Steven Murphy

Normally you would do your primary fermentation in the bucket and then transfer to the carboy for secondary fermentation. You can actually do the entire fermentation in one vessel if you choose. The major advantage of secondary is for beer clarity and with styles that require extended fermentation time such as lagers, reduced oxidation exposure. When I brew my common House Pale Ale which is essentially an English Ordinary Bitter I ferment it in a bucket for two week and then rack to to a keg for carbonation and serving. If I were brewing this beer for competition, I will rack to a carboy, crash cool it in my lagering room and possibly filter it prior to bottling. I can have an extremely clear beer with just the single bucket fermentation though if I rack very carefully. In regards to recipes, there are hundreds of websites with recipes. There are numerous brewing forums out there as well. Some better than the rest. Just remember that many of them are like food recipe sites where they may not be that good a recipe even with high ratings. Your fermentation and sanitation practices are more important than a "good recipe" though. There are many great books out there as well full of recipes. My favorite is Brewing Classic Styles. Every recipe in the book was an award winning recipe at national level competition. It has extract as well as all grain version of every recipe. Another great book to own is How To Brew by John Palmer. It is my brewing Bible.

Glad to hear. I spent a good part of the day in the brewery cleaning up and trying to organize. Pulled the Brew Magic out and cleaned it up and did a good Clean In Place. Time to brew here to. I have about 300 pounds of grain and 10 pounds of hops to brew up.

Hmm, for me it has to be making gumbo, making risotto, and especially boiling/cleaning/picking boiled crabs. The ultimate though is making my wife's spaghetti gravy recipe. I haven't made that forever, I really need to make a batch.

Bowl prep here as well. I need to keep organized. If I don't I normally forget something. Now if it's just a couple items, I do just use the board.

Editing can emphasize or de-emphasize certain events. It doesn't create things that never happened (not on this show, anyway). The things we saw MC do, are things that he did. They aren't pretty. ← True but editing can take a shot of someone praying the Holy Rosary and make them look like they are killing kittens.

I to would have been happy with any of them winning. All very respectable guys. I personally feel last weeks episode made MC look like a jerk all by editing. I didn't see him as a douche at all. I actually thought he was doing some good natured ribbing of the chefs. I think if that was the real him you would have seen glimpses of it in the previous episodes. Anyway, I hope they continue this series. It was very entertaining for me to watch. I wouldn't even care if they let previous contestants enter again.

I don't know if I would worry about no crawfish too much up there as the Popeye's around here pretty well screw up crawfish as well as shrimp. I get chicken only there. I do have to say for fast food their red beans are OK though.

I'm eating Popeye's chicken right now!

Brigtsen's Pecan Pie for me. I am not a cake person. I would rather eat a Duncan Hines box cake than most bakery cakes I have tried. Give me a good pie anytime. I grew up on pie at The Blue Spring and Cowen's in the St. Louis metro area.

I brew beer and make wine.

I have shucked hundreds on hundreds of oysters and use a knife (Victorinox) like this one. Mine is home made though and very heavy. It weighs about a pound. I let the knife do all the work. I buy my oysters by the bushel and can shuck them in less than a half hour and that includes drinking a couple brews while doing it. I always suggest a newbie do it the way mentioned with the towel. It is much safer and there is no need to be a speed demon. Be safe and enjoy the experience. I just hold them in my left hand and stick the knife in and pop them open but with lack of experience and a cheap knife, that is a bad accident waiting to happen. My knife doesn't even have an edge on it, just a somewhat sharp point to get it started and to spread the shell. Well, now I am craving some on the half shell. Down to the corner to pick up a sack. Hope Mr Folse has some left for the day.

Nice thread. I live in the area between N.O. and Baton Rouge. There are fantastic spots everywhere around here. It really gets good when you get out of the NO Metro. A lot of the "secret spots" you see on TV that say are in N.O. are really outside the city. Hell on Top Chef's final this last season they said they were in N.O. but in reality they were 5 miles down the road from my house for the opening quick fire and I live 45-50 miles outside NO. They were almost in Baton Rouge. That Plantation they were at BTW has an excellent restaurant there that no one outside the area knows about. What is so unique here is there are gas stations and C-Stores that make and serve food as good quality as many of these fine dining establishments listed. I actually hate living in La. but if and when I can move. I will starve to death. I have been here 10 years. I came wearing size 30 pants. I am up to size 40 now. One other thing. Everyone here raves about Café du Monde. If you are in N.O. and have a car, drive out to Metarie and try Morning Call. Not the touristy spot but much better beignets and coffee. I live 45 miles from the spot and will drive there just for a cup and a sack. Open 24/7. I am going there tonight. This is the absolute fantastic point on the culinary scene here. We have numerous great restaurants that are not filled with the tourist crowd. Many locals rarely if ever go to many of the spots listed as we don't want to wait. When we are ready to eat, we want to eat now. I have been to a few mentioned here though and they are all great. I just personally don't like Café du Monde as I don't care much for the "Dumpster in July" aroma that floats around the Quarter while I am trying to enjoy a snack. PS: Lucky Dogs Rule!

I am going to have to check this magazine out. I live in Louisiana and have never heard of it. Almost any of Chef Folse's recipes are great. He lives here in town. I have met him quite a few times and eaten his food for years. I buy most of my seafood from his family. What I love about his recipes is that here the average kitchen has almost every ingredient. His Shrimp Creole recipe is a staple in our house. BTW, if a recipe gets replaced and you can't find it, let me know. I probably already have it or can find it here locally for you. I'll even ask Chef when I run into him.

