Im in the same boat. Curious about the answer to this one.
I have been researching lots of brew rigs and I see people using both direct fire and rims on their keggle MT. Not sure what the advantage of this is compared to just Rims on a cooler MT.
full breakdown, inspection of parts, and overnight soak in oxyclean. I dont always replace o'rings, depends on condition. I just got a keg that smelled of sprite/7-up. the only way to get rid of the smell was to change all the rings. IMO not always necessary but depends on the situation...
Our old fridge died a few years ago and I put it in the garage with good intentions but no motivation to fix it. Well about a year later I get into homebrewing and decided to fix the fridge. That thing was a nasty mold fest.
I hit it with bleach, peroxide and starsan and it has never been...
Looks like I have found an IPA and a hop combo (Mozaic and Azaccca) that I don't like. I will have to try to remember this combo so I dont forget and invent it myself later down the road.
When in europe or any foreign country it is great fun to take a stab at the local language. I particularly enjoy ordering food or drinks, mimicking the locals as i over pronounce the names, and manage the rest of the conversation.
The downside is you come home and you know how it should be...
I have lots of misc oz's of european hops hanging about so I may follow your lead and throw together an experimental saison. With the nice warm weather here it should be just right to whip up a few summertime brews.
enjoy
Word. I got the deluxe too. When that box showed up at my door I was like a kid at christmas.
I still have a bottle or too of caribou slobber in my basement. Its probably caribou vinegar by now.
Not sure what you have yet for equipment but I started with one of these.
http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/brewing/beer-equipment-starter-kits
There are so many home brew specific tools bits and pieces that it was easier (for me) to just get a good kit that came with all the basics. Most...
I would suggest going with an easy and fast kit that will get you drinking homebrew asap. Something like a cream ale, kolsch, pale ale etc. Ask anyone here, the two weeks waiting for your first beer to ferment and then the 3 weeks to carb are agony.
And start saving bottles.
It is a good idea to check your pre-boil gravity and volume everytime, just to make sure you are on target. The LHBS screwed up my grain order and I only found out after taking my pre-boil gravity. My cheapy $20 refractometer is a lifesaver.
If you do need to increase gravity, you want to do...
Im working on another brew to blend with some of these malt bombs. I'm thinking i will go 2-row only, and about 1.045 starting gravity with 50 IBU's. Of course I will dry hop it because I dry hop everything.
The goal is to have an unbalanced thin dry hoppy beer to cut through the malty cloying...