[Fire Rooster]

What's the difference between a Hamster and a Gerbil?  Wrong forum?  LOL.  Just teasing, I thought I would inject a little humour (unless of course it was not funny, then nevermind)  LOL

A gerbil has a tail; a hamster does not.

Nope... the correct answer is there is more dark meat on a Gerbil.

lol

For many years I "was" an avid Deer bow hunter.
Now I feed them spent grain, and becoming attached to them 

[hopfenundmalz]

If I ever decide to go to an all in one system to make brewing easier, what features should be considered? What are those features in order of importance? What systems are your favorites?

[fredthecat]

If your source water is low in sodium, then baking soda is ideal for this. If your final sodium concentration would end up much higher than 50 ppm using baking soda, then you're probably going to want to use something like pickling lime.

yeah, thats my plan, and from what i put in, a little bit of baking soda produces a powerful upward pH effect. i really don't want to mess with chalk or lime..

Any reason not to shorten homebrewing boil time to 30 minutes?

i am doing a planned 30 min boil today. had a decent lager i made from it last time, the key thing was it was all 2.5srm pilsner malt. 30min boil, no major DMS bomb issues.

my boils range from 30 to 45 mins nowadays. as people here have said though, the boil doesn't create melanoidins, but does condense them simply from evaporation, so take that for what its worth.

[MNWayne]

What beer goes best with gerbil?

[Drewch]

What's the best way to add my dry gerbil addition without introducing oxygen?

If my LHBS is out of gerbil and I have to substitute hamster, is it 1:1 ratio for the substitution? By mass or by volume?

Does terroir really make a difference? Can you tell the difference between Yakima gerbil and Michigan gerbil?

*break*break* Serious question follows:

Have you guys played with any of the lacto-producing yeasts? If so, what's your take? Has Drew tried making a sour saison? A poor man's l*mbic? (I did a PhillySour + Brett + plums that came out interesting %u2014 not quite Quetsche Tilquin but interesting.)

[Drewch]

Second serious question:

What's your take on the state of brewing media -- esp. podcasting. When I started on this hobby in 2019, it seemed like there were a handful of shows and I could pretty much keep with their release schedules. Now I feel like I have to do some serious pruning to keep my podcast queue manageable -- and even with that, it's still growing faster than I can listen to it.

Has the landscape changed that much? Or was I just oblivious the years ago?

[BrewBama]

Here’s a question:  when I read descriptions of ingredients, the mfr describes certain tastes or characteristics.

As an example one mfr describes their C40 as “Sweet, Caramel, Toffee”, their C60 as “Sweet, Pronounced Caramel” and their C80 as “Pronounced Caramel, Slight Burnt Sugar, Raisiny”. You can see how these descriptions overlap along the spectrum.

Base malts and roast malts tend to have overlapping descriptors as well. Quite frankly, I can hardly tell the difference in one matlster’s Vienna vs their Munich, etc. (other than color of course). It could be my old taste buds wearing out but they’re so close to the same taste I can sub in/out without too much concern.

Now, when one malster is compared to an altogether different malster I find it easier to discern the difference. I believe this is due to process differences or barley variety or both. Tommy and I are about to see if this holds true. We brewed the same beer but used different malsters and yeast to see if we can discern the difference.

All that to ask the question: Can you guys actually discern the difference in ‘caramel’, ‘toffee’ and ‘burnt sugar’ in these fairly close descriptions of C malts when used at 5-10% in a batch of beer?

[fredthecat]

Why would I ever need to "bitter" a beer with something other than Magnum?

ok, listening to the podcast episode right now. re: why not just magnum? thoughts about some of those even higher AA, like 19-21% bittering hops, warrior and apollo i believe?(may be wrong on those two)

still cheap, higher AA than magnum. thoughts?

[tommymorris]

Why would I ever need to "bitter" a beer with something other than Magnum?

ok, listening to the podcast episode right now. re: why not just magnum? thoughts about some of those even higher AA, like 19-21% bittering hops, warrior and apollo i believe?(may be wrong on those two)

still cheap, higher AA than magnum. thoughts?

