Recent content by Bramling Cross

My man! You've got taste, sir! A toast with my Panther Piss HB American lager.

Get it!!!! I've used the Apera for about 5 years and it is, hands down, the easiest, least fussy meter I've ever used. It's way faster and far easier to calibrate than my old Milwaukees. Whereas pH measurements were a chore with the Milwaukees, the Apera has made pH measurement as routine and...

That's a pretty good party trick and, if you think about it, a far better way to organize that beverage.

My 10gal SS Brewtech holds temps like a champ compared to the old cooler-based rigs I built in the past. I bought the tun with the intention of returning to fly-sparging, so it felt funny going with the "tiny" 10-gal tun, my old batch sparge square cooler tuns were substantially bigger. Perhaps...

I agree. Writing from the USA, my UK ales made a quantum leap when I started kegging, CAMRA be damned. They improved further when I started minding my oxygen at packaging, CAMRA be angry. They became much more vibrant when I adopted LODO, CAMRA be foaming at the mouth. ;) Minutia aside and...

Dayem!

If you're keen on brewing big beers, I would strongly suggest looking at the literature available on, and the brewing philosophy employed in the making of, Belgian beers. Sure, they make great big beers, but they do it with an eye toward making "digestible" beers. We might call that drinkable...

Yup. Dr. Smith nailed that one, but Lizard is 100% correct. Dude knows his way around a mashtun, so I gave it a try and you can get some absolutely stupid efficiency numbers in Beersmith by pre-boiling (100+% on my reliably 88-92% mash efficiency fly rig). Obviously, pre-boiling is time...

Another glass of Panther Piss. About four-five pours over the last few days seems to have blown all the rubbish out of the Flotit 2.0 filter and it's pouring a little clearer. That's an annoying characteristic of the Flotit when you use a pressure transfer. I said nice things about Bestmaltz'...

I remember about twenty years ago, when the first low carb beers started coming out, Consumer Reports ran an article on low carb beers and to my surprise and delight, they actually included Guinness pub draft nitro cans. It placed highly in their test. They only knocked it for being slightly...

Well, after two drives across the country, my hairdresser's car was badly in need of some attention. Stripped, clayed, paint corrected, compounded, two passes of polish, and a quick and dirty coat of wax this morning. That was enough for one day, I'll strip it again next weekend, seal it, then...

Okay, good. Yeah, it doesn't list lime on the ingredients panel whereas the other product did. Really appreciate your knowledge on these products!

Being at least as lazy as I am cheap, I learned to use instant rice because it's pre-gelatinized so I can skip the boiling. Nevertheless, I do prep it by closing my mill down to nearly its tightest setting and obliterating the instant rice into near dust. I get better extraction that way and...

Grab a comfy seat, pour a beer and enjoy watching me jack this up! Good idea, but the shipping was actually more than the corn. Nuts! I've heard that it can be a bit tricky to tease out jasmine's flavor, a far more flavorful rice than basmati. I've goofed around with wild rice and even its...

Thanks everyone for the excellent suggestions! Made a run out to the fearsome land of Northern Virginia and its many ghastly drivers to hit the H-Mart and had a thought, "Hey, they've got a pretty good Latin American aisle. Wonder what sorta corny goodness they might have hiding over there?" I...