A Loooooooooooooooooooooong Timeline of the history of BEER.
(Thanks to Manolith.com for the Graphic)
(Thanks to Manolith.com for the Graphic)
 Heavens to Mergatroid, say it ain't so!! A dryhopped hot dog? Dennis McGuire who runs the blog CraftBeerChef.com has come up with a way to infuse that widely popular hop goodness into a dog. To top it off, he's using one of my all time favorite beers from Bells brewery called Two Hearted Ale. His directions are simple: Add 2oz of Centennial Hops, 2 bottles of Bells Two Hearted Ale, and hotdogs in a medium sized pot for 2 hours. Cover in plastic or aluminum foil for 2 hours and place in the refrigerator. After two hours, remove the hot dogs and add to a new pot. Add 2 new bottles of Bells Two Hearted Ale to the pot. No hops should be added at this point. Bring beer to a slight boil and add hot dogs. Boil hot dogs for 10 minutes. Remove from the pot and serve with or without a hot dog bun. Spring is here and summer soon after...sounds like a perfect time to give this a try! [Original Link]
 I've often wondered while visiting the county fair each year if beer is causing these giant bellies on every third person or, more likely, it's the deep fried oreos, funnel cakes, and 64oz sodas. Apparently the Germans have cracked this mystery once and for all!
Testing a pretty large sample size by measuring the weight, waists and hips of almost 20,000 Germans, scientists have concluded that beer is not the main cause of the "site-specific effect" known as the beer belly. WHA?? Let me grab onto something, the room is spinning. Who would have ever thought that!?? Thanks to the Guardian for the [Original Link]. This takes me back to a time when little tknice sat in front of the TV eating fruit loops and every other commercial was something about Ginsu knives or a product to remove unsightly hair. Can a commercial selling something I'd actually buy really exist?? Enter the Randall Jr from the off-centered mind of Sam Calagione. It looks like a great way to test fruits and spices without dirtying up the full-sized randall or hop rocket. Maybe I'll see what kind of DIY version of this can be made. I should keep it quiet though, because just looking like Chuck Norris is probably worth some serious ass kickage. Prototype, Schmototype... Get on the ball and make this Sam!  The best ideas are often the simplest and passedpawn has a great example of that here. Here is what he had to say about it.
"I thought about making a manifold to hold the two bottling wands, but I already had a second spigot, so here it is. Worked exactly as I expected: twice as fast." "I thought really hard for about 5 minutes on ways to do this without 2 spigots. I thought about milling holes / channels in delrin, encasing a plastic 'Y' connector in a polyurethane block, and some other dumbnesses that aren't coming to me now." "I'm glad I took the easy route and just put the second spigot in there. It made my bottling day so much faster, and I learned that my old Williams Brewing spigot is extremely slow (or there's something wrong with that bottling wand). I can almost fill two bottles with the one on the left before the one on the right is done. So, I'd say my bottling day is now 3 times as fast." [Read More]  I got really tired of small flies wanting to make there home in my beer faucets so I came up with this simple idea. It keeps the bugs out and is quick, simple, and cheap.
All of the items used I had in the garage but I would guess the cost would be less than $2 if you had to go buy everything. It only took about 10 minutes to outfit all four of my faucets! [Read More]  I recently emptied out a margarita bucket and decided that it would make a good mini mash tun for starters. I had all the copper tubes on hand and it took about an hour to put it together.
I tried it out last night and was quite pleased with the results, 2 Lbs of grain yielded 2 gallons of 1.030 starter wort. It even held temps fairly well, dropping from 152 to 148 over a 60 minute mash. The mini mash tun maxes out at 2.5Lbs of grain at a 1:1 ratio and gets 80% efficiency when making 1.030 starter wort. [Read More]  Place oats on a cookie sheet in a thin layer. Toast at 325°F for 15-60 minutes turning every 5-10 minutes until desired level of toasting is acquired.
 The general rule I follow is to cut back all of the weakest bines and train only the strongest up the line during the first season to establish a nice root system.
In season two, we'll cut back the weakest again and send two bines up the line. We should have a chance at harvesting some nice hops this year. Season three will have three bines up the line and we should see our first full harvest. In every season following, we will cut back all but the strongest three bines to begin training. You can see the two I decided to cut, along with both bines that will be trained, and that one is signficantly stronger than the other. Both have nice leaves early on which will help catch some much needed sunlight. When cutting back shoots, I usually pull them up lightly to expose more before cutting. Hops will practically find the ropes on their own but when they do need help, you'll want to train them clockwise by looking down the line. [Read More] |
