Do You Ever Question The Brewing Experts?

[Jye]

Of course it is possible to brew the same beer on different kit - look at Anheuser-Busch. They have plants all over the US getting raw ingredients that may be different depending on source (particularly water) and they manage to turn out a consistent product. They even allows for seasonal changes in crops from year to year - this year's batch of hops may be significantly different from last year, but the brewers need to make the same product as last year.

Anheuser-Busch do manage to put out the same beer time and time again but they still have variations between batches and blend them to get a consistent results. I have also heard they use something like 15 different hop varieties to minimise any yearly changes in individual crops.

 

[warrenlw63]

I just wrote the following in another thread...
I've done wine-tasting courses in the past and been able to get varieties, regions and even vineyards correct but surely, in beer-brewing, one test should not be taken as gospel and certainly a lot of gospel out there is totally irrelevant to 99% of brewers.

I dunno!

Does anyone else really wonder where a lot of our brewing 'gospel' comes from?

An iconoclast can be unpleasant company, but at least the modern iconoclast only attacks such things as ideas and institutions. The original iconoclasts destroyed countless works of art. Eikonoklastemacr.gifs, the ancestor of our word, was first formed in Medieval Greek from the elements eikomacr.gifn, "image, likeness," and -klastemacr.gifs, "breaker," from klamacr.gifn, "to break." The images referred to by the word are religious images, which were the subject of controversy among Christians of the Byzantine Empire in the 8th and 9th centuries, when iconoclasm was at its height. In addition to destroying many sculptures and paintings, those opposed to images attempted to have them barred from display and veneration. During the Protestant Reformation images in churches were again felt to be idolatrous and were once more banned and destroyed. It is around this time that iconoclast, the descendant of the Greek word, is first recorded in English (1641), with reference to the Byzantine iconoclasts. In the 19th century iconoclast took on the secular sense that it has today, as in "Kant was the great iconoclast" (James Martineau).

Verbose: Using or containing a great and usually an excessive number of words; wordy. See Synonyms at wordy. Usually referred to as a Pistol Patch. :lol:

Warren -

 

[PistolPatch]

LOL Warren!

My brewing is still a hobby. Brewdays are easy and I don't worry about getting every tiny thing right. I know a lot of stuff isn't that important for most beers.

My writing is definitely becoming a chore though. I think I better go back to frivoulous posting.

:unsure:
Pat

 

[PistolPatch]

Here's the post I lost last night. I've got to stop this replying to everyone business!

Spills: Too right mate. Especially like your last sentence I like trying to brew the same beer twice too. Some are easier than others eh?

Steve Lacey: Great to hear from you mate. A great post as usual and I must say that I'll never forget that PM you wrote on the differences, limitations and advantages between commercial and craft-brewing. One of the most inspiring and thought-provoking things I've read. I've passed that info onto lots of other people including Spills above and all of them found the same. Thanks mate.

Insight: You are absolutely right on being able to brew the same beer on different kits. It's not that hard to do for a lot of beers. Brad_G and I did it using different gear and brewing methods (batch and BIAB). Using the same thermometer and doing it side by side helps.

Tony: You are one of the guys on this forum whose advice I totally trust. You post heaps. You post your wins and your losses. Anything you say I respect. All this and the fact that you don't hold yourself up as an expert makes me think you are one of the real ones. As for the general gist of my posts lately, I think I just get dissapointed at how much mis-information, misplaced or misinterpreted information is out there. It makes it damn hard for new guys to find their way. Things are improving though and my current dissapointment will fade I'm sure.

Oh, and I've got 5 beers I like now on tap. Took a long time to find them though! Thanks mate!

MHB: I absolutely love your definition of brewing. Brilliant! If only people spelt out what was a rule and what was a guideline. How good would that be!

InCider: Mate you brew the best kit beer ever! I'm buggered if I know how you do it in the man shed but did I enjoy those ones we had there or what :super: I think your beer gets affected by your persona. That's gotta be it.

