It would only be a matter of time until I started brewing beer at home. After spending considerable time learning about this process I will admit that I was initially put-off by what seemed to be a high barrier to entry and that I also suffered a little bit of ‘analysis paralysis’ - there was almost too much to learn! My research uncovered no shortage of fancy looking, very large, shiny and professional looking equipment - vats, pots, pans, other vessels, coolers, outdoor burners - that homebrewers were using. I also noticed that most people were brewing five gallon batches of beer at a time. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this - I find it all very inspiring. Brewing at that level is something I’d eventually like to explore. However, when I was just getting started I was reluctant to invest a ton of money in new equipment nor did I have a large kitchen or a lot of space to store everything needed to brew that much beer at a time. I wanted to keep my start-up costs low by leveraging as much of the gear I already had at home. I also wanted to be mindful not to overwhelm my smaller kitchen footprint and crowd my family out. Plus, I wasn’t even sure if this was going to work out so I really wanted to keep things on a smaller scale.

I had the idea to brew in single gallon sized batches and what I quickly learned is that there wasn’t a ton of information out there catered to small batch brewing. Over the last three years that I’ve been brewing, through much trial and error and experimentation, I’ve landed on a process that works well for me, enabling me to produce incredibly tasty homebrew on a much more manageable (for me) scale from the comfort of my own kitchen.

Brewing beer has become a fun and rewarding hobby that allows for a great deal of creativity. I’ve learned so much along the journey of becoming a halfway decent homebrewer and had the idea to create Small Batch Brewing as a resource for others that are starting out that are just like I was a few years back. I wished back then I had someone to demystify this process and show me how simple and enjoyable it really could be. Sure, I still love visiting my favorite breweries and talking home four-packs and crowlers but to me, there is nothing more satisfying than pulling a pint of something that I created straight out of the keg.

My goal with Small Batch Brewing is to share my learnings with other aspiring small batch homebrewers

A little more about me….

I am currently enrolled in University of Richmond’s Professional Beer Brewing Certificate program and am also a formally trained chef who once upon a time ran a meat smoking and catering business in San Francisco. I’m somewhat of a double-threat in the kitchen as I also am a mean baker. I’m also a self taught drummer and bassist, a master of all things BBQ-related, a real and model train enthusiast (hobbies both my son and I share), I love to travel, explore and love to eat so long as you don’t try to feed me raw bananas or cottage cheese. I also really love photography - check out Photos by Dan J, my online photography shop complete with a Photos for Sale section.