A golden brown loaf of bread
The cross section of the loaf with a small, even crumb structure
Please consider taking a few moments of your Sunday afternoon to appreciate this beautiful sourdough loaf baked by @akrennmair.bsky.social
It definitely tastes as good as it looks.
Looking forward to your feedback from my next (mould-free) batch! 🦠
Pre-acidification seems to be the way!
I can measure the final pH and calculate roughly how much remaining volume I require for a starting pH of approximately 4.5 or lower in the new batch.
Hmm, that's an interesting point.
This might not answer your question but our microbiology lab at the VLB Berlin has been doing some research on Kombucha, so maybe it's worth keeping an eye out for future publications on this subject?
brewingscience.de/index.php/br...
Basting the SCOBY is a great idea, thank you! I'm definitely going to try this for my next batch.
Yes, this seems to be the case.
My plan is to halve the batch size and gradually build my way back up to 3 litres.
UPDATE: My colleague from the VLB microbiology lab has kindly given me 500 mL of 3.2 pH kombucha starter liquid.
I've been advised to reduce my batch size to increase the starting acidity and hopefully prevent early mould growth.
To a certain degree, I enjoy the unpredictability of making kombucha.
On the other hand, the brewer in me wants to control the process and reproduce it consistently, which seems to be difficult with homebrew kombucha.
A SCOBY with white/green, fuzzy patches of mold on the surface
Are there any kombucha brewers on here?
Green/white fuzzy patches of mould have grown on the surface of my third generation SCOBY. This has happened twice now and I'm not sure where I'm going wrong.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
A handcrafted plaque with two large golden letter 'B's on a wooden pedestal, which has the text "The Beer & Book Club".
Some friends and I recently started "The Beer and Book Club". We take it in turns to pick the book and I'm picking the book for May.
This might help to explain a small spike in sales of your new book in Berlin shortly after release (Thanks to @akrennmair.bsky.social for the idea!)
*Looks at train connections to Windischeschenbach*
German hop growing has officially been recognised as intangible cultural heritage by the Bavarian cabinet.
I'm proud to support hop growers and merchants through our analytical work and hop research at VLB Berlin.
www.about-drinks.com/hopfenanbau-...
Staying on the Oktoberfest theme, I wrote about the scandal of the Oktoberfest's first "giant tent" in 1898, and how it unfolded: dafteejit.com/2026/03/the-...
#beerhistory #oktoberfest
A map of central Bristol with little dartboard icons showing locations of pub dartboards I've reciewed
🎯 New dartboard review 🎯
The seven stars in Redcliffe: fredcook.co.uk/2026/03/19/T...
I've also added a handy map of all dartboard reviews so far
I've blogged about beers at late 19th/early 20th century Oktoberfest many years ago. I've now been able to find complete lists of breweries for the years 1895 and 1896, which shows how much more diverse the beer choice was back then:
dafteejit.com/2026/03/beer...
#beerhistory #oktoberfest
Thank you Tom!
Castleton is great for local walks and pub lunch.
The tiled interior of the Sheffield Tap. Photo taken by my wife Viola
A row of 10 hand pumps in The Fargate in Sheffield. A Thornbridge Jaipur pump clip is visible in the foreground.
The wooden decorated interior of the Old Hall Hotel in Hope, Peak District
A pint of Theakston Old Peculiar next to an open bag of Scampi Fries. The pub is the Three Tuns in Sheffield
It has been a nice few days of pubbing around Sheffield and the Peak District.
Three logos in a row, on the left the Adidas logo, on the right the Bass beer logo, in the middle my amalgamation. It has the red triangle of bass chopped into 3 sections like the Adidas logo, slightly offset. The text underneath says adibass, in the curly cursive handwriting of the bass logo
Couldn't get the idea of adibass out of my head 🔺🔺🔺
The Tour de France route of West Berlin in 1987. Picture from: https://procyclingmaps.com/product/tour-de-france-1987-livre-de-route-officiel-official-roadbook/
Good news for German cycling fans via @tagesspiegel.de: the Tour de France Grand Départ 2029 might be coming to Berlin 🚴🇩🇪
The last time this happened was in West Berlin back in 1987.
www.tagesspiegel.de/sport/berlin...
I mostly just post pictures of the beers that I'm drinking but sure, thanks for the follow back!
After a long and exhausting brew day (triple decoction mashing 😐) of a historic recipe involving 100% wheat malt, I wrote a brief article how I managed to lauter and sparge the mash without any issues, using a historic lautering aid.
dafteejit.com/2026/02/laut...
#homebrewing #beerhistory
Two 0,5 L glasses of Eschenbräu Rauchbock
Feierabendbier with @silentdan.bsky.social at the Eschenbräu brewpub in Wedding.
The seasonal Rauchbock tastes like Bamberg.
Some Berlin kneipen (pubs) have been around for more than a hundred years and they’re still going strong…
www.slowtravelberlin.com/around-berli...
Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico
Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico, 2022. A satirical novel about a millennial expat couple who move to Berlin.
My favourite quote: "Wedding, in the west, existed only very faintly on their mental map, even though with every year it seemed to take on more substance, as if slowly coming into focus."
I grew up in neighbouring Dore Village and neglected these pubs in my formative beer drinking years.
Your posts have provided inspiration to revisit some of the local pubs when I visit my parents there next month.
My pal @fredcook.co.uk has been writing about darts boards in Bristol pubs.
There seem to be quite a few pubs with dart boards in Bristol serving draught Bass. Is this just a coincidence or are these somehow intertwined?
“The dartboard itself is a fairly old school Nodor Supabull 2. It had clearly been rotated a few times, but still had life left in it. That said, due to the chunky wires, staples and certain well-used patches, bounce outs were a theme of the night.”