PMyers: LOL Pete! Top post!

Stuster: I love your posts! Where's your lagering thread? I want to see that one for sure. As mentioned above, I have 5 beers I really like but am still trying to crack an interesting lager that isn't too bitter. Some of my first brews were 'lagers' using an ale yeast. The bloody things took 3 months to come good - lol!

Spot ya,
Pat

 

[Stuster]

Where's your lagering thread? I want to see that one for sure.

Here ya go.

Interesting that your ales-ners took so long to come good. What sort of off flavours were there? :unsure:

 

[roger mellie]

Question everything Pat, and believe nothing. Sacred cows are there to be eaten IMO.

One of the reasons the Aussie wine industry has dealt such a blow to the French (who have been making wine a lot, lot longer) is because the French had all these fixed rules and conventions. Their winemaking knowledge was developed over centuries of superstition and results that were never scientifically tested.

The Aussies start making wine, and virtually from day one they question everything. They experiment and research and sort the wheat from the chaff. This gives them a far stronger base from which to experiment, and they don't waste time and resources sacrificing virgins to appease gods that don't exist.

?

Whats your point WG?

Are you saying that the Aussies questioned everything the frogs did - cherry picked the good bits - and made better wine? No - they made different wine.

The 'blow' to which you refer has more to do with cost of production than any other reason. Most French vineyards plots are measured in acres - not 100's of hectares. Good French wine is totally handmade - its a craft to them.

I think there is a good analogy there - The French make the best wine because they have been very empirical and subsequently traditional about their methods.


RM

 

[Wortgames]

Are you saying that the Aussies questioned everything the frogs did - cherry picked the good bits - and made better wine? No - they made different wine.

Actually, that's pretty close to the point I was making. Along with all that French 'tradition' is a fair amount of voodoo and sacred cow stuff which has simply been handed down and never really questioned. I guess a brewing analogy would be the various mashing steps that are basically defunct now that malt is fully modified before brewers get hold of it.

A lot of Aussie winemakers feel they have a freedom to experiment that French producers generally don't have, simply because the Aussies are generally more scientific, rather than superstitious, about many of the processes. That has led to the Aussies producing a wide variety of wines from the same grapes, and some of these wines have found enormous popularity and high acclaim around the world.

The 'blow' to which you refer has more to do with cost of production than any other reason. Most French vineyards plots are measured in acres - not 100's of hectares. Good French wine is totally handmade - its a craft to them.

Scale is a factor, of course, but there is more to a good wine than it's price tag.

I think there is a good analogy there - The French make the best wine because they have been very empirical and subsequently traditional about their methods.

The French make the best wine? A lot of wine drinkers and experts around the world might disagree with you. There's no doubt they make some of the world's finest wines, but so do a lot of other countries, including Australia and New Zealand. I'm sure there's also an awful lot of bad wine available in France!

I love tradition and traditional methods, but I would never assume that all the answers have already been worked out in advance by somebody else, and that I should simply follow old methods without question.

 

[Guest Lurker]

Burn the wine drinkers!

 

[Wortgames]

Hey, I never said I actually DRINK the stuff... h34r:

 

[Tony]

Tony: You are one of the guys on this forum whose advice I totally trust. You post heaps. You post your wins and your losses. Anything you say I respect. All this and the fact that you don't hold yourself up as an expert makes me think you are one of the real ones. As for the general gist of my posts lately, I think I just get dissapointed at how much mis-information, misplaced or misinterpreted information is out there. It makes it damn hard for new guys to find their way. Things are improving though and my current dissapointment will fade I'm sure.

Ahhhh mate i can understand your disapointment but i think with so many different opinions on different subjects out there you need to be able to pick the cream from the crap!

And them the crap may not be crap............ its just not relivent to you and your situation.

