William's Homebrew

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Retail Home Brew Store Closures

The recent closures of brick & mortar locations of both #MoreBeer & #NorthernBrewer are a sign of our economic times unfortunately. We wish them luck in their future strategic decisions.

Margins are thin in the industry & with real estate at a premium, it does not make viable sense to maintain a "showroom" with all the overhead expenses: rent, utilities, employees, inventory, etc.

"Retails" focus should always be on the customer experience & convenience. Time is a premium now more than ever. It's a commodity valued & leveraging it thru online options while multi-tasking is key.

This is why we have #willcall for local pickups in our San Leandro, CA warehouse. It's why we have always been a brewing supply warehouse.

We have received quite a few calls & even some visitors to our location. Please do yourself a favor & take the time to look at our site & place an order online for #willcall pickup. It will be ready in 15 minutes guaranteed.

If you're not local & need brewing or distilling supplies, grains or parts, we ship orders out within the day of receiving it. (Orders received same day are shipped out before 4pm.)

As the "Grandfather" of home brewing, William's Brewing has always felt a broad spectrum of quality equipment, malts & supplies at reasonable prices back by excellent customer service is what home brewers want & need. We're here for you.

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The RAPT Fermentation Chamber is the next Internet of Things (IOT) everyone needs. Prolific brewers, restaurants, bars, deli, cheese makers, etc. Commercial professionals to at home enthusiasts. Virtually any homemade product can be greatly improved with perfect temperature control.

RAPT Fermentation Chambers give you an clean, green electrical efficiency. Setting, monitoring and controlling temperatures perfect for beer making, wine making, salami making, leavening bread, fermenting yogurt, kombucha, kimchi, sauerkraut, making cheers, spirit washes, germinating seeds, growing sprouts, and much, much more. Accurate temp control is a crucial factor to getting reliable and consistent results when creating flavor: liquid or solid.

Logging and control on your every device. A free service from RAPT, any RAPT-enabled product can both log and store data. The RAPT hub allows you to control your devices remotely giving you absolute control of the device anywhere, any device with Internet access. The RAPT portal allows for complex temperature profiles that involve different temperature settings over time. Start & run a temp profile giving you a set and forget experience. The RAPT portal also alerts & notifies you so you can receive email notifications in the off chance that something doesn't go to plan.

Homebrewers have been converted refrigerators for fermentation temperature control. No longer. The RAPT appliance provides excellent insulation from outside temperatures. But the RAPT is no refrigerator. It's made for brewers. KegLand has engineered a fermentation chamber that cools, heats, and automatically guides your beer a programmed fermentation profile which can be monitored and controlled remotely via WiFi or Bluetooth. 

Game changer! Get it while one sale through 6/18. Free shipping lower 48 States & 60 Day Money Back! Nothing to hold you back.

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Bill's beer lab. Here he concocts many new recipes for our kits. Notice the seven (7) new carboys for our future sampling. Bill has two Brewer's Edge Mash & Boils, Kettle as well as propane setup. William's Brewing takes the art of zymurgy seriously, actively practicing the craft.

Found some 7 year old Bourbon in the racks. Going to have to convince Bill on a sample of that yield.

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The Science of Beer - Nucleation

When a beer is poured, carbonation rises to the top forming a layer of bubbles also known as the head, foam, Kräusen. These serve a specific purpose towards the enjoyment of your drink. They preview flavors and aromas to wet the pallet, activate salivary glands and prepare the senses for the imbibing experience.

This is Nucleation. This bubble party sitting atop your glass is the formation of the active compounds in the beer. Ever eaten a Ghost pepper & felt the heat? Or a cool feeling with peppermint? It's the same with nucleation.

Glassware nowadays can be customized with an etching on the bottom. The nucleated glasses have rough surfaces from the etching that causes bubbles to collect. When a sufficient number of bubbles has gathered, they release and drift towards the top of the glass forming a head. This can help sustain a fuller beer head and enhance flavors for a longer, more enjoyable drink.

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Impressed with the creativity of the Tumbler #homebrewing community: Tea, mead, cider, beer, etc. Fermentation experiments are a crucial process in moving the craft forward.

How about this lab for experimenting? Every Friday, we sample some of Bill's experiments that come out of the lab above. Lately, he's been doing the same recipe with a different yeast, & the results are amazingly different. From sweet, sour to dry & bitter.

Something as simple as yeast selection can have a profound difference to outcomes. Don't under-estimate the power of yeast selection in a batch of homebrew.

This last month, we have been sampling Belgian Triples & Belgian Quads with differing yeast pitch. Remarkable character nuances. The same ingredients except one, & it's an entirely new flavor profile.

All 5 samples are graded, discussed & of course finished. Pushing 11% on that Belgian Triple was almost a Barleywine. A great finish to any week.

What's on tap today? I'll let you know.