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Wow... brewing kit in the UK is not inexpensive. I'd still think outside the box and build a multi-purpose boiling system out of something like http://www.purplepans.co.uk/product_detail.aspx?id=16424 and import a big pot like Tim's link above. That will only cost a little more than the 65 pound brew bucket, and will give you a multipurpose tool made of high quality materials, rather than a single purpose tool made of low quality materials. You may not even have to import such a pot... check around for steel stock pots... they must be for sale somewhere in the UK, if not in brewing shops.

huh?? Did I misunderstand you or are you saying that the bins for boiling are made of plastic?? ← Sounds wack to me too... but if they're using them over there, they can't be all wrong. Maybe the 240V current standard allows for really super fast heating elements or such that our 110V current over here can't match. I'm still wary of boiling anything in a plstic container, since I don't know that boiling won't make some funky petrochemical hydrocarbon in the plastic react with something else that I don't want it to. The comfort zone for some petrochemicals is not too much over water's boiling point. If I were going to buy a boiling rig today, I'd drop $130 on a portable induction hob, get an induction ready pot and have the best of both worlds. Runs on electric power so I don't have to buy gas at whatever price it is selling for, I don't have to store a gas burner and tank, and I get the adjustability of gas, AND it puts more energy into the boil and wastes less power radiating excess heat everywhere. An energy efficient way to boil.

Pilsner is one style of beer that has never struck a chord with me. What is it that people look for in a pils? Everybody says "clean, crisp, blah blah blah", and I wouldn't know the flavor of either clean or crisp in a beer if it hit me over the head. I find the pils I've had to be either bitter and grassy or sweet and grassy, without any interesting esters or phenols or such that come in ales. Pils always feels heavy to me as well... I couldn't drink a bunch of them. So, what is it about pilsners that gets folks excited?

Certainly not a new finding. It has been common knowledge for at least a decade that clear bottles (and green bottles) + UV light == skunked beer. What is a carboy but a large clear bottle? See, e.g. http://www.byo.com/feature/487.html (at 17), a 7 year old admonition in the same spirit as mine.

1. Bad idea keeping the beer in something clear so you can watch it. Too much light exposure will skunk the hops, damaging your beer's aroma. 2. If you want to take that risk, the better bottles seem a much better path than old glass carboys. But they cost. Figure out if it is worth it to you.

Airlock contents? I have always used water, and had no problems as a result.

Tim, Looks to be a fine fine deal. The thing that appeals most from that description, if accurate, is "induction ready". Induction seems to be the most time and energy efficient method of heating a pot up, so an induction capable brewpot would great thing indeed... provided you had an induction element... which go for around $125 last time I looked.

See http://michaelpollan.com/article.php?id=80 He tackles a number of issues that arise from WF's enlargement and adoption of certain seemingly industrial techniques that appear to fly in the face of the store's philosophy. Specifically, he addresses: - local sourcing and "backdoor buying" being dropped in favor of the economies of scale of using distribution centers. - "customer demand" for unsustainable, or unhealthy, or otherwise suspect products when WF's corporate schtick is to educate the customers about their products. - WF's inconsistent policy on media availability. - and much more He's got more interesting writing in the NYTimes blog section behind the TimesSelect wall too.

For a tour of some of the many and varied Belgian styles, have a look at http://www.bjcp.org/styles04/ and go through the subcategories under 16, 17 and 18. That at least scratches the surface of Belgian brewing, but is by no means comprehensive.

Yup, Ommegang is Belgian in style. The eponymous Ommegang is in the style of a Belgian dubbel, and the Hennepin is a Saison/Farmhouse Ale/Biere de Garde type beer. I'm not so much a fan of the 3 Philosophers, as I find it too sweet and too hoppy for a style that should have a more pronounced sourness. The Rare Vos just strikes me a not particularly interesting. Their Witte is an alright witbier, but I like the Celis and Hoegaarden style more. The joy of Belgian beers is that they are all so varied and different. "Belgian" doesn't really signify a style, but rather tells you you're rolling the dice and anything might come up in your glass if you don't know what you're asking for. I find that fun, though there are some belgian styles I don't care for. Trippels are not my cup of tea. Too sweet and hoppy for my tastes...