There are so many variables that affect what we do. It makes it difficult. Thats why i am a firm believer in the "change one thing at a time" method of experimentation. you dont need to make identical beers time after time, but evperiment with things to see what effect thay have and record them....... Im sure you already do.

I can understand your thinking on the duel brewery thing but i dont think its really necessary.

I make a lot of beers with a simple 95% base malt/5% wheat or caramalt formula. Changing the hops will give me different flavor and aroma but i will maybe try adding a couple of teaspoons of CaCl to the mash and sparge and see how it goes. Then i will try it with gypsum or adjust my mash temp to see what effect it has.

another thing that comes to mind is water chemistry!

I have posted a lot about how i adjust my water in tamworth to try to overcome chill haze. I bought pH meters and found my tap water was high pH and needed acidifying to help the pale beers get to the desired pH level.

Now that i have moved to the hunter valey, its a different kettle of fish. The water has a lower pH and is much much softer. I find i can mash in with a 100% pilsner malt grist and hit 5.4 pH where as in tamworth it was more like 6.1

so all my advice on water treatment was right...................... for me............... but not for people with different water.

Its what works for you in this game so i have come to the conclusion to come to my own conclusions and educate myself. any info from others is always considered false till tested and proved. and filtering the good info that may work comes with experience

I will stop rambling now.

cheers

 

[Thirsty Boy]

I love the spirit of the brewers who hang around here. Some of these posts are great.

I want to play a little devils advocate though. And maybe its appropriate that I do so, seeing as it seems that it was partly my regurgitation of brewing "wisdom" regarding boil off rates that kicked off Pat's train of thought in this thread.

All the "spirit of adventure", "experiment and find out for yourself" type stuff is fantastic and I agree up to the hilt, for myself. But maybe its not that attractive a prospect for everybody.

Some brewers might just not be all that adventurous and simply want a good solid set of instructions about how to brew a good beer. I say hand them a copy of Palmer's How to Brew or Papazian's Complete Joy, tell then to have faith in the experts and set them off. Fairly good chance that they will go out and make themselves some mighty fine beer.

Some brewers might be just plain new and need some nice expert derived rules to get them going. Once they are off and running they might well turn into brewng revolutionaries, but they will start from the same set of basic lore. I suggest that most, if not all of the brewers who have contributed to this thread fall or at least once fell; loosely into this second category.

I will fall back to the example of evap rates. Please dont get me wrong, I'm not defending my particular position of that subject and I really dont want to re-start a discussion about it here, its serves merely as a recent example.

The advice I gave about aiming for an evaoration rate of 15% or less was entirely based on the advice of "experts" I myself have neither ever boiled at a significantly higher rate, nor have I enough actual experience to state categorically that a higher rate would adversely effect even my own beer, let alone someone elses.

So why would I simply regurgitate the 15% concept as touted by others? Because I thought (and still think) that it was good advice. I have learned and read and talked a lot about brewing in the last couple of years. I have noted from several different, seemingly respectable sources the notion that boil off rates should for a variety of reasons be somewhere between 8 & 15% Outside that range might well hurt your final beer. Conversely I had never come accross a reference that suggested that boiling at those rates could be bad for your brew. Sure, I had heard plenty of homebrewers talk about boil off rates that were higher and who were still brewing good beer, but the opposite is also true.

So I see a newer brewer talking about his process, I note that his boil off rate is in the 30+% range. A range which I know could, not will but could, effect the quality of his beer. So I pipe up, trot out the "advice of the experts" and try to steer him towards a rate of boil off that is in what should be, the no argument zone.

Hell, if he had said he had decided to not boil at all and was simply holding his wort at 98C for an hour, would there have been an ensuing philosophical debate about the value of expert opinion?? I think that I would have simply been a few down the list of people who were handing out "you cant do that" type advice. I dont beleive for a second that there would have been anyone suggesting that he should give it a go and see what happens. But why not?? You could make beer that way for sure. Its just that the "expert opinions" the "common wisdom" etc etc would say that it was probably going to be crappy beer.

