It Never Ceases To Amaze Me

Fermentation. Simply that.

I don't know why. It just does. I prepare a must or a wort, I toss in the yeast and place my airlock. Sometime over the next few hours it starts. It's like magic. And even now, years after I started homebrewing, and with dozens of batches in the last year alone, the onset of fermentation still fascinates me.

I keep throwing new things at the fermentation process, just to see how versatile those little yeast organisms are. Not new to homebrewing, sure, but to me it's still magic. A high-gravity beer, over 1.090, with ale yeast. Pitch big, and it ferments. Just amazing. And now with lager yeasts, where the happy place for fermentation is at low temperatures. Carboys in a fridge, and I come in the morning after a night of fermentation and the krausen is up at the airlock. I was not expecting that.

I watch my son whenever we're out and around, and a fire truck drives by. No matter how many times he sees one, he's still excited when he catches one out of the fire station, or driving down the street with its lights and siren going. That's about how I feel when it comes to fermentation except unlike my son, I get to drive the fire truck.