 We're suckers for mixing creativity and beer, so when I saw Orphanclone's Legorator, I had to ask if we could post it. I mean, look at how homebrew can bring both sides of the Force together! [Original Link]  
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 If you have been waiting, now is the time!
IMHO they are one of the best pieces of equipment any brewer would love to have! We're talking about a hassle free, insta-read thermometer that will be the last one you ever buy. Get em' while they last HERE.  There are a lot of great yeast calculators out there like mrmalty that tell you how much dry or liquid yeast is needed and whether or not a simple starter should be used.
A free calculator that we have grown very fond of lately expands this recommendation to include "stepping" up the starter over a period time. This allows you to better estimate how much yeast you will have when the starter is finished. It's called YeastCalc! Happy yeast growing!  Here are a few cool items from a website we found called Cool Material. This pint skull glass could be a nice addition to your collection. Promise me though that you won't drink an apricot flavored beer out of it--that just seems wrong.  Pallet coasters.. HA! Buy them here (or make them out of popsicle sticks). I think I would load them up with small boxes and make our hampsters move them around. Get to work you lazy varmints!  This 4-Pack of Beer Soap goes perfect with a shower beer!
Scents apparently include Guinness, Newcastle Brown Ale, Blue Moon, Corona, Heineken and Brooklyn Red Lager. MMmmmm.  Dates for the Beer Bloggers Conferenced have been announced. Looks like a great time and at this point Jim Koch from the Boston Beer Company is listed as a keynote speaker. I'm sure there will be many others come July.
I wonder if our kooky blog even qualifies!? Prices and more information can be found here. Happy New Year everyone! Sorry for the delay in getting up new posts, things have been pretty busy. How about a few beer jokes until we find something interesting to post. Cheers! Q. - What did the drunkard get on his I.Q. test? A. - Drool. WARNING, the consumption of alcohol may cause you to thay shings like thish. A pirate walks into a bar and orders a drink. The bartender looks down and says "You know that you have a steering wheel in your pants" The pirate replies "Ay, it's drivin' me nuts" I give in to BEER pressure. A drunk is driving through the city and his car is weaving all over the road. Eventually a cop pulls him over. "Did you know," says the cop, "that a few intersections back, your wife fell out of your car?" "Oh, thank heavens," sighs the drunk. "For a minute there, I thought I'd gone deaf." The hard part about being a bartender is figuring out who is drunk and who is just stupid. An Irishmen, A Scot and an Englishmen are in a bar. a fly lands in the Englishman's beer. In disgust he pushes his beer away and walks out. Another fly lands in the Scots beer. He shrugs, plucks it out and drinks his beer. A fly lands in the Irishman's beer. He violently pulls out the fly and puts his finger on it squeezing and yelling, "Spit it out you wee little bugger! Spit it out!" A nun, a rabbi and a priest walk into a bar. The bartender looks at them and says, "Is this some kind of joke?" An Irishman walks out of a bar. A little boy was lost at a large shopping mall He approached a uniformed policeman and said, "I've lost my dad!" The cop asked, "What's he like?" The little boy replied, "Beer and women with big boobs." and finally, an oldie but goodie...
The Beer Prayer Our lager Which art in barrels Hollowed be thy drink Thy will be drunk (I will be drunk) At home as I am in the travern Give us this day our foamy head And forgive us our spillages As we forgive those who spill against us And lead us not into incarceration But deliver us from hangovers For thine is the beer The bitter and the lager Forever and ever Barmen  While stainless steel is widely regarded as the best universal material to fill your brewery, plastic has many benefits and definitely holds it's own for certain applications. Thanks go to genthree (who holds a degree in polymer science we'd like to add) for writing this nice guide on most of the plastics that are readily available.
He wanted us to emphasize that, while not an absolute requirement, a "food-safe" label is still an important thing to look for. "The quickest way to determine what kind of plastic something is made of is by looking at its recycle code if it has one. The breakdown is below: RC 1 - polyethylene terepthalate (PET) Most commonly seen as plastic coke bottles, this is a form of polyester. It has high heat resistance and is an excellent oxygen and moisture barrier, making it excellent for homebrewing. One thing to watch out for, though, is that at high temperatures or sunlight exposure, it can degrade and release potential harmful products like phthalates and heavy metal catalysts. Good properties for homebrewing, but keep out of sunlight and don't pour extremely hot wort into it. Do not use if it is discolored (yellowed)" [Read More]  Season Greetings and Hoppy Holidays to you and your family. Hope you have a wonderful Christmas!
~ BrewGeeks  Here's another kindle freebie folks.
The description states, "You’ll learn how to brew beer. You’ll go step-by-step from buying a few pieces of equipment to boiling your brew to bottling your concoction and finally to enjoying it. It’ll be as easy as 1-2-3. You can easily learn to brew beer and wow your friends with your ability to make a delicious homebrew. Even more, you’ll be proud of your beer, a delicious brew which will rock your socks. You might even discover that you can make your favorite beer better than the brewery does. Great beer here we come! By the time you’re done with this book, you’ll be ready to enjoy your first homemade beer." I didn't check it though, so it could be filled with satanic verses for all I know. It's free either way *shrug*. Oh, and sorry for the delay in getting new stuff up. Christmas time with the family is getting in the way of hobbies. Stupid family. Cheers!  When beginning the adventure of homebrewing, you probably brewed a kit or simple recipe and were thrilled when it didn't taste like french kissing a jar of vegemite.
After a few brews under the belt, skills and process tend to improve and the beers get better and better! If you're like us, brewing to a particular style is bound to become a goal and this is where style descriptors come into play. After all, with the variety of different styles that are available these days, describing them isn't as easy as it used to be. Knowing a handful of colorful descriptors, as well as potential flaws, can really help to improve your homebrew. What better place to refer to these descriptor and flaw guidelines than the Beer Juge Certification Program (BJCP). The two we look at quite often are the style guildlines PDF and beer faults pages. If you haven't seen them before, they are definitely worth checking out! Cheers! |