And they would be right....... clever experts. I say listen to them!!! Listen to all of them. Then shove your brain into gear and use it to extract the value.

In the meantime, I will continue to be more than happy to hand out advice based on my distillations of the common wisdom. The vast majority of it is going to be quite good advice. And when its not, there will be no shortage of differing opinion.

Aint life grand

Thirsty

 

[PistolPatch]

Thirsty you better keep up with your advice. Like Tony, you are another one whose opinion I do respect. For example, after reading your post on evaporation rates, I tried my last 3 brews at a much slower rate.

The problem is, I don't think I will have the skills to tell the difference! I suspect that this will be one of the million things way above my level.

I started this thread, off the cuff, and had a heap of things rolling around in my head at the time.

Maybe, like the wine tasters, some of these beer guys do have the ability to detect minor differences and the cause of them. But even if they can, it's still hard work for a beginner to work out whether to listen to say Noonan, who says a vigorous boil is needed or Jamil who is saying you don't. I would tend to trust Jamil on this as he says he used to do vigorous boils so I know that he has tried both.

I also think there are a lot of brewers out there who concentrate on the wrong level for their brewing experience. I've tasted beers from guys that talk all about very advanced brewing areas (areas that only have a small result on taste though) and their beers are not even balanced.

For me, too much time on here has taught me who gives good advice and who doesn't. Better still, as Barry said, I've managed to taste quite a few people's beers and know the ones that I think are well-made and that I enjoy.

I'm very much with Tony on the changing one thing at a time method. so I'm bloody excited about being able to shortly easily do some side by side brews. At my level, it's going to be excellent trying out what for others will be very basic stuff. And, as I'll be doing it with my brother-in-law, the splitting of the beer between us means we can try different things twice as fast.

I'm definitely getting my own grain, mill and scales too. I have no idea what scales they are using in the shop over here but one of my brews hit over 100% efficiency on the weekend! This makes any sort of side by side testing a little hard

LOL
Pat

P.S. Really enjoyed the other posts here too but I've got to learn not to reply to everyone individually :wacko: I'll get back to you Stuster on the 'no lager' lagers thingo within the next few days though in your thread. Spot!

 

[Kai]

Maybe, like the wine tasters, some of these beer guys do have the ability to detect minor differences and the cause of them. But even if they can, it's still hard work for a beginner to work out whether to listen to say Noonan, who says a vigorous boil is needed or Jamil who is saying you don't. I would tend to trust Jamil on this as he says he used to do vigorous boils so I know that he has tried both.

I would trust Noonan before I trusted Jamil, but most of all I would trust myself and my own brewery.

 

[tangent]

remember the old old post Jeebus wrote my brew book?
the thought comes around again and again
just make some beer

 

[matti]

Spinning on noonan and alike.

I followed Noonans latest edition on how to brew lager beer last year and I created the best lager brew I ever managed to brew.
Although the recipe may need tweaking as I use an ag recipe for a partial.

To comment on vigourous boil
l I would say that it is necessary to have a rolling boil with the lid off for at least 3/4 of end of boil to ensure to fully achieve the benefits.

I think that Noonan may be a bit too technical for the starter in brewing.
And if your chemistry knowledge is minimal or none, it is the process he advocates that is essential to brewing great lager beers.

To go with another publishers John Palmer method is probably easier as long as you can put up with his private antedotes.

I intend to go with these guys as an authority as their method a proven and can create great beers.

Now I look forward to purchase an edition of BIAB by PistolPatch very soon though.

 

[SpillsMostOfIt]

I suppose that in any endeavour, there is the 'correct' way of doing it and the way that some of the 'experts' do it. I don't think that any driving instructor whose aim is to get some 18-year old their driver's license would be teaching hand-brake turns or that wiggy heel-toe accelerator-brake thing.

