cdh

In that list, only the british pale malt actually needs to be mashed. I said in the tutorial that there was an exception for the very dark malts, none of which need to be mashed. Black patent, chocolate and special B are all very dark malts, the lowest L number in there is likely to be the 250 or so for the Special B. The crystal malt, while light, has the crystal signifier so you know you don't need to mash it. The way you can tell whether a light grain needs to be mashed or not is to taste it and see if it is sweet. IF the sugar is already there, then you know that the starch has already been converted.

Exactly what I meant.

Didn't Michael post a porter recipe a few pages back... If people are ready to go on another brew now, maybe we should drop him a PM and let him lead that brew, since I've not brewed a porter in a long time, and am not entirely sure on the dark grain proportions that work best. As to the wood chips, they'd be a final addition after things are done fermenting, so you could add wood to some of your beer after you've siphoned some off to bottle, giving you the chance to try both the woody version and the sans-wood version.

I just ran across a great reference/summary of information about a lot of grains that you might want to use in building recipes of your own. Have a look at http://www.carolinabrewmasters.com/06Aprgrains.html

Elie- Glad to hear that Saison meets with your approval. It is a great summery beer, being both light and complex with a good hop bitterness in the background. What are you brewing next?

Well, yeah... it is more complicated than "all beer by the case" under the law... but in much of the state, the practice is you can get Bud Lite and other such boring junk as "take out" from bars, but only "Beer Distributors" (who are only licensed to sell by the case) carry anything interesting. The Foodery in PHL is a rare and notable exception, and I'm not entirely sure what kind of license that they actually have.

It seems that liquor laws address three different questions: 1. What you can buy 2. How it is sold and 3. Where and when you can buy it I think that the annoyance value of the laws tracks with my list in descending order. I'd much rather live in a state that tells me I have to go to a specialized shop to buy my booze, so long as those shops are allowed to order and sell anything available on the market. It would be more annoying to me to live in a state where I could buy some wine and beer in the grocery store, but which illegalized sales of beers stronger than 5%, or fortified wines like port and sherry, or other similar restrictions on what I might buy. On the wine and booze front, my home state of Pennsylvania is really pretty annoying, insofar as their laws tell me I have to go to a state owned store to buy the booze, and the state gets to pick their inventory. On the beer front, the state is really annoying for mandating all beer sales be by the full case... but that annoyance is mitigated by the fact that no classes of beer are categorically unavailable here.

You mean Aventinus on draught? It is available in bottles all over the place. And I believe that it is available kegged in places not Munich as well, as I recall it being on the draught list at Ludwig's Garten in Philadelphia a year or two ago. Is there something special about how it is on its home turf that makes it unique there and unreproducable? Are the exported versions pale shadows of the real thing's glory? Because the exports are pretty damn tasty themselves.

This leads to an interesting question-- has anybody redistilled a rum enough times to turn it into a vodka? You see the grape brandy vodkas out there... how about cane spirit vodkas? That might give you a bridge product if you market it right... call it vodka (if local laws allow) but market it with a tropical ad campaign... Seems an easy comparitive ad campaign to compare frozen slavic vodka to cheery caribbean vodka and make the rum/vodka seem appealing. What tiny remnants of flavor survive might give people who actually taste their vodka a hint of what rums are like and inspire a less skeptical attitude when presented with real rums. All this is, of course, premised on my unfounded belief that the rummy flavors can be distilled out of rum... I don't know enough chemistry to know what the flavorful compounds are, or whether they'd go in an ordinary redistilling... anybody know?

Well, if you've had the pastrami, you should try the corned beef or the hot dogs... mmmm mmmm mmmm. Glad to be of service. One bit of advice for you: if the weather is reasonably nice, walk everywhere. Manhattan is very disorienting if your point of reference is emerging from a hole in the ground. When you walk you'll get a feel for where neighborhoods change character, and where they are in relation to each other. Taking the subway is great for getting to a specific spot, but very bad for giving you a sense of how the whole place is layed out. Second best solution is taking the bus, since you'll still see the scenery, but you won't get to feel what's going on in the neighborhoods you're passing through.

Just remember that Manhattan is really pretty small. 20 north-south blocks = 1 mile. From 42nd (where you are) to 80th (where Zabars is) is is a pretty short walk, even accounting for the need to cross the park you're looking at 2.5 miles maybe. You could walk up Madison Ave window shopping, cross the park in the 70s to catch the beautiful Bethesda Fountain, and then visit the holy trinity of grocery stores on the Upper West Side: Fairway at 74th and Broadway, Citarella next door to Fairway, and then Zabars at 80th and Bway. Or you could walk 40 blocks south by way of Madison Square and Grammercy and the Flatiron building to explore Greenwich Village and its eastward expansion into the Lower East Side, which has lots of nice cafes and such. Particularly good on the East are the MudSpot on 9th St just off of 2nd ave, Podunk on 5th between 2nd and Bowery. Down in that neighborhood, you could visit legendary NYC classic spots like Russ & Daughters (for smoked fish) or Katz's Deli for Pastrami (and I'd bet that one $13 pastrami sandwich will keep you fed for several meals... ), or any number of restaurants. The Village is where NYU is, so there are plenty of student-budget sorts of places, many moreso than you'd find in midtown. Then you could follow Broadway down into SoHo and wander around there.

