Someone is selling an "unlimited supply" of foodsafe plastic 55 gallon barrels with screw on lids in Greentree, PA. Looks like an awesome deal at $25 each.
http://pittsburgh.craigslist.org/grd/3364979893.html
If your friends are afraid of the word "homebrew", it won't matter what style you have for them to try, they will still be wary of the "homebrew". Try giving your beers a commercial sounding name and find a comparable commercial beer they might know.
"I have Ich Bin Ein Berliner Weiss and...
I have the extract version of this recipe ready to bottle, I used 1oz tettnanger instead of the EKG but otherwise stuck to the recipe. It tastes great but I'm concerned that it may be a little dry, FG is 1.008. Would adding some lactose or another nonfermenting sugar be a good move? If so, how...
Can you hold them until tuesday for me? My inlaws are in town and the wife will be pissed if I go out to get "more stupid beer stuff" while they are here.
My wife and I recently moved and there is no room for our "big" refrigerator in our tiny kitchen so it is sitting unused in the basement. It is a modern, electronically controlled unit and I am concerned that using an external temp controller, an STC-1000, to effectively unplug it repeatedly...
Try using the magnet from your stir plate or another strong magnet to grab the stir bar from the bottom of your fermenter, drag it along the outside and out the top.