Woo hoo, I managed to avoid blogging for the entire 2008 year! Well, that wasn't really on purpose to be honest. 2008 was a dry year for me in the brewing world. I think I may have actually only done four or five batches all year. I'm off to a little bit better start this year since I've started doing small batch beers. I did a one gallon English IPA back around Jan 2nd that I just bottled it up this past weekend. I'm probably going to do a few more of these since they're easier and quicker to do. Plus, I can do them inside where its nice and warm. I plan to pick up a small two gallon cooler and convert it into a small mash tun so I don't have to buy expensive malt extract all the time. Plus, if you buy 55lbs of base malt you can do A LOT of one gallon batches. Yeast is going to be the most difficult thing for me to figure out. Knowing exactly how much yeast to pitch will be tricky. I'm thinking that this is where using my slants will come in handy. For a one gallon batch I can grow my slants up to about the 50ml size and be good. Instead of trying to grow them up to a full 1000ml volume. Dunno, time will tell.

I will also be doing as many full batches as time allows me to do so. I have the ingredients for my house APA as well as Norther Brewer's Cream Ale. I've had those for a good while so I need to get them going as soon as I can. Yeast, again, is a problem. I don't have any on hand right now and since the LHBS has closed down I can't make a quick run to pick some up. I may have to just grow up a 1000ml starter and cut a little off of it for small batches as well.