his brewing know-how…
Beer Clarity, In Depth
This seminar will provide an in-depth look at beer clarity, including measuring clarity, potential causes of clarity issues and ingredients and processes to minimize haze in your beer. It also will address the most common causes of haze including tannins and polyphenols, ingredient selection, chill haze and more. Brad will…
Berliner and Beyond: Sour Mashing and Its Applications
Interest in sour beers has never been higher, but to many the idea of making their own sour beer seems like an impossible dream. But what if there were a fast, easy method to get active making sours? Sour mashing is an intermediate-level technique for any beer that would benefit…
Making Enzymes Work For You
This seminar is directed at all-grain brewers with intermediate experience. The focus will be on understanding and controlling enzymes in the mash and making them work for you. Although various mash techniques will be briefly discussed in relation to enzymes, this will not be a class on how to mash.…
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