Magnum has a particularly smooth bitterness that I really like. I have only tried the others you mention once or twice. They may be just as good, I don’t know. Magnum works for me. I use it for bittering additions in lagers and ales.

[denny]

Why would I ever need to "bitter" a beer with something other than Magnum?

ok, listening to the podcast episode right now. re: why not just magnum? thoughts about some of those even higher AA, like 19-21% bittering hops, warrior and apollo i believe?(may be wrong on those two)

still cheap, higher AA than magnum. thoughts?

I guess I choose by what suits the beer, not what's most economical

[Megary]

Why would I ever need to "bitter" a beer with something other than Magnum?

ok, listening to the podcast episode right now. re: why not just magnum? thoughts about some of those even higher AA, like 19-21% bittering hops, warrior and apollo i believe?(may be wrong on those two)

still cheap, higher AA than magnum. thoughts?

I guess I choose by what suits the beer, not what's most economical

I asked that question part seriously, part in jest.  Magnum, to me, is a fantastic bittering hop that works well for so many styles.  It is very convenient to just keep a bunch of Magnum on hand and not have to worry about bittering this beer with Hop X and that beer with Hop Y etc. leaving a trail of open packs laying round.  One hop bitters all!

However, I appreciate you answering the question on the show and certainly agree that an IPA *might* be better suited for something with a firmer, more assertive bitterness.  That's obviously subjective of course, but a very good point.  I didn't really agree with whomever mentioned bittering an English beer with all English hops, however.  I'd be stunned if anyone could tell the difference in a 20IBU Mild bittered with EKG or Magnum.  I certainly can't.

[denny]

I think that was John.

[Wilbur]

I see John Palmer is participating in the Q&A. I don't measure the ppg contribution from steeping specialty grains in an extract brew - I use Table 9 in howtobrew.com. But intuitively, the numbers for chocolate malt, roast barley, and black patent malt seem high (15, 21, and 21 respectively). A lot of time has passed since howtobrew.com - I'm wondering if these are still considered to be the best available ppg numbers for extract brewing with specialty grains? (And to answer the obvious question, I will be getting the 4th Edition soon - should have done that a long time ago.)

https://docs.brewfather.app/inventory/fermentables/adding-new-malts

The Brewfather link shows you how to take a malt analysis bill and calculate the PPG. You can usually find it on the manufacturers website. Sometimes you can look up a lot number to get specific info, other times they just have general info. Helped me when I was having an issue with Viking Golden ale malt.

[neuse]

I see John Palmer is participating in the Q&A. I don't measure the ppg contribution from steeping specialty grains in an extract brew - I use Table 9 in howtobrew.com. But intuitively, the numbers for chocolate malt, roast barley, and black patent malt seem high (15, 21, and 21 respectively). A lot of time has passed since howtobrew.com - I'm wondering if these are still considered to be the best available ppg numbers for extract brewing with specialty grains? (And to answer the obvious question, I will be getting the 4th Edition soon - should have done that a long time ago.)

https://docs.brewfather.app/inventory/fermentables/adding-new-malts

The Brewfather link shows you how to take a malt analysis bill and calculate the PPG. You can usually find it on the manufacturers website. Sometimes you can look up a lot number to get specific info, other times they just have general info. Helped me when I was having an issue with Viking Golden ale malt.

That's an interesting discussion about ppg. But if I understand it correctly, those calculations are used for grains in the mash. I'm looking at steeping grains. John Palmer addressed the question in the Q&A episode. He arrived at his steeping ppg numbers by steeping a pound of grain in a gallon of water and measuring the SG, and doesn't have any reason to doubt the numbers. I happened to be doing a similar test at home while I was listening to the podcast - I used Roasted Barley. Using my own water-to-grain ratio for both steeping and sparging, steeping time, and amount of agitation, I got 0.7 times the ppg that Palmer got. So for my own brewing, I will use a 0.7 factor when using Palmer's table. I think it would be worthwhile for anyone who steeps grains to do their own test the same way. Probably everyone does the steeping differently and would have their own ppg values.

[BrewBama]

That’s a good idea. I do No Sparge hot steep dark grains for 30 min so my technique may yield wildly different results from a cold steep, less water, etc.