Messages

2416

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: the bare essentials

« on: January 23, 2010, 06:04:24 PM »

Setting aside things without which you couldn't brew at all ...

I guess I'd go with autosiphon.  I don't use it on brew day but racking would be much more of a pain in the ass without it.

And actually as one who still has yet to experience the joy of kegging I'll throw in the $2.50 bottle filler. 

2417

The Pub / Re: Tornado!

« on: January 23, 2010, 05:06:42 PM »

I did come home and have a beer - just pulled a bit of kolsch, and then after dinner I had a few fingers of bourbon .... well, more than a few fingers.

After an experience like that you deserved it.

2418

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: What's Brewing This Weekend - 1/22

« on: January 23, 2010, 05:05:13 PM »

Nothing brewing this weekend.  Instead I'll be cleaning labels off of bottles   

2419

The Pub / Beer in the News

« on: January 21, 2010, 12:43:19 PM »

Running Dry:  Belgium's Looming Beer Crisis

2420

Yeast and Fermentation / Re: PURE O2 vs. NATURAL AIR AERATION

« on: January 21, 2010, 12:32:47 PM »

Traditional splashing and shaking, although laborious, is fairly efficient at dissolving up to 8 ppm oxygen. To increase levels of oxygen, the carboy headspace can be purged with pure oxygen prior to shaking. The easiest and most effective method remains injecting pure oxygen through a scintered stone.

Thanks Denny.  That's good to know.

2421

Yeast and Fermentation / Re: PURE O2 vs. NATURAL AIR AERATION

« on: January 21, 2010, 11:39:03 AM »

I’ll see if I can taste anything that I could attribute to the excess O2.

Kai

I definitely be interested to hear the results of that taste test.  Up until the last batch I've just been shaking the hell out of the carboy for maybe a minute.  I'm guessing that method gets you less than 8 ppm.

For the last batch I aerated with pure O2 and based on this discussion I'm sure I over-aerated.  It'll be interesting to see what the effects on the beer will be.

2422

The Pub / Re: I HATE dentists.

« on: January 20, 2010, 07:42:47 PM »

I'm in pretty much the exact same situation you are weazletoe.  I'm 32 and haven't been to the dentist since I was around 19 probably.  Perfect teeth before that and I'm sure when I eventually end up going they're going to be salivating over the work they decide they need to do.  Part of the reason I keep putting off going.  Luckily I have had all the wisdom teeth out.  I know, I need to.  Soon.  I'm going to go soon...

2423

The Pub / Re: Wildcard

« on: January 19, 2010, 03:23:01 PM »

Yeah, I do it occasionally for the few days of fantasizing about what I'd do with all that money.  $10M or so after taxes would be nice 

2424

Beer Recipes / Re: Wee Heavy Recipe Check

« on: January 18, 2010, 09:46:35 PM »

I saw you post that you brewed this one Blue.  What did you end up going with for your final recipe?

2425

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: what are your goals for 2 ought 10

« on: January 18, 2010, 05:28:52 PM »

I just thought of another one . . Be more efficient with my ingredient purchases. In the past I've bulk purchased without much consideration to what I was ultimately going to brew. I was especially guilty during the hop shortage a couple of years ago. Now, I'm going to decide what I will brew for the year and buy only what I will use.

I'm pretty guilty of this myself.  What I need to do is get a sack or two of base malt and then just buy what I need for the next few batches.  I don't think I could buy everything I needed for the entire year though.  I change my mind too often and keep tweaking my recipes up until I really need to order the ingredients.

2426

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: How about least favorite style of beer?

« on: January 18, 2010, 05:27:04 PM »

First thing...what are 1a, 1b, 1c etc?

BJCP style references.  1a, b, and c are light, standard, and premium american lagers respectively.

http://www.bjcp.org/2008styles/style01.php

2427

Equipment and Software / Re: Sanitzing SS Diffusion Stone

« on: January 18, 2010, 10:07:10 AM »

Yeah, based on the advice here I boiled it after I was done with it and dropped it into a jar filled was Star San to store it.

2428

Questions about the forum? / Re: Animated avatars

« on: January 17, 2010, 09:47:14 PM »

There are profile settings to disable avatars and signatures in the "Looks and Layout Preferences" section.

An alternative would be a plugin - if available - for your browser to either block specific images as needed or only cycle animated graphics once or twice rather than a continuous loop.

+1

I rarely have any connection problems due to animated gifs in posts, but if I did I'd just have firefox block them.

Edit - Actually now that I look all of the avatars I'm seeing are uploaded to this site and seem to be hosted here rather than being hotlinked.  If that's right then blocking them via firefox would block all avatars.

2429

Equipment and Software / Re: Pump question

« on: January 17, 2010, 06:37:03 PM »

Put this into action for the first time last night.  It worked really well but I did use a lot of ice and I could have used more.  Had to keep draining some of the water out and replacing with cold tap water.  Even so, it was much less effort than running a couple of hoses and used a fraction of the water.  Chilled 5 gallons to 60 in about 25 minutes.

2430

Equipment and Software / Re: Sanitzing SS Diffusion Stone

« on: January 17, 2010, 12:25:11 AM »

I ended up just using StarSan.  It was the first use and was in the packaging up until tonight so hopefully I didn't infect my brew.  I guess going forward I'll boil it.