mtigges

Well, I used to prefer Memphis Blues. But something has definitely changed there (but I haven't been in about 6 months). The meat now falls off the bone, and it previously had a great chew. Also, the bones are now very soft, and you easily bite into them. And the flavour doesn't seem as smoky anymore. If you ask DIX to go easy on the sauce, I actually think they are now better than MB. At first they were oversauced, and very salty. That's not the case anymore. Plus the beer is generally far superior at DIX. Tony makes excellent beer. M

I always purposefully ask for the fatty stuff when I'm ordering the brisket, they're always happy to oblige. Otherwise I have no idea on times.

digestive tract I believe.

Yes, probably it was scorched. When you add the liquid malt extract, make sure the stove is OFF. Until you have the LME fully dissolved. And stir very well while it's dissolving. Worse things can happen though on your first beer, so good job! As for the carbonation, you might have used too much priming sugar, or bottled too early. I believe your fermentation was 2 weeks, so that's unlikely. I have. They're excellent. Great products, and great service. Bit more expensive than other vendors, but free shipping is nice if you live in the states. It's not really worth it for me to order from them unless it's something really odd. Mark

Staranise is, through feb (except feb 14). And I read this morning that Villa del Lupo is all January, so it's on now

Laura, I've suffered scoliosis all my life. (I'm not a doctor, so I don't know if this advice is relavant to your affliction.) There's a cocktail that works for me. Robaxacet 8 and Ibuprofen. Robaxacet 8 requires you to ask the pharmacist. It's Robaxacet plus codeine. So a relaxant, and a pain killer. Add in Ibuprofen and you have the anti-inflammatory. My family doc recommended it, and when my pains flare (I'm a potter, so I spend hours hunched) it's the only thing that works. Unfortunately, codeine causes a bit of constipation. Mark. edited to add: I'm jealous again. Have fun everyone, I look forward to recurring weekly updates.

It is definitely a chore that gets easier with time. What I do is siphon my sanitizing solution (I use a 5 gallon bucket filled with Star San) into kegs (but you can siphon it to anything). I start the siphon with my mouth. This has two results, first it sanitizes the siphon, 2 it fills the siphon with liquid. After I have transferred enough I simply stop the flow, and let the hose sit in the pool of the sanitizer. (It is at this point that you would attach the bottling wand.) Then when I am ready to transfer beer, I simply open the valve, and let the sanitizer be pushed out by the oncoming beer. This small amount I let spill into a small bucket, in the centre of the bucket is my hydrometer. Once the beer is flowing clear I fill the hydrometer sample tube, then move the siphon outlet to start filling the kegs. Obviously this is only advisable when using a no-rinse santizer like Star San. I highly recommend Star San, it's just WAY too convienient to justify using anything else. There shouldn't have been any. Unless your siphon connections aren't tight enough. What you probably noticed is lots of little bubbles forming in the hose and at the exit to the wand. This is quite likely CO2 coming out of solution due to the agitation. A bit of foaming on top of the beer while you bottle is a good thing. As long as it isn't due to splashing the beer. If some CO2 creates some foam then these bubbles minimize the amount of O2 that can fit in the headspace of the bottle. You never mentioned a bottling bucket / priming sugar. Hopefully you didn't bottle straight from the fermenter to the bottles! As for cleaning the bottles prior to sanitizing, I have always used a product similar to oxyclean. A long enough soak leaves ANY bottle sparkling - no scrubbing, just a rinse. Leave the really bad ones overnight. When you drink the beer make sure to rinse the bottles right away. They won't need any cleaning before the next bottling session, just a rinse and then sanitizing.

Perfectly normal. RDWHAH. That's just clumps of yeast that still have a lot of CO2 adhering via surface tension. Hence the floating. Given time the CO2 will find it's way free and all the sludge will drop, but it really doesn't matter. At this point you are either thinking about moving the beer to a secondary fermenter, which is a pretty good idea at this point. People usually use what's called a carboy, but is really nothing more than a big bottle. You can get them in various sizes, likely you will want a 19 L / 5 US gallon one. Or, you will bottle straight from the fermenter. In either case you will need to transfer the beer to something else in order to bottle. The reason for that is that you need to mix in the priming sugar. And you can imagine that if you poured in some sugar to the fermenter and stirred it in two things would happen, it would get REALLY cloudy ( = bad) and you would introduce too much O2 ( = REALLY BAD). So, you want to pour the sugar solution to the secondary vessel and then transfer the beer into it. That way the sugar solution gets perfectly mixed. Anyways, all I really wanted to say was that this transferring (siphoning with your racking cane) will pull the beer from the fermenter leaving all the yeast sludge behind. Including the floating bits. So don't worry about them. Somebody above mentioned to smell the beer. This is generally good advice, but can be frought with problems. First problem, you may get really uncomfortable if you sniff too much CO2. It burns. Second, sometimes beer naturally doesn't smell very good, e.g. some yeasts throw off rotten egg smells quite normally. Third, if there is a bad smell due to something bad growing there, there will almost certainly be visual indications as well - fuzzy colonies growing on the surface, or filmy sheets like cellophane. So, did your kit come with a secondary fermenter?

