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Wow, what a great experience today! We are anchored in the Robenson island group of the San Blas islands of Panama. The San Blas Islands (Guna Yala in the Kuna language) are the semi-autonamous territory of the Kuna indians. They are one of the few indigenous peoples who have managed to...

Most folks on HBT are not in locations where they have access to cocoa pods, but thought some might find this interesting anyway. Ive lived in Guatemala for many years and cocoa is grown here. I have a couple of cocoa trees on my property just for grins, but Ive never tried processing the...

A friend of mine has a lot of grains on hand that need to be used. Looking for some recipe inspiration. What beers(s) would you brew with the follow: Beer Making Supplies (on hand) Grains: Weyermann Pale Ale Malt...

When I think of amber waves of grain, the high Andes of Peru is usually not the place that comes to mind, but grains have been cultivated here for thousands of years. Im in Urumbamba, Peru at 2,870 meters and was surpised to stumble across 6 row barely in the market today. They also grow wheat...

I recently captured bugs for my own sour dough starter culture. It makes some nice tasty sour dough bread now. Given that it is (presumably) wild yeast and lacto, why could I not use a small amount of it in some wort to grow a sour beer culture?

Planning to get back into cheese making. I live in an area of Panama with lots of dairy poduction. So, Ive got access to lots of good raw milk for making cheese etc, but also lots of queso blanco produced here. I would like to experiment with using the queso blanco as a starting point for making...

An expat friend of mine is visiting the States and finding a lot of high ABV beers. Really, what's the point? What's driving this trend? Is it just another extreme for extreme's sake? Email from him below: "Crap, we have to step up our game now for visiting Michigan.* We like to try the top...

I have a basic mead in primary right now that's still fermenting, but slowing down. I leave on Sunday for up to a year. I'm debating about whether I should rack to secondary or not before I leave. I'm concerned about leaving on the yeast that long. Opinions?

Doing a little re-engineering of th brew houe and ran across an app that I've found very useful. Provided by a commercial, non-brewing related, tank vendor, but very handy for brewing related tank calcs (or any cylindrical or rectangular tank). For example, how many inches of liquid will 10...

I'm spending a lot of time on Panama and looks like that trend will continue so want to get into homebrewing here. I've met a few expats who used to homebrew and/or are interesting in starting. Looking for info on legalities, ingredient sources, importation of ingredients... Are there any...

Went fly fishing and caught a few nice trout I wanted to smoke. Many brine recipes use brown sugar, so why not use wort for the sugar? Not having any wort handy, I picked up a six pack of malt drinks (ingedients: wort, sugar, water, CO2, surprisingly no multisylabic additives). I mixed 4 cups...

In the process of upgrading to 10 gallon batches minimum, but may go bigger sometimes. So I bought a bigger brew pot today...in fact much bigger than I intentended. Due to a communication error, I ended up with a 27 gallon pot instead of a 15 gallon (this sort of thing happens often in Central...

Having trouble finding specs for the max diameter of the temp sensor included with the Johnson A419. Any one have one who can confirm for me? My hope is that it will fit inside a corny keg dip tube which is about 1/4".

Just did a little experiment which turned out very well. I'm currently in Volcan, Panama and there is lots of dairy production here...we walk right next door to get fresh raw milk, cheese, and yogurt. Queso Blanco AKA Queso Fresco is very common in the area. This is just a very simple direct...

I will be passing thru San Jose soon. Ive heard there is some craft brew activity there. Suggestions?

I recently brewed a Braggot. The 5 gallon recipe included 1 lb Crystal 60L 4 oz Special B 6 lb DME Light 7.2 lb Honey (light local varietal) Hops schedule included multiple additions of Columbus and Cascade Wort was quite yummy. Some of the ingredient selections were made just to use up what...

Last brewing season I made a blended braggot from a sweet mead and an IPA. It was absolutely delicious (mead & IPA brewed separately and then blended). So, this season I am going to try a brewed (not blended) braggot. First shot at the recipe attached. Looking for suggestions.

I used to live in Dallas and in Austin, but have not been to either in many, many years. I also did not brew beer back then. I may need to make a business trip to both soon. Any suggestions for great brew pubs?

Sometimes brewing "accidents" are good! In preparation for my GF's return home, I recently rushed a small batch of Braggot by cold crashing 1 liter of mead that was not quite done with primary (left the rest to finish) and then blending with an IPA. The result was tasty and I moved it to the...

I've got a 10 gallon batch of traditional mead frem'ing now. Started on 08/04 at 1.063OG. Gravity today was 1.046, so its going slow, but it is slowly and steadily perking along (about 1 airlock bubble every few seconds) in the keezer at 64F. Taste of sample was quite nice, used a light varietal...