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Well, I did PM for years. I made decent beer that I liked to drink, but it was nothing to write home about. Then, on a whim I upgraded to AG. I wish I'd done it sooner. IMO, there are two problems with PM: wort composition and "twang". Doing the mash yourself gives you much better...

+1 for table sugar. Saccharomyces has no problem hydrolyzing sucrose. I use it in all my golden Belgians, with indistinguishable results from syrup/rocks. Dark Belgians, however, are another story. For those I use dark syrup to get rum flavors.

Much love to the BA guys, but Todd's wrong about this one. I would assign Triple Bock to the same style as fermented products like Thai fish sauce and worcestershire. The member reviews are priceless: -"Soy sauce with a dash of Robitussin." -"Onions, salt, cheap alcohol and vomit"...

Racking is a likely contributor to this problem. In nearly all cases you do not need to use a secondary at all. In addition to the above suggestions, leave the beer on the yeast cake for a while and it should reduce these off-flavors. This topic has been flogged to within an inch of its...

This happened to me after I abused my burner by leaving it outside and letting it rust. It still fired, but burned with a yellow flame and blackened the kettle. This indicates incomplete combustion, like Spanish Castle mentioned, so you're generating a lot of carbon monoxide - hopefully you're...

Several options. Your fermentation temperature is a bit high. If you have the means, drop everything to 62-65 degrees and make another batch. Buying a chest freezer with an aftermarket thermostat did wonders for my beer, even when I was still extract brewing. If you're patient, you can find...

Though it's been off the market for 14 years, Sam Adams Triple Bock deserves a dishonorable mention. It tasted like a mix of maple syrup and soy sauce. You can still find bottles of it here and there, because people stashed it away in the hopes that it would improve with age. It didn't.

Oooh, I like being a curmudgeon. Since you've disqualified the Great American Macrobrews, I'll submit a few beers that don't have that excuse. Brooklyn Brewery Monster Ale is pretty raunchy - overpitched fusel oil hell. I hear their bacon beer is also foul, though I have not had the...

OJ is a guest of the state of Nevada at Lovelock Correctional Facility. He will continue to be treated to their hospitality for a minimum of 6 more years, after which he will write a book entitled "IF I Robbed Those Guys".

Jack Daniels is produced in a dry county. It is distilled entirely in Moore County, but cannot be sold there. They had to get special dispensation from the TN legislature to sell commemorative "glassware" (which, of course, contains whiskey) at the distillery.

Also, I had no issues transporting and serving my homebrew kegs at my wedding last year in Virginia, an Alcoholic Beverage Control state. It was held at a private house, though. Several of the guests were members of the local sheriff's department and did not bat an eye at my rig. In fact...

IANAL, but I would not advise the police or the liquor commission, because that's just asking for an inspection on wedding day. Also, there are dry counties in Texas where this may be an issue beyond simple transport and serving...

I think it's the Baptist influence, at least in Alabama and Mississippi. Mississippi continued Prohibition well into the 1960's. Homebrewing is probably illegal in dry counties elsewhere in the country - Texas and Kentucky have a lot of them. I grew up in a state where it was illegal to...

Belgians used to be a rare exception to my habit of never using a secondary - I cold-crashed in a secondary after fermentation is complete. Now I just cold-crash in the primary and add a fresh yeast starter at packaging time. In my experience, 1388 will ferment high-gravity beers down to 1.012...

It's also the contact area. Ice water cools faster because there is coolant-metal contact around the entire external area. With snow you get tiny air gaps all over the outside of the kettle, these add up and reduce the cooling rate by a lot. For final boil volumes larger than 3 gallons, you...

Be very certain that the gravity has stopped decreasing before you bottle. Brett takes a long time to fully attenuate and can cause bottle bombs. You'll probably also want to bottle condition longer to balance out the brett-itude. Can't comment on washing. I personally wouldn't do it - I...

I recommend a chest freezer. You'll get more usable space per cubic foot. I like Whirlpools mostly because their compressor shelf is small, giving me more room to fit fermentors. I have a 15 cu. ft. and a 5 cu. ft, each with analog temp controllers. Sounds like a 5 would fit your needs...

+1 for the thermapen. I got sick of soaking Target brand digital thermometers and bought one. Assuming that a 5deg difference @ freezing equals a 5deg difference @ boiling is not generally valid. This implies that the thermometer response is linear, which is not the case over such a large...

If you're using a bucket you can skim the crap off the top of the krausen using a sanitized spoon. This is also a great way to harvest yeast for later use. I doubt stick ons are that inaccurate. For example, I have a belgian blonde at high krausen right now. The ambient temp in my...

Also consider using a blow-off tube. A lot of the brown stuff that forms on the top of the krausen consists of fusel alcohols and other assorted off-flavor compounds. You don't want this falling back into the beer. I make enough wort and starter to fill to within a half-inch of the neck...