Susan, it must be that different people are wired differently, because I've never tasted a beer that had an identifiable banana or bubblegum flavor... at least as far as my palate is concerned. What Belgians have you tried where you've noticed it? I doubt a golden strong ale like Duvel would be objectionable in that way. Witbiers get some spiciness, but no bubblegum or bananas. You sure won't get gum or anything other than wine-y fruit from the sour ale family, e.g. everything from Rodenbach, Liefmans Goudenband. Lambics have lots going on in them, but I don't think bananas (unintentionally) or bubblegum (ever) turn up in them.

"quad" is just marketing blather for a belgian strong dark ale. There are plenty of them, both Trappist and non-Trappist. See http://www.bjcp.org/styles04/Category18.html#style18E for a discussion of the style.

And Shiner does brew multiple styles. Their not-so-bock-like "bock" is just the flagship brand. When I was living in Austin they were test marketing a hefe, so I'm not surprised to hear about it.

17 average American beers? I'm pretty sure that 17 12oz cans of Bud have had less hops brewed into them than one or two pints of the popular superhoppy Imperial India Pale Ales out there. Get a 6-pack of Stone Brewing Company's Arrogant Bastard, or better yet, Wild Bill's Alimony Ale... either of them will get you your RDA of hops in short order.

Hmmmm... Time it takes me? The only time I really count is the boil, which is around an hour or so. I can sanitize my fermentor during that hour, and little goes on before everything is tossed in to boil... and after it boils, I drop my brew pot into the pond and come back to it in a couple of hours during which I did something else. So, I'd say a brew takes as long as it takes to get the water to boiling, plus one hour, plus the five minutes it takes to pour the beer from the pot into the fermentor and hit it with the whisk. Crushed grains should be good for months. I think the oldest stuff in my collection at the moment is 7 month old American crystal 20, which still seems fine. Grain is not something that will go off unless it is in a really hot, wet environment, then it will stale and might grow mold. As to alcohol content, you need to take two readings with an hydrometer. One at the beginning, right as you add the yeast, and one at the end, right before you bottle. Subtract the second number from the first and multiply it by 131, and that will tell you what percentage alcohol by volume your beer is. See http://beeradvocate.com/news/stories_read/518/ As to concentrated boils, you need to up the the hops. The bittering hops will be less effective in a more concentrated boil, so you need more of them. Use the beer recipator at http://www.hbd.org/recipator, enter the recipe as it is given, then use the resize button to enter the new boil volume and final volume, and it will calculate how to keep the hops consistent.

Popped into the Manhattan Moore Bros over the weekend, and it is a fabulous space. Greg Moore was there pouring tastes of some very tasty wines, so got to chat with him about wine, the NY market, aspirations for the place and such. It is such a wonderful thing when the person selling you your wine can describe the geography and climate of the individual vineyards the grapes came from, and the acquaint you with the winemakers personalities, all from personal knowledge. [On a more housekeeping note, I'd suggest that this thread really belongs on the NY board rather than here. MooreBros is a Philly thing, but this thread is about what they're doing in NYC. Feel free to edit this out if you move the thread.]

Got a bottle at Astor over the weekend. Can't wait to play with it. Came in just short of $20.

Yeah... the Moore Bros. mean it. They take the wine seriously, and refuse to abuse it.

Terrible news, Elie... You've got the sourdough cultures still in the kitchen? If you're getting vinegar-y tastes, I think those may be the culprit. Have you baked recently? Did you have a fan running, circulating air near the beer when you opened it to dry hop? Something may have taken a ride on those air currents. I couldn't tell from the picture, but was there a slimy jellyfish-like thing in there? That would be a colony of acetobacter, which turn alcohol into vinegar in the presence of oxygen. A sealing lid and airlock would help with that, insofar as it would keep the oxygen away.