somebody asked for cream of mushroom soup? one package of frozen hash browns two cans of cream of mushroom soup two cups of grated cheese ... cheddar / jack combo is good. If you have some ham, chop it up and add it in too. 325F for an hour, broiler for 5 min.

Metrotown. We've taken the knife back and we didn't bother to point out to them why. It was obvious that the knife had been very poorly sharpened. But the other problem with it that the hilt was unevenly machined is really strange. I own two other Wusthofs and they're perfect. It's quite strange. I truly believe that HOK must be buying factory rejects and selling them at reg prices. Anyways, I think we're going to get a damascus shun, they're so sexy.

I do. My LHBS sells reconditioned kegs. There's a problem though, they're being bought up for scrap, they're getting hard to find. This place http://rcbequip.com/ has a good reputation for buying over the web. And of course you can get them from http://morebeer.com too. As for the rest of it ... hoses, regulator(s) disconnects, shankds and taps, the two places above will have them. But chances are there is a beverage equipment distributer in your town. Try and get Perlick faucets. The reason is that the valve keep the tap clean. Not that big an issue for bars since they see so much use, but a big issue for home use. You want to see disgusting, don't clean your taps for 6 months. Lastly you'll want to get a CO2 tank. 20 lbs is a good size. About the same size as a keg and will last about a year depending on how you use it.

If the stove is against an outside wall I would ask the landlord to put one in. It's quite easy.

No I don't think so. I think it sounds kinda cool actually. But Onion Soup was the course after our braised onion, so .... Personally, I would take the braise out, put a crouton on the onion like a hat, then baste the crouton with the braising sauce, then sprinkle on gruyere then under the broiler for 5 minutes. Should be great I think.

I don't know about answering the above question, but here we can buy cippolini onions (both red and white, not a huge taste difference IMO) individually and bags of baby cippiloni. It is the former about which my original question was posed. (And I suspect the latter upon which the subsequent advice was based.) I'm not a big fan of baby onions in general because I'm a lazy a$$ prep cook. And quite frankly the idea of adding sweet to something which is already so sweet was honestly a bit repugnant to me. So I summarily rejected the advice that was offered to me (sorry) and forged ahead on the idea I had originally. It was very simply to braise the onion along with dried shitake in very good beef stock. I used two medium sized cipps and four mushrooms to about 3/4 of a cup of stock. Braised at 300 for about 35 min. This was the third course of 7 that my wife and I put together for our quiet NYE dinner. (I took pics, and plan to post on the dinner thread ... but, again I'm lazy, haven't posted it yet.) They were delicious. Spartan in presentation, huge in flavour, seasoned on the plate, and garnished with a sprinkling of parsely, I think it was the best course of the night. By far the simplest, but so good. If you haven't had dried shitake mushrooms, they're amazing. The onion centered on the plate in a pool of reduced stock with the two mushrooms leaning up against it. VERY good. But it probably hinged on the quality of the stock.

heavy chinese cleaver, and lots of practice.

In our part of the world they are found in asian markets. You can try one of those too. Unfortunately we don't have many mexican places here.

It IS an issue. Presuming it's an electric stove. The spiral elements seem to impart very uneven heat to the kettle, I remember seeing caramelized wort on the bottom of the kettle in the shape of the spiral. So, you can in fact caramelize those sugars. I don't know if it would still happen if you did a full wort boil, probably not, but it's a moot point because the stove probably doesn't have the power to keep 5 gallons at a boil. What you want is a trivest, I think that's what they're called. Just a little wire gadget that sits between the kettle and the element. Don't worry about it too much regardless, just make sure you are stirring the wort somewhat as it's coming to the boil. I do 10 gallon batches on a propane burner, and never have any caramelization on the bottom of the kettle. Mark.

I just brewed too ... a porter, http://brewery.org/gambmug/recs/975183377-19305.shtml it's a great beer that I've brewed before, and loved. A friend is opening his third restaurant, and he asked me to brew a couple of beers for the pre-opening staff party. This was the second, the first one I just tried for the first time today. An american pale ale with IPA hopping but only 5.5% abv. And the hops are almost all cascade that I grew in my garden! It tastes pretty good. I put it in a keg yesterday ... and am drinking it today. When you get sick of bottling jeniac, you'll have to get a second fridge which stores some kegs.