I know what you mean about the funny soda syphon flavor... almost metallic. It put me off of using my soda syphon a while back. My homebrewing hobby has provided me with other CO2 toys that make homemade seltzer possible without the funky metal flavor, but in larger quantities. I imagine that it would be possible to use a 5 gallon keg to make a quart or two of experimental carbonated stuff... just have to free up a keg to use for such experiments. Kegs themselves can be quite inexpensive... www.homebrewing.org has them quite cheap... it is the $100+ or so that a CO2 tank and regulator and gas lines will cost you that puts this system out of casual hobbyist budgets. It would be possible (but not necessarily safe) to do the math on how much co2 you want to use, and add it by means of carefully measured hunks of dry ice. That would cut the tank and regulator out of the picture... and the kegs are rated for up to 130 PSI... so chances of blowing one up with an exuberant amount of dry ice are somewhat mitigated. Just check your math and your scale's accuracy before trying it. Standard syphon charges are what? 8g or so... so you'd probably want to aim for that weight of dry ice per quart... so you'd need a precise gram scale, rather than one that reads in grams but doesn't accurately weigh down to the gram... and you'd have to take account of the volume of open space above your liquid at the bottom of the keg as well... lots of gas math would be required.

So, how did the subsequent experiments go? I'm fascinated by the possibility of generating my own tonic. How does it present itself? Brownish or not? Cloudy or not?

You're asking a very tough question. 42 & Lex is the middle of the midtown office tower zone where nothing is cheap and the good stuff is extra double not cheap. The Dartagnan restaurant used to be in that neighborhood, and it was very good and high in protein (and duck fat) content... but it didn't survive. That is not a neighborhood where you'll find artisan bakeries and pastry shops unless you walk at least 10 blocks south. In the high 20s on Lex there is a confusingly named german pastry shop run by a real character, called Chez le Chef... German stuff, german owner, french name, not exactly cheap but yummy pastries... A little further will get you into Murray Hill/Curry Hill where lots of good cheap indian food can be found... but much of the best is vegetarian, so not high protein. You might consider hopping into the subway at Grand Central and taking the 7 train out into Queens, where you'll find a patchwork of neighborhoods with good cheap asian foods... You're not going to find cheap in midtown Manhattan. Good is tough there if you're not willing to spend. And high protein and cheap rarely intersect except at BBQ joints and Rodizio places. Thinking of BBQ, Virgils is on 44th over on the West side near Times Square, so is walkable from where you are... Not dirt cheap, but tasty.

Tim, It is not just me that makes the claim that there is nitrogen in solution in Guinness. Guinness themselves do, right here in this patent filed with the USPTO in 1981. Unless fundamental laws of physics have changed in the past 25 years, nitrogen still goes into solution along with the CO2. So, you're wrong in your assumption Guinness is only CARBONATED and not at all nitrogenated. That is just not so. BTW. in your expanation of the bends, you emphasize AIR... but you clearly haven't thought about what makes up 78% of air. Hint- chemical element N.

Stopped by for a long lunch today and tried a few of the beers on offer in the 1-4 window this afternoon... Lunch upstairs at the bar was quite tasty... the lodge cheesesteak paired a drippy goopy white-cheese-covered layer of thin sliced beef with a layer of salami underneath it. On first observation it didn't appear impressive in a piled-high-Philly-steak kind of way, but after a couple of bites it was delicious and satisfying. The fries were golden brown, crispy and delicious. As to the beers, I wasn't wowed by anything I tasted, unlike previous FtFs... maybe it is just the season... I'm not much of a fall beer lover. Troeg's double hopped Hopback was smooth with a clean malty taste that balanced the hops, but I'm not a mega-IPA lover, so while this was fine, it didn't push my buttons. The General Lafayette Malted Oat Stout was my least favorite of the bunch. It had a strange smoky phenolic thing with a upfront sweetness that just didn't work for me. My least favorite offerering, and from a brewpub that often serves up beers that I really enjoy. The Lancaster Hog's Milk was another stout style beer that had a lot going on it its flavor profile, it had a little buttery diacetyl in the background, and bit of a estery fruityness, and a restrained malt profile. The Legacy Noreaster was the best stout of the bunch offered... sweet, malty, dark, roasty and delicious. The Brewers Art Resurrection was a good belgian ale... while described as a dubbel style beer, this tasted much more like what I think of as a trippel. A sharp hoppy high note, and not much of a fruity malty low note that I expect from a dubbel. Very light in color as well. Stoudt's Scarlet Lady with juniper berries and a Summit dry hopping was remarkably restrained in flavor profile considering its description and cloudy visual appearance. A malty english-style beer, though without the tang I like in a British Bitter. Victory's Dr. Decibel was another dry-hopped beer that sounded better than it tasted, though in a seasonal way. This was an autumnal brown ale, malty and lightly hopped, with a dry hopping done with East Kent Goldings. This might be a very nice session beer, but it didn't shine forth with robust dry hopped aroma like I'd hoped it would. I heard reports on the Weyerbacher Double Simcoe IPA from Lew Bryson and Gary Bredbenner, and both commented on the over the top hoppiness... and I decided to pass on that one, and also on the 10% ABV Nodding Head 3C Extreme Double IPA... too hoppy and boozy for a lunchtime beer in my estimation.

