I am sure of a few of you know my favorite doctor, Doctor Peter Tittman. He is one those smarty pants guys and has a heart of gold to boot! Peter, as some of you also know, has a way of, how can I put it nicely, finagling his agenda. Long-term this process is usually mutually beneficial for both parties, even if they didn’t know it at the time.
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This time Peter talked Josh and I into applying for a grant from the Statewide Wood Energy Team. He wanted to help us to find out if we could beer out of wood. That is putting it simple, but he and quite a few other environmental folks out there are interested in the finding and supporting opportunities to use wood in energy applications around the state and putting a cordwood or pellet boiler into our hypothetical brewery looked like it might be a winner.
Jump ahead to August and low and behold, we won the grant and Andrew Haden of Wiswood, Inc completed the feasibility study for us. And now the answer to the burning questions, Can you make beer with wood…… ? Turns out YES! Yes, you can make beer with wood! Haden recommends planning for the installation of the system but advises that we install it once we are brewing two to three times per week. GYPPO predicts that this will happen in year two of operations and won’t it be so cool to be a GYPPO logging brewery that is actually using timber harvested by loggers to brew the beer. What will Peter think of next?!
If you are intersted in learning more, Peter works at The Center for Forestry at UC Berkley. Here is a link to their website.