My two ball-lock cornies arrived from homebrewing.org in Detroit today... looking fine. My gas hardware has yet to ship from the bev factory. All I've got coming is the basic plastic party faucet. Your insight inspires me to keep a bowl of sanitizer next to the keg in the basement and leave the faucet in it when it is not in use. That should keep the funk to a minimum. I have no plans for a kegerator or such... I have a basement that keeps a pretty constant 50-60 temperature year round. My bitters and belgians will be quite happy served at that temperature. If I brew a party batch that needs to be cold, it will live the life of a party keg, in a trash can packed with ice. I don't believe in 'em anyway. Never owned 'em, never wanted 'em, never understood the appeal. I'm happy with my buckets.

Welcome MSK! There is no late to this party... I'm still here, and will be. You just get the benefit of the accumulated wisdom of those who have gone before you.

Hmmm... that Czech Pilsner is a lager yeast, rather than an ale yeast... lagers play by different rules, generally. They like to ferment at refrigerator temperatures, and over long periods of time, so if you fermented it at room temperature, it won't come out like you're expecting. I've never played with lager yeast at room temperatures, or lager yeast at all, for that matter. Could you describe the flavors you got from it?

It's been done here: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...2&hl=wine++clip

As to bottling- Bottle color only really matters if you store the beer someplace it regularly meets sunlight. Some frequency in sunlight reacts with hop chemicals and causes a reaction that changes the hop aroma into a skunky aroma. Brown bottles repel more of that frequency of light, so they're safer to leave out in well lighted areas. The more important thing to consider with bottles, however, is the thickness of the glass. The standard mass-market beer today does not carbonate the beer in its bottle. Consequently modern bottles are not manufactured to certainly withstand the pressure generated by old fashioned yeast-in-the-bottle carbonation. You should use the thick bottles that commercial bottle contitioned beers come in, or the old fashioned returnable bottles that were designed for years of reuse, or the flip-top Grolsch style bottles that are thick because they have the extra glass to attach the wire bale to. The thin glass of most modern bottles may not stand up to the pressure it will encounter. As to the plastic boiling and mashing wotzit- I'd not recommend it if it costs more than an average picnic cooler. Boiling anything in plastic is unwise, as who knows what might leach out of the plastic when it is exposed to high temperatures for long periods of time. Petrochemicals do funny things when they're outside of their thermal comfort zone. Mashing only requires rough temperature stability for an hour, and that is within the capabilities of just about any picnic cooler. The third brew will introduce mashing small quantities of grain and how to go about it, so keep an eye on this space. BTW, how did the second shot at brew #1 go for you? You could play around with that recipe by changing up the hops to experiment with the big variety of flavors out there. Just keep in mind that the %AA is directly proportionate to the bitterness you'll extract from the hops during the long boil, so adjust quantities of bittering hops down if the %AA goes up, unless you want to make a more bitter beer.

Personal authentic ethnic food... now that's both a mouthful and a tough concept to wrap my brain around... but maybe that's because I'm so far removed from the culture of any of the ethnicities to which I might genetically lay claim. In hunting for ethnicity in American food culture, we've begun to look how it expresses itself most around the holidays, so I'll add to that stream of thoughts. The side of the family who always traditionally hosted the holidays (by virtue of still being alive, as opposed to the departed side of the family who checked out at right about the time I checked in) was largely Dutch descended from early New Amsterdammers, though intermarried with other colonial stock as the family drifted southerly from New Amsterdam through New Jersey. These are very much people who saw no ethnicity in themselves, but rather attributed it to the new arrivals who immigrated more recently and still had some non-American memories/traditions/etc. that a dozen generations here hadn't scrubbed out of memory. The foods that got served at the holidays were all extremely simple dishes, in the Dutch meat-and-potatoes tradition... big roast, stewed onions, mashed potatoes, succotash, chopped cranberry relish, boiled green beans, candied sweet potato, etc. The only dish in there that is not standard "American holiday" food is the stewed onions, which I've read about as a colonial New York dish, so I guess that they're my only authentic ethnic food I can identify.