Solar Brewing

So, I was looking at the Screwy Brewers blog and saw that he had a little box in the upper right hand corner that mentioned his local home brew shop (LHBS). I don't know how long that box has been there. I was sort of wondering if it was a sponsorship type thing, and my curiosity forced me to click on the link in that box. The link brought me to a blog post that Screwy had done back in December about his LHBS entitled "Joe Bair's 'Princeton Homebrew' LBHS".

You may have noticed that The Screwy Brewer is one of those listed in the "Blogs I Read" section on my blog. It has been there awhile and I actually do remember when Screwy posted about his LBHS. At the time he did the post, I did not pay much attention to it, because I don't live anywhere close to New Jersey, so I did not think I would have much interest in reading about Screwy's LBHS.

This time, the words "solar home brewing process" caught my eye. I know that I've heard of a few commercial craft breweries using solar power, but I do not ever remember seeing anything about using solar energy on a home-brew level. I was intrigued to find out more. So, I went to Joe's website (http://solarhomebrew.com) and watched the video there:

I had one of those "now why didn't I think of that" moments. Although, to be honest, I was sort of surpised that he had been able to focus the sun well enough to boil water, so even if I would have thought of the idea, I'm not sure I would have bothered following through on it. The black hose on the roof for mash water is probably something I could have thought of, though. Maybe.

In the Jul/Aug 2010 issue, BYO magazine had an online article on Joe as well: "Last Call: Solar Brewing". I think that Jul/Aug 2010 must have been between my first subscription and second, right after I forgot to renew for a couple of months. I'm sure I would have remembered this article.  Maybe.

Anyway, since I am so slow on the uptake, you probably are already aware of Joe and his solar home brewing, or don't really care about it. I thought it was cool, though, so I thought I'd share.