Tim, Kindly explain, then, why it is that the "widgets" in draught cans are full of nitrogen, if nitrogen has nothing to do with the mouthfeel of beergas propelled beers. That fact would seem to contradict your contention that nitrogen never gets into solutions and has nothing to do with perceived texture. Reread my BYO article link, and then tell me that nitrogen is only about pressure and nothing about texture. While you're at it, please reconcile your theory of nitrogen insolubility with the bends, and nitrogen narcosis.

Guinness gas is a synonym for beer gas iirc. This is usually a mix of CO2 and N at 50% levels I believe. ← Read more about beer gas here. The host site is a specialist distributor of beer dispensing systems, so I give their explanation a fair bit of credit. I'll note it doesn't specifically address the perceived "thickness" at the root of this thread... but in my experience that thickness is common to all nitrogen draft beers, not just Guinness, so I'm comfortable with standing by my position that the thickness is a byproduct of beer gas and the high pressure stout faucets that go with it. For further fun reading on beer gas issues for homebrewers, click here.

They'll be serving the full menu too? The Firkinteenth usually packs the place so full that I'd imagine that moving food from kitchen to customer might become quite challenging... Which is why I thought to ask if they were doing anything special for the event... e.g. unspillable food that can be eaten while being standing in line at the bar... But if they're going to do full menu, they must have thought out those issues.

hmmm... If a producer is really lying about their product on a website owned or controlled by them, I don't think they have a defense to a charge of false advertising just because the lie is not printed on the bottle. If I were to print lies about a product I was selling in an advertisment, but not repeat them on the packaging, I think I would be liable if somebody were to come after me. I question whether Bacardi would take the risk of lying about their product if it could be proved that the booze in the bottle isn't what they say it is. My bottle of Bacardi 8 clearly says on it "...aged at least 8 years..." Anybody got convincing proof that this is a lie? Until I see something convincing, Bacardi gets the benefit of the doubt as far as I'm concerned. Besides, it is tasty rum at a fine price regardless of how old it may or may not be. As did I...due to Bacardi's tricky marketing. On the bottle specifically (Canadian bottle of Bacardi 8), it does not say any age in english, but it does say "Ron 8 Anos" which means 8 year rum. As well, on the Bacardi Canada website, Bacardi 8 is described as "the premium dark rum from Bacardi that is aged for eight years in small mature oak casks to develope into the world's most exquisitely smooth rum". I guess they can get away with this since this description is only on a website, and not printed directly on the bottle. ←

Hmmm... I think lunch in the Northeast has just appeared on my to do list. Know of any Firkinteenth food being specially cooked up down there for the holiday?

Ah... you found that picture of my wort chiller in action back in the Chef's Beer Thread?

Now that we're getting past summer, playing with yeasts that like it chilly does get much easier... Summer is the time for brewing the wacky Belgian styles that don't mind a warmer ferment... the German styles that demand long cool fermentations are a fine winter project. I would say that there is a lot of overstatement about how terrible beers that aren't fermented as cold as possible end up. But there are some people in the world who really hate every flavor that yeast produces and go out of their way to avoid any beers that have allowed the yeast to express themselves in any way other than ethanol.

The Melanoidin is the way to go, I'd say... You might also use Biscuit or Aromatic for that purpose, but they're all similar in effect. You could, alternatively, use 500g of Munich or Vienna in place of the 200g of Melanoidin, if you wanted to increase the fermentables while adding some maltiness.

Ummmm... yeah. How different is a port wine reduction from a melted grape jelly, flavor wise?? Totally in the same ballpark... one a bit boozier (and hence potentially a bit more bitter), one a bit sweeter... portuguese grapes vs. concord grapes... but you can't tell me you were reducing a 20 year old vintage port, so the argument of massively increased complexity just won't fly. It is a bit rude to second guess the kitchen when the flavors will be so similar, but there may have been a reason (like an AA member at the table or supertaster taste buds that can't handle any bitter whatsoever, or other such).