So, when a newcomer arrives and asks about their first kit beer, we (usually) don't launch into a discussion of pressurising kegs at room temperature: we take a deep breath and recite the mantra of temperature control, kit yeast and satin underwear...

This is good. This is the bit where the Intraweb thingy is really of value.

The bad bit is not beer/brewing specific. The bad bit is just part of humanity, but amplified by the aforementioned Wide Wild Wonderful Web.

Tony mentions that he follows a basic common-sense scientific principle when he brews - change one thing at a time. Anyone who has worked in an (IT) engineering realm knows this is rule #2 and that on the basis of this one thing, Tony gets extra Trust Points.

In contrast [nick-name with-held] who posts a lot on [forum-name with-held] offers advice to people quite routinely. His posts are cogent and well (enough) written and to the casual observer constitute good advice. However, after some investigation, it seems to me that he may not have ever drunk a beer, let alone brewed one. His Trust Points have long since been transferred elsewhere.

Both good Tony and dork [nick-name with-held] have high post counts and - on the surface - appear to be good blokes. How do you know who to follow? Until you've been around long enough to know who you can trust, you have a problem.

"The use of white cane sugar leads to apple-cider like off flavours." I have read lots of people saying this all over the planet. Some of them seemed respectable enough. Some of them had (almost) as many Trust Points as Tony. I've used sugar in some of my beers and they are not noticeably cidery. I understand that there is a fairly successful brewery in South Australia that uses a fair bit of cane sugar and they make *beer* (as opposed to cider). I don't think the Belgians are respected for their ciders.

So, we can get bad advice from dorks who just like posting stuff to discussion forums; we can get it from experienced and knowledgeable individuals who are just plain wrong and we can get it from biblical teachings that are also just plain wrong. And, to top it all off, the experts change their minds! (Mr Palmer and his attitude to racking.)

This is all different to ensuring the message is crafted to the audient as I suggested when I commenced this rant. I guess that every time I brew (which I should be doing right now), I make another raft of mistakes - some of which I will learn from - and be able to shuffle some Trust Points around, but also I am gaining experience and getting closer to attempting my first hand-brake turn. Doesn't mean that I will recommend doing the hand-brake turn to all and sundry.


I remain an atheist and I beseech you to burn all the experts!!!

 

[datamike]

I just wrote the following in another thread...
Sure, in some testing, different systems will play a part but for a lot of testing, different systems will not. (Having identical thermometers for example goes a long way to solving a lot of differences.) I'm actually going to go out on a limb here and will criticise a brewing god - Jamil. He says in an audio that he liked one beer that was brewed with 12% evaporation rate but couldn't stand the one brewed at 15%.

I have real problems with accepting that gospel. If you are mucking around at that fine a level then I think you would have to brew the beer at identical times on identical equipment, repeat the brew several times and do several tastings. I heard no mention that this was done.

I've done wine-tasting courses in the past and been able to get varieties, regions and even vineyards correct but surely, in beer-brewing, one test should not be taken as gospel and certainly a lot of gospel out there is totally irrelevant to 99% of brewers.

I dunno!

Does anyone else really wonder where a lot of our brewing 'gospel' comes from?

I just found this forum thanks to a posting on the Brewing Network forum. I am from a Chicago suburb.
Let me just say that you Aussies rock! There is some seriously great information on the board from the BIAB (brilliant!) to the No Chill method. Great stuff! And I really love the fact that some of you guys are questioning everything about homebrewing. Congrats!

Pistol, you make a number of really wonderful points. There is so much misinformation, myths, legends and yes, even disinformation when it come to brewing it boggles the mind. Consider the old truism that using sucrose (table sugar here in the states) will give beer a cidery flavor. I am guessing that this stems from old canned kits that suggested supplementing the included malt syrup with over 50% sugar. But I am just guessing... I can tell you that I use table sugar up to about 20% in many of my Belgian ales and have never detected a cidery flavor. Duvel, Chouffe, Huyge and many other Belgian brewers do the same.

