Iron Homebrewer Competition

I sent this out in an e-mail today, but thought it would be a good way to get the ball rolling.

1. Iron Homebrewer. Along the lines of Iron Chef, have everyone interested pick some oddball ingredient you would never think to brew with. Pick one out of a hat and have a competition based on highlighting the oddball ingredient in whichever style you like.

2. Hop-sock test. This wouldn't take as many people, but perhaps have 2/3 people brew the same recipe with a hop sock and 2/3 without and compare the utilization and perceived bitterness. The possibility for isolated variable experimentation is seemingly endless.

3. Big Brew Day The weather is getting nice enough that it should be possible to get people together to brew their own beers all at once.

4. Get a local brewer I know Captain Lawrence had said the club was welcome to go down to the brewery, and that would be a great trip. Maybe we could encourage (with nice words or some cash) a professional brewer to come to a Ninkasi meeting and talk about a specific topic.


- Ken

Ken,

I think the ideas are great, an I for one am glad to see someone interested in growing and improving our club. I am willing to help any way I can. Definitely interested in all of your suggestions, and we can do some of them here!!

Another idea I had was a single brew (10 gal?) where the club made a Stein beer.

In the earlier days of brewing before brewers could get a good rolling boil, hot rocks were added to the beer to boost the temperature. The wort that made contact with the hot rocks would immediately caramelize.

I don't know if this is something that we could do at Mistucky, or even if anyone would be interested in doing this. It does seem like a lot of work:

http://www.byo.com/stories/beer-styles/article/indices/11-beer-styles/862-hot-rocks-making-a-stein-beer


Cheers,

Ken

I would love to be involved in this, Iron Brewer you can count me in!