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Right you are... Fahrenheit gives measurement of hot and cold on a human scale; as you pointed out, you know that 0 is really F-ing cold, and 100 is really F-ing hot, and you have one hundred gradations in between that perfectly describe the range of normal outside temperatures. Celsius is...

McMinnville is lovely, as is the Linfield campus... I may live in Montana, but I am most certainly an Oregonian :D Yeah, Billings is like that... Too bad you didn't get to see some of the more scenic areas in the state (of which there are many). Good luck with the brew shop search!

I wouldn't worry too much about the headroom; it will be fine either way... What uni in OR did you attend? I would be surprised if there weren't any homebrew shops in Belfast, but even so, a lot of us end up ordering stuff online most of the time and it ends up working fine...

In the future, you might want to just make a starter. Liquid yeasts are spendy; making a starter is a good way to increase pitching rates, and it is cheap and easy to do.

Using gypsum adds calcium ions to the brewing water, increasing hardness... This is usually done if you live in an area that has soft water, or if you are trying to duplicate the flavors of a beer from a specific region, say for example your traditional Pale Ale You can leave out the...

You might also want to add the honey at the very end of the boil; heating it just enough to pasturize it but not enough to drive off some of the more delicate honey flavors and aromas. Flovor also depends on what kind of honey is used...

I'm in a similar boat, I'll be doing my first AG tomorrow (too much snow to do it last week)... But really, re-using yeasts is soooooo easy... Do you make starters before you pitch now? Because harvesting is basically as easy as that (or easier)... And anywhere on "the OR coast" should be...

Three cheers for Bobby the Wonder Dog! Ever participate in the sofa races during 'Davenport (sp?) Days'? Silverton is a lovely place.

Well, in Norway they used to brew beer using yeast that they dried on boughs of juniper that had been left at the bottom of the fermentor... So theoretically at least, I would say that there's probably no problem at all. Would I ever do it personally? No, probably not... I mean, having to buy...

Um, any chance that you'll posting some pix of your cool blowoff setup? The beer will be fine; don't worry... And you got a fun story to tell out of the ordeal!

The dried fruits (or berries, if you like) of allspice (the stuff that you buy at the store) is to my knowledge a pretty normal spice to use in spiced winter ales, and it is a key ingredient in many mulled wines. I've never seen the leaves at the grocery store, but I know that they are used in...

I'm all for using a specific glass for a specific beer. Glass shape does have a slight impact on perceived flavor... I just don't like the idiots that will only drink wine out of their $150 Ridell crystal pinot noir glasses, and I hope that that sort of idiocy never jumps over to beer. And...

Never heard of a propagator pack, what is it like? I love my Wyeast, though, and usually keep the little fellows for a couple of generations (and have always had more a vigorous fermentation and better tasting beers than with WL, IMHO).... Not much help, sorry... But I'm sure it will turn out...

Can you really buy glycerin at just any drug store? I did a quick search at riteaid.com, and all i could find was glycerin suppositories (and unadvertised special!!!)... Unless I'm planning on keeping my yeast collection in my rectum, I'm guessing that isn't what I'm looking for...

Yeah, funny, me too... I was going to do my very first AG batch today, but too much snow and ice and arse-cold weather... Supposed to have some Chinook winds this weekend, though, so maybe I'll use some Chinook hops to go with.

I like to have a couple around the week/10 day period... I like to mix them with a little BMC after the first few sips (well, usually Rainier or Lucky Lager - Bud and Coors can go F!ck themselves) to get an idea of what they will be like a couple weeks later. Sometimes the taste is less than...

Making a yeast starter is always a good idea... When you say all extract brew, do you mean to say that you didn't use any specialty grains even for just steeping? It's fine, I suppose, if you didn't; but steeping specialty grains will vastly improve the flavor and complexity of your beer, and...

And you were absolutely right to do so. I hope that I didn't seem confrontational towards you Schlen. It's just that pharmacology, herbology, and beer are just some subjects that I am quite interested in, and whenever they intersect, I get a little passionate (or stupid, depending on the point...

But if you are bent on using it in beer.... In his very interesting book Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers, Stephen Buhner gives a recipe for a wormwood ale as follows (I'll note that his recipes are super-simplified in the interests of ******* non-homebrewers): 4 lbs malt extract (doesn't...

Just say no to using wormwood in beer. Not because some people think that it is poisonous, and not because some people think that it will make you trip out and that makes them uncomfortable. Say no to wormwood in beer because it tastes like crap. It's funny, because I just gave this...