New blog! This will be a bit wider in scope than Angry Monocle, covering coffee and tea as well as beer.
Brewing beer in Los Angeles will present a few new problems. Seattle has some of the softest, purest water in America, while LA decidedly does not. For coffee and tea, filtered water should suffice, but I don't think I want to wait for six gallons of water to run through a Brita, so for beer I will either use packaged drinking water, or, more ambitiously, use reverse osmosis water and adjust the water chemistry according to the beer I'm brewing. Stouts, for example, benefit from harder water to balance the acidity of the roasted grains.
Los Angeles is also a bit warmer than Seattle. At the moment, it's 7pm and 84˚F. If I want to brew this summer, I'll either need to invest in a temperature control system or exclusively brew saisons, which like to ferment hot.
I have not tested the water here at Cowbay, but the water tastes like rotten aloe vera...so in addition to the size of my floating abode, I don't think the water is any good here. The first time I try to brew oolong phenix mt, I had to spit it out...what a waste of leaves. Now I bring filtered water in a jug from the coffee shop. I invested in a hand grinder and a pour over carafe (both Hario), and right now am brewing some middle roasted Nicaragua. It's best black, with a little honey. Dark chocolate overtones are pretty amazing.
ReplyDeleteThanks Lee for keeping up the casual scientific approach, I learn something new everytime! Looking forward to more photos and posts.