I hope it isn't coming across that I am advocating that one must use distilled water. I am just sharing that it is common in the homebrew scene. I normally brew to style and often try to clone commercial beers for the sport of it and more important, I can't find them where I live. For example, Dogfish Head 60 minute IPA is my favorite beer. It is not sold in my state. I load up when I go to Florida (like day after tomorrow ). John Palmer doesn't specify or demand Distilled water in the book but he does talk about it. If you look at the Brewing Network's site and search the show podcasts and look at the show Brew Strong. You can download about 4 hours of John talking about brewing water for all grain as well as extract. He explains how and why you build water. You build it from deionized or distilled water. Many do indeed make excellent award winning beers at the National level with their tap water though. I have. Many areas of the country have excellent water to make the average beer. Many areas don't though. You mention for example the Maltster in North Dakota. Their water profile in that area is suitable for many beers. Also remember that not all extract is made there and many canned extract is imported. Now lets look at my water. I have very soft water from the tap. I can brew an excellent Pilsner with my water profile but without really adjusting my water I can not brew a good Stout. I don't have the mineral profile or levels that compliment or create the style. I use my tap water for many styles but then there are many others that I have to build my water from Reverse Osmosis water. Anyway, I am just very passionate about home brewing and winemaking. That is what I do when I am not working. Between cooking and brewing, that is life for me outside work. I just love to pass any information I learn to others to do my small part to spread the word and knowledge of brewing. I am just trying to add to the education process here. By all means, try brewing with your tap water, if it works fine then go for it. My initial peaked interest was someone thought you should not use Distilled Water for beer. I just wanted to point out that it is totally acceptable for extract batches. It should be avoided with all grain batches and not used for winemaking.

I have this one mounted on the wall in the brewery. I am going to get a larger capacity model and put it inline for all water use. I bought it at Lowe's as I have a store on the corner. http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=prod...815-98-3US-AS01 In regards to having a low water level. You can top up with no problem with an extract kit. The extract concentration is determined to me a specific gravity of sugar for a specific amount of liquid. When you add the extract to water and then boil you only boil the water back out leaving the extract at a higher level of gravity. Adding the water back is just fine and you really should to bring the gravity back to the desired level for the style. You really ought to boil the water first to sterilize it though prior to adding it but many just add distilled or tap water right back to the fermenter.

Distilled water is totally acceptable when making extract batches and preferred my most kit manufacturers. Remember, the extract is going to have the minerals lacking from the distilled water and add it back in. This will keep you from having for example too high magnesium or carbonate in your beer. Now if you are making an all grain batch where you are mashing the grains to extract your sweet wort you want to use regular tap water. If you are using distilled water or reverse osmosis water you need to add the minerals back to meet the water style. The minerals allow you to reach the optimal pH level in the mash to allow full mash extraction. For example, if you mash grains in distilled water you will realize a pH of 5.7 to 5.8. 5.2 is an optimal pH level. The minerals in the water allow this to happen. There are actually recipes to build your brewing water to meet a style of beer. The water used to make a fine Pilsner will not allow you to make a fine Stout as well as vice versa. Here is an excellent site that will tell you absolutely everything you will need to know to brew beer from extract or all grain. This is my Bible. I recommend anyone enthusiastic about brewing to buy this book. The first edition is free online. I have this in print as well as the second and third editions. I always have it in the brewery when I brew. Ask any home brewer that is award winning at the national level (myself included) if you had to have only one book, what would it be. Most will say How to Brew by John Palmer. http://www.howtobrew.com/sitemap.html

Lets see if I can contribute to a couple questions here. In regards to the "bags" of ingredients added you add the sack with the steeping grains to water that is around 150 degrees F. Hops and items like coriander are added during the boil at defined times. These items are not included during fermentation. You can "dry hop" after fermentation by adding to the carboy and letting it set a couple weeks but I would say i would not go that route until you have brewed a few beers and was comfortable with the brewing process. In regards to the water. If you are using an extract kit, distilled water is fine and normally preferred. Distilled water has no mineral content. When the extract is made it is developed from and actual all grain wort boil. When the water is extracted from the wort to make the extract the minerals are still there. You may ask why I am concerned about the minerals. In brewing various types of water, meaning different mineral content is ideal for various styles of beer. Ever wonder why different countries or regions make different types of beer? It all revolves around the local water supply. It is desirable to maintain the water profile as close as possible. Of course you don't know the mineral content of the water used at the malting facility though. On average though your home tap water should be fine. Boil it for 15 minutes or so and then let it cool to pitching temps ( the temp you want the wort when you add the yeast) and then add away. Distilled water is cheap and easy though. BTW, I don't boil my tap water first at all. I run it through a filter that strips the chlorine, cysts and other sediments out and add it straight the the pot.

I make Sushi at home and think I do a very good job at it. I don't think I produce restaurant quality but come pretty darn close. Nigiri is pretty straightforward and easy. Maki took quite a bit of practice but I mastered it pretty quick. I have to say the only real issue or lets say task is indeed making the rice. Well lets say not making the rice, but lets say seasoning it perfectly. I feel that is the art to great Sushi rice and it is indeed an art in my opinion. I do applaud your desire to branch into this cuisine. I have thought the same many times myself. Good luck on your endeavor.

Wow, I am a new member here and was surprised to see a home brewing class on a culinary site. I am an avid advance home brewer and wine maker. I joined here to broaden my culinary skills but will keep an eye on this thread. I am always glad to help out a fellow brewer. I moderate a couple wine making forums as well as hang out at many home brewing forums. To the leader of this class, if you ever decide to offer a more advanced brewing class, I would be glad to offer assistance. It is actually very easy to brew all grain on a budget. Good job on the beginner class. You can also make great wines from kits if you have the patience. This is my brew system.