Just a few pics

My last brew day at Doemens

I can not believe how fast the time has flown by! It seems like just yesterday I started to learn about brewing on  a professional level, and here we are on my last week of school. Officially the class ends on Dec 4 but class ends this Friday 11/19. We then tour all of those lovely places I previously listed. This week will be a lot of studying as well as a lot of drinking at the end of it. In  any case on my last brew day, I milled grain, cleaned tanks, made adjustments, pitched yeast, and delivered spent grain to a local farmer. Guess which of those deserved a picture? ALL of course, but there was no time for that! Here it is, a picture of the cows who will enjoy my spent grain.

A few pics

Hands on

Wow, it has been pretty hectic here! I brewed beer on a system just as complex (100% computer controlled) the Budwiser plant, yet hundreds of times smaller. The day before brewing we had a nice long day in the lab. We plated 17 different bacteria and yeast cultures. After that we learned how to determine which bacteria or yeast is causing issues in a brewery. I thought for sure we were all done, but then the professor handed each group 4 unknown beer spoilers. It was now our task to determine what each one of the samples were. I had learned all of this back in Chicago, but I didn't really make much of it. After doing the lab work I can see how useful it is to know how to plate and determine unknown samples.

I know everyone learns different, but I think almost everyone can agree that we all learn a bit better by actually doing the work.

I have a few pictures I would love to post, but there are about 300 people on a connection that was likely intended for a house hold. There are some on my flickr account.

Quick posting

macalnc - Flickr

So I have been taking many many photos, and I realized the blogger site is not ideal for this sort of thing. Facebook is not accessible to everyone so this seemed to be the best solution.

more to follow
hopefully tonight...

If link above does not work

http://www.flickr.com/photos/macalnc/

First Day of Class

I have to apologize I didn't take any pictures of the Doemens school today. I was overwhelmed with trains, and a sleepless night, professors starting promptly at 9am and no breakfast. I spoke far too soon, my body and mind decided it was a good idea to fight the time change. Last night was hard.. Today I am so tired, all I want to do is sleep. I am not going to sleep as early as I wish instead I am going to push myself as I did the first night to stay awake until about 10pm. Then hopefully I will be fully converted to German time. 

At school today we were pushed hard. I am shocked to see how demanding the instructors are here, compared to how they were in the US. So incase anyone is wondering, this is the practical side of my brewing education. Here we will brew, ferment, bottle, keg. Oh yeah and maybe a little bit of cleaning. Due to the large size of the class we have been broken up into two groups. Tomorrow my group will be doing some lab analysis work, and brewing Thursday. 

Heres the link to the place I am staying http://www.wombats-hostels.com/munich/

Here the google maps link Link

Munich

I had no idea how easy it was going to be to adjust to the 6 hour time change! Plane left at 9:45pm on 10/30 we arrived at noon on 10/31. Basically slept a few hours on the plane, then forced myself to stay awake until 10pm. The plane had all of the bathrooms downstairs which was really neat. Across the street from the hostel I am staying at the is best pizza I have in a 2 months. Yeah says a lot about the pizza I found in Chicago. Today, is a German holiday so everything is closed including school. Sort of a free day.. I am going with a few classmate on a walking tour and we will figure out how to make our way to school. (no one told us how to get from point a to point b. I have a feeling it might not be as easy as it was in Chicago, but there are many public transportation options.