Matt Chrispen | Accidentalis Brewery. Overly serious home brewer sharing long-form articles on beer, mead, and gear. Passionate about historical and modern techniques and systems. Documenting the ongoing journey to mastering craft from my garage.
Rambling
Fun week building out my new Grain Mill Case. 2x6 construction using pocket screws. Brand new Monster MM3 Pro mill connected via Lovejoy connectors to a PowerGrinder 185 RPM motor from All American Ale Works. Add wheels and it rolls. Went this route with a direct drive to prevent any
Lab
Process
Anyone that reads this site knows that I focus quite a bit on brewing water. This series is intended to augment my previous posts and expand on best practices in the brewery, recipe planning and approaches to different beer styles. While I have researched this content and crafted my own
Brewer's Notes
I saw this title pop up on a forum post recently. It's an incredibly loaded question, and certainly something that opens up a good deal of debate. We are also going to have to accept a lot of subjectivity (my opinions) in this discussion. The best water is
Experiment
After reading through Drew Beechum and Denny Conn’s Experimental Homebrewing book, I thought through some of the questions that I see repeatedly asked. Drew and Denny touch on some of them. The spirit of their book resonates with me... find the answers on your own through experimentation. The reality
Brewer's Notes
I see a lot of questions asked about WHEN one should measure mash pH. I thought it would be useful to walk through the steps first and discuss the acid and buffering system of a mash in the real world, as well as some thoughts on a good meter. Using
Brewer's Notes
The original walk through of the Bru'n Water Spreadsheet remains one of the most popular features of Accidentalis.com. While the core information remains relevant, there is a significant difference in workflows between the Free and Subscriber version of the spreadsheet. This tutorial is focused on the Subscriber
Rambling
Hey all, I realize it has been a couple of weeks since my last post. Things have been hectic, and some of that has been centered around planning and thinking and scheming about where I would like Accidentalis to head in the next year. The Bru'n Water tutorial
Brew-Magic
For a while I have been looking for a solution to limit the amount of hop and hot break material that may get trapped in my plate chiller. I use a Chill Wizard system, from Sabco, which integrates a pump, a plate chiller, inline oxygen stone and thermometer into a
Rambling
One of the joys of home brewing is sharing the results with friends, and even better, making new friends through the experience. Just over a year ago, a new home was built across the street, and I took some beer over to introduce ourselves. He realized just how deeply I
Measurement
So from the Big Badda Boom event, I decided I need to build something to help prevent over-pressuring and make it idiot proof. In my discussion with SSBrewTech, they make a recommendation to build a connector with a 5 PSI pressure gauge. This allows you to adjust the pressure from
Brewer's Notes
So this was going to be an article on how I expanded my fermentation capability by 1 BBL, and with an explanation on why I chose the solution and vendor. It will turn into a severe WARNING to everyone that pressure, even as low as the pressure we use with