So black teas are a very common thing to add to meads as they contribute tannins which can help with mouthfeel and balancing acidity of the final beverage. This tea in particular (Lapsang Souchong) is a smoked tea and so as well as adding tannins to the mead, also contributes as wonderful smokey flavour. