What’s Brewin’

I know where to get free home brew psp games but none stick out as something that could keep me entertained for more than 30 minutes. What is a home brew psp game that is actually worth playing?

Depends on what you like. If card games are your style, there’s Wagic, which is basically Magic: The Gathering vs a bot player, although the card images may need to be downloaded separately. For action/platformer games there’s also a port of Super Mario War, which basically involves a bunch of 8/16-bit sprites on Mario-esque maps killing each other Mario-style.

I have bought about 5 different home brew kits from my local supplier and they(the beer) all turn out with the same taste. Why?

The recipes that come with kits are always on the bland/generic side.

What you need to do is get recipes for various styles of beer. Ales, Porters, Lagers, Pilsners etc.

You have to experiment a bit and find the ones that you like. Once you change the style of beer it will all taste very different.

For example, a dark Porter is going to turn out very different than a light Pilsner etc. Ales can be made with all kinds of different flavorings etc.

I have often heard that store bought beer ,which is filtered or otherwise sterilized to have no yeast in it, doesn’t keep so long. On the other hand home brew is said to get better with age, presumably due to the presence of live, though, dormant yeast.

With all DUE respect to TheMan, home brew does improve with age if it is decent to start with. I brew some that I will not open for the first several months, until it mellows out properly. The stronger and darker the beer, the better it will age. Barleywines and double bocks are good examples. Like wine, beer improves with age, then declines. It is more a matter of style than "store bought" vs "home brew". I suspect that the last brewing of Sam Adams Utopias is still well-worth drinking. This is in contrast to the mega-brews that weren’t worth drinking to start with.

I usually drink the mild house coffee at Starbucks and I like the taste and texture of their coffee. When I try to make it at home with my $150 grind and brew coffee maker……I can never achieve that same Texture and taste. The best I can do is achieve the same coffee texture as the local 7-eleven.
What’s the secret to making coffee like starbucks? I’m just asking for their regular coffee and not anything special like their carmel macchiato.
I also use fresh whole beans and purified water when I brew.

Thanks in advance.

#1 is grind. Make sure the coffee you are using is ground for your machine. It makes a difference whether it is paper cone/flat filters/ and or metal filter. When you purchase your coffee at the starbucks they should ask what you want it ground on.
#2 water. Definitely use filtered water. Starbucks have their own water filtration systems w/in each store to acheive the best possible filtration they can.
#3 freshness – make sure that you are storing your coffee in airtight container. (not the freezer/refrigerator). Once you open the bag use it w/in 7 days to ensure the best freshness possible
#4 proportion – make sure that you are using a starbucks scoop (they are available for purchase in our stores for around $5.) and follow the standards on the bag of coffee.
These are just afew tips hope they help

The sanitizer pack says not to rinse it off. It says I should also use a plate with sanitizer to rest the tools on. Does anyone have tips on how this works? I don’t want to drink the sanitizer in the beer and I don’t understand how to use it.

It’s an oxygen based sanitizer, and works similar to hydrogen peroxide. The oxygen cleans and sanitizes the germs, then you don’t have to rinse it off, because if it gets in the beer, its just basically oxygenated water, which is good for starting yeast. Here’s a quote from a website on why its good stuff:

"This oxygen based cleanser sanitizes on contact. Environmentally friendly and non-toxic. No rinsing required. What makes One Step different from other powdered cleansers? One Step is an environmentally sound no-rinse cleanser. Other powdered cleansers either require rinsing due to their alkaline nature or use materials that can be harmful to the ecosystem. One Step uses active oxygen to do its work. One Step is a unique substance which consists of oxygen entrained with a mineral crystal. When added to water, this crystal dissolves and releases the oxygen in such a way to form hydrogen peroxide. The hydrogen peroxide does its work and degrades into oxygen and water, leaving only the minerals behind. Those minerals are naturally occuring compounds in the environment and are quite stable."

The carbonation is fine, im using the right amount of sugar, my level is about 8%.

Most of the time, I find that’s caused by too little malt and/or too much adjunct sugar. A lot of the mouthfeel of beer is due to its high finished gravity (say 1.016 compared to .998 for wine). When you finish at a low gravity, your beer will feel thinner. You can fix that by using more malt and less sugar because malt will not ferment as low as sugar therefore you’ll have some residual sugar helping out.
My winter ale last year was like that, but this year I added an extra pound each dry malt extract and cara-aroma malt. I also removed a pound of sugar. It came out around 7% but had great body and mouthfeel to it.

Also, what is it used for. I don’t see it in the Wii shop channel and I hear some people saying you have to download it on the computer and copy it to an SD card then to the Wii. What can you do with it?

it is a homebrew application where you can run music, burned games, homebrew games like quke or doom, play dvds, and watch videos. But you have a wii v 4.0 you can’t install it. you also have to have the legend of zelda twilight princess.

Is there any purpose made Home brew labeling programs/internet sites that have pre made labels that you can modify?

Or anything relevent to brewing labels?

Cheers

http://www.beerinfo.com/vlib/software.html
http://www.worldlabel.com/Pages/label-making.htm

http://giftspecialistsinc.com/personalized/beer/plb-photo.html
http://www.fermentarium.com/content/view/127/58/

My brother said he wants a home brew kit to make beer for his birthday. He has also stated that he will not tell us what one, or where to buy it at.

The only information I have about it is:
1) You make beer with it
2) It’s $230

If any of you can give me help on all the home brew kits out there, that would be great. Also, maybe helping me find the $230 one?

Thanks!

There are better ways to spend your money and still get him what he needs to make great beer. For the basic kit, go to eBay or to your local brew shop. Add a stainless steel stock pot (5 gallons if he is going to brew with extracts, 7 1/2 gallons to 10 gallons if he is advanced enough for whole grain). Add a 5- to 6.5-gallon glass carboy. Your cost will be about half of what you thought. You can even add a copy of Papazian’s book The New Complete Joy of Home Brewing. It’s my favorite basic brewing book.

If you really want to spend $230, you could get an assortment of malts, extracts, adjuncts, and assorted chemicals and toys. Home brewers can always find another gadget to play with.

BTW, I got started with a Brewers’ Best kit and still use it.