Fermentation Friday 9 Roundup

January has come and gone, and with it another Fermentation Friday. This month we asked readers to send us their “brew year’s resolutions” – those things you were going to start or stop doing to improve your brewing in 2009. We received quite a few answers – here is a brief roundup of everyone’s posts. Thanks to everyone who wrote in this month!

Mel & Ray over at Bathtub Brewery resolve to brew as many styles as possible. Mel resolves to tone down her adventurous recipes and shoot for technically perfect beer, while Ray is heading in the opposite direction, looking to brew with some unusual ingredients. Congrats on the upcoming wedding, guys!

The gang at Just Another Booze Blog sent in two entries. M. Randolph recaps a good 2008 and resolves to spend 2009 learning to brew more efficiently, cut down production costs, and to become a master of all things hops. B. James describes an all-too-familiar tale of brewing the perfect beer and being unable to replicate it. To that end, consistency is the goal for 2009.

Stephanie over at brew.cook.pair.joy also has consistency on the mind. She aims to gain precise control over every aspect of the brewing process, with an automated brew sculpture being the ultimate goal.

Rob over at Pfiff! must’ve done a lot more brewing than I did in 2008, since he had to host a party to make room for some new beers. While examining his inventory, he came to the realization that his beers tend to be a bit high on the ABV chart. He has declared 2009 to be the “Year of the Session” and hopes to create a lower ABV beer without sacrificing flavor and quality. He also is a fan of inane wordplay, so he gets some bonus points there!

I gotta hand it to Ted over at Ted’s Homebrew Journal – by cleverly making contributing to a Fermentation Friday one of his resolutions, he’s already got one he can scratch off the list! Sounds like he’s also working on some homemade wooden pub games and tap handles – Ted, send some pics in when you’re done with that stuff!

The creator of Fermentation Friday, Adam @ Beer Bits 2 sounds like he’s got a good thing going and wants to continue on that road in 2009. He already reuses yeast cakes, buys in bulk, and is working on a kegerator and brew basement. You can tell something about a person’s level of brewing by reading their resolutions, and reading a post like this makes me realize I need to step it up a few notches! Hmmm, what were my resolutions again??

Dave at Muckney Brewing wants to go all-grain, brew more often, and put a little research into running a brewery/brewpub. That last one is definitely a dream I share, so best of luck to you!

I like where Damon from Life With Beer is going with his goals this year – he plans to cook more with beer and barley, start making cheese, and tackle the brewing issues of water chemistry and malt aroma. Let me know when you throw a beer, cheese, and food tasting, Damon – I’ll be there!

Thomas at Geistbear Brewing Blog wants to make the move to all-grain and try a few interesting styles. He makes the best resolution of all, which is to keep the hobby of brewing fun. He also stumped me with the word scuppernong. Points.

Matt from A World of Brews ushers in his second year of homebrewing by resolving to brew more beer in 2009! On the list of to-do-brews is an American barleywine, a stout or porter, and a session ale or light fruit beer. Matt also mentions he will be at the NHC this year, and that is one of my resolutions – maybe I’ll see you there, Matt! Finally, Matt also resolves to try and get into all-grain.

Brew Dude John over at Brew Dudes has one up on all of us – he actually set some resolutions last year and uses this time to look back at his progress. John asks, “Is 2 and a half out of 5 ok?” Well, depends – 50% would be failing if we’re talking about a high school Spanish class, but for brewing resolutions I think you’re doing just fine. Once again, switching to all-grain makes the list!

John from Northern Table set nine resolutions for 2009. They include brewing with some wild ingredients, making a sour beer, getting into wood aging, and starting to make lagers. John also resolves to help someone get into all-grain this year. That should be an easy one – looks like plenty of people want to take the plunge!

Finally, last but not least, Rich left a comment with three succinct goals – make two ales, make a few lagers, and get into all-grain.

Well, there you have it. It would seem that switching to all-grain is the #1 brew resolution of 2009, followed closely by brewing more beer and gaining better consistency over our results. Thanks to everyone who contributed – I had a blast reading your posts! If you didn’t participate but wanted to, drop me a line with your post! It’s never too late for brew year’s resolutions!