It's hard to argue with Jamil Z's record. He's won tons of awards and is generally regarded as a brewing expert, but..... he's driving me nuts on that net radio show. It basically boils down to a couple of reasons:

• He states his personal opinions as though they are hard, fast, proven and tested facts ("complex grain bills are the way to go for Belgian ales"; most native Belgian ales use very simple bills as stated in many books, including Brew Like A Monk, and confirmed personally by visits to several Belgian breweries.)
• He states "facts" with no data to back them up ("Belgian ales should only attenuate 70-75%"; really high attenuation is part and parcel of native Belgian ales. Most are highly attenuated and I can't think of any less than 80%. Belgian brewers call this "digestibility".)

Check out the show regarding Belgian Strong Dark ales for examples of these. There's been more than a few pub discussions about Jamil in some cases seeming to distribute disinformation.....

The bottom line is: listen to everyone, read everything, then do your own testing and draw your own conclusions!

Cheers from the states!
Michael

 

[Thirsty Boy]

I know I know, I'm starting to sound like an appologist for Jamil. Not really my intention, because I dont think he needs appologising for, but I just cant help resonding...

First - datamike. great first post. welcome to the forum.

But... the things that are irritating you about Jamils radio show. Well, I'm not going to tell you what should and shouldn't irritate you. However you are either mis-stating or mis-hearing (some of) the things that Jamil says.

"He states his personal opinions as though they are hard, fast, proven and tested facts ("complex grain bills are the way to go for Belgian ales"; most native Belgian ales use very simple bills as stated in many books, including Brew Like A Monk, and confirmed personally by visits to several Belgian breweries.)"

He doesn't say that, he gives his recipe for a Dark Strong. Then explains why it is formulated with a complex rather than a simple grain bill. Explains that traditionally belgians use simple grain bills; and gives you a hint about how you might go about brewing the beer if you decide that you would rather go with a simple grain bill than his version.

"He states "facts" with no data to back them up ("Belgian ales should only attenuate 70-75%"; really high attenuation is part and parcel of native Belgian ales. Most are highly attenuated and I can't think of any less than 80%. Belgian brewers call this "digestibility".)"

Well, he says that his recipe will attenuate to around 75%... but thats it. He doesn't say that belgians should be attenuated to only 75% just that thats where his recipe will go. Then he goes on to stress the notion that belgian ales should finish out dry and talks at length about the importance of using simple sugars to achieve the dry finish.

So, at the risk of being a little impolite to a new poster, maybe the problem is less what Jamil says, than that you aren't listening as carefully as you might. Maybe in other episodes he does exactly the things you talk about, but the examples you gave are basically wrong. sorry.

And besides, its called the Jamil Show for pete's sake... who's opinions do you think you are going to get?? The whole point of the show is that you want to learn how Jamil brews the beer being discussed. If thats not what you want, why are you listening. It cant be disinformation, its information about how Jamil brews. End of story. As for backing his facts up with data, in the instance of Belgian ales.... well in the Belgian Strong Ale category he won a siver in the biggest brewing competition on the planet, then the next year followed it up with a gold. That'll do me for data to back up his opinions. It doesn't make him infallible, but it does add a certain weight to his opinion.

The thing is... one of the points that has been discussed in this thread is the notion of trying things for yourself, and/or weighing up different opinions and distilling your own opinion out of them. But when Jamil does that. Then shares the "different" method that he has found to be successful... then he is distributing disinformation. Not a differing opinion... disinformation.


Having said that, I can see how Jamil might shit you if you listen to a show in isolation and all you hear is a bunch of stuff that sounds suss to you, with nothing but his say so to assure you that they aren't just bullshit. I can also see how his personal style could drive you nuts.

Anyway, now that I've had a chip at you and ranted because you dared critisise my personal pet brewing deity again, welcome to the forum. and I do very much agree with your listen, read and try everyone/everything bottom line. Well said.

