Aisle Twelve

I'm not Irish, but if there was one heritage I wish I could be its Irish; and French, and Greek, and Brazilian, and Argentinian...ok, so I admire a lot of heritages.  But Irish seems like a good thing to be, especially this time of year.  So on a particularly rainy and dreary Sunday, after a week of colds and sickness, beef and stout stew sounded like a good idea.  I searched the Internet for a recipe that I could use, but I didn't find one I liked.  Meaning: I wanted one that was simple and didn't take too long (so no slow cooker.)  So, I made up my own recipe.  I've only done this a handful of times with mixed success, so I was a little nervous.  But it turned out great!  I basically went with a beouf bourginon process, only with stout instead of red wine.  It might not be the most authentic Irish stew, but I hope it would make an Irish person proud.  Beef and Stout Stew (Serves 4) 1 lb beef stew meat, cu...

The Homebrew Process - Fighting Brewers Brewery This post is for all who have asked me what these boys are up to when they brew their beer.  (This post was written by Joe.  I haven't the slightest idea of what half of this means.) Step 1: Heat up water in hot liquor tank (turkey fryer). While its heating, take the yeast out of the fridge and put in your pocket to warm the yeast up. Check the temperature. You want it to be approximate 170 degrees, sufficent so that when you combine it with your grain the resulting temperature is approximately 152 degrees. You usually want to use 1.15-1.25 gallons of water per pound of grain. There are calculators on the internet which will give you the exact temperature needed for your mash. You want to take approximately 1 gallon to 1 1/2 gallons of water from the hot liquor tank and put it in the mash tun (cooler) to bring the walls of the cooler up to the temperature so that when you add your grain and water it doesn't drop the te...