The temperature is a little cooler than is generally recommended, but in my opinion that's good. If it was Danstar Nottingham it's doubly good. That yeast tends to leave a beer pretty dry, and maybe the lower temperature will leave it a point or two sweeter. It sounds like you did everything right, you definitely want a boil though, not just a simmer. You will definitely notice a slowing of the bubbles after 2 days or so, but that doesn't mean it's done. I generally leave it for two weeks, but opinions differ wildly on this subject. For you, I would suggest for your first batch, simpler is better, leave it two weeks, and then have a peek in the fermenter, if there is no more foam (called Krauesen) then it's almost certainly finished. And you can go ahead and bottle it. But to be absolutely sure when to bottle it, you should check the gravity, it should be between 1.008 - 1.014 depending on the fermentability. If you bottle it too early it can be dangerous. Do you have another vessel for the bottling?

If it were me, I would boil it. No question. The bitterness won't go away, but if the pre-hopped extract includes some flavour hops as well, then that contribution will go away. You could ask for an ounce of hops from the shop to put it back, but it's not important for a nut brown. So, I would bring about 2 gallons to a boil (or as much as fits in 80% of the pot you will use). Turn off the element. Add the malt extract (give the can a bath in hot water to make it flow better), and the dry malt. Bring back to a boil. Boil for 15 minutes. Pour into your sanitized fermenter (if you added an ounce of hops you will need to strain - sanitize the strainer too!). Top up the fermenter with cold water to 5 gallons. (you could check the temp, you want it to be about 68-71F). Sprinkle the yeast on top, if it's too foamy, then either let it subside for an hour (lid on) or use a sanitized spoon to be able to see the top of the liquid. Don't sprinkle the yeast on the foam. Let it ferment for a couple of weeks, then bottle it up!

We LOVE cippolini onion. We're planning a six course dinner for ourselves for NYE, and whole paycheck had some beautiful cippolini. I've only ever roasted them along with whatever fall veggies I'm roasting. For this dinner, I'd like to try something different, and I thought, maybe they will braise well. I was thinking about 40 minutes in a beef stock, oven will be at about 300 F. The last 20 minutes I would throw in two dried shitakes. Plate it over wilted spinach. How would the onion hold up to braising? How long? Does anyone have any experience on this? Thanks, Mark.

Nut Brown is an excellent choice for simmering onions and bratwurst! Have fun, let us know how the first beer turns out. Point Eric to http://hbd.org/discus/messages/1/1.html?1087231765 An excellent forum for home brewers.

So, my wife, bless her heart, saw fit to purchase me a new santoku. She purchased this one: http://www.cutleryandmore.com/large/645.jpg A very good knife to be sure. Her choice of vendor, Ming Wo, didn't not have them, so she purchased it at House of Knives. I've never had a very good feeling about that chain, but without any good reason, other than I don't think I would buy cooking knives from a retailer that also sells commemerative hobbit daggers. Now, looking at this particular knife that she bought shows quite clearly that it has been butchered. Not used to butcher, but butchered. The edge is no longer a nice smooth constant curve. The edge has been badly dented and re sharpened, obviously scallops in the edge, and the edge protrudes quite deeply into the blade scallops near the tip. There's another issue with this knife, the left side of the hilt is about one to two mm shorter than the right side, and the edge of the hilt is very sharp on that side compared to the other. Are House of Knives selling refurbished knives? Do they take brand new knives and try to sharpen them themselves to "improve" them? Has anyone else seen this? Luckily she was told she can return it. My suspiscion is that they purchase factory seconds (or even knock offs heaven forbid), refurbish and sell them at premium prices. HOK is a Western Canadian chain I believe, so I hope this is the right forum.

Good suggestion There are two spots in the Quay, one is a chicken seller, and the other is a butcher. The former does have duck, but I have only seen whole duck, never breasts. The butcher is pretty good, and they're both super nice, two young brothers bought in March. They also sell whole duck, not sure if I've ever seen breasts. But I can absolutely guarantee that if you phone them today they will have it before new years. Not sure if this is the current information: http://lonsdalequay.com/store.cfm?store=106b I'm pretty sure before it was sold it was called Bob the Butcher, so it probably is correct.

I don't think whole foods carries them. I would try 3P Meat and Poultry. I have on occasion seen duck products at the IGA on Esplanade. They have even had vacuum packed duck confit before.