Thirsty

Edit: Not posting to this thread anymore (much to everyones releif I am sure) I'm starting to sound like a bloody evangelist and I'm shitting even myself. Appologies.

 

[bconnery]

Threads like these bring to mind the old quote "I disagree completely with everything you say. But will defend to the death your right to say it"

Given the manner in which I have seen some "debates" undertaken on some other forums recently it is nice to see different sides of a point offering opinions and advice without getting too personal.

OT, I feel constantly in this hobby that if you want absolutes, you are in the wrong game...

The web only enhances information overload it is up to us to filter it, find what works for us personally etc.

I don't think I could even count the number of times someone has said 'you can't do x' and someone else has said they do it constantly.

Even basics that are so important like temp control and sanitation have wide variation in methods.

Not a wonder this whole home brewing thing takes up so much of my time!

Ain't it grand

 

[PistolPatch]

I know I know, I'm starting to sound like an appologist for Jamil.
First - datamike. great first post. welcome to the forum.
Edit: Not posting to this thread anymore (much to everyones releif I am sure) I'm starting to sound like a bloody evangelist and I'm shitting even myself. Appologies.

On the first sentence - wrong.
On the second sentence - correct.
On the last sentence - wrong again

Before I get to you Thirsty, can I say welcome to datamike as well. I reckon that was a brilliant first post on this forum and I hope that mike posts a heap more. The way that you have written datamike, shows that you don't mind expressing an opinion and by the style of your writing, I'm guessing that if you ever found yourself to be wrong you wouldn't mind being corrected either. That's the sort of attitude that is tops and that bconnery referred to in his post above. (Ben's post, like many here already, I think is worthy of heaps of thought.)

Anyway datamike and ben, I loved your posts and I've actually really enjoyed reading nearly all of the posts above. Not often you get the priviledge of that in a single thread.

Let's get to Thirsty now

Thirsty, you are not sounding like an apologist for Jamil and you are not sounding like an evangelist.

You need to post a lot more. The posts that I have seen you do have had a large impact on me and others. Often large impact posts get no replies because, 'What can one say?'

You're a hard bugger to reply to because you always make sense.

I'm trying to think of any post I have seen of yours that I disagree with and can only think of one. After some communications between us, I now think you are right and you now think I am right - lol! (We really need to work that one out!)

I say you need to post a lot more because, as I have said to you recently in private communications, the stuff you have directly sent me is brilliant stuff and totally informative. It's such a shame to see it hidden away.

I reckon datamike and everyone here reading this thread would really enjoy and appreciate the wealth of knowledge you have sent me personally. The way you write to me is in a style everyone loves.

Don't hide your talent away Thirsty. I know it's bloody hard writing stuff here sometimes. Like me, you write long posts. I delete or severely edit my long posts that are badly written, uninformative, off-topic or non-sensical at the earliest opportunity The occassional good post I do gets left here and often gets no replies. I find out months later that one thing I wrote made sense to one brewer. That's good and I love that! (It's not as bad as I make it out to be - bullshitting here! I usually get thanked pretty soon for the occassional good advice I might give privately if not publicly Your stuff is a tad more advanced and thought-provoking though.)

What I'm saying to you is write more and never delete what you write. Too much value there.

Now, I had actually prepared an essay on my opinion of some well-known brewing experts but I think that can wait until tomorow It's a pretty scary, high-risk post so I certainly don't mind waiting another day - lol.

Does anyone else totally appreciate Thirsty's posts or is it just me? I know a heap of you do so, for God's sake, send him a PM or better still, post here.

This is PistolPatch, who I think is now in serious trouble from Thirsty! (He's going to hate this post!)

But, he deserves the attention.

Don't you agree?

What's that saying? For evil to triumph requires good men to do nothing.

Probably the same when it comes to brewing advice.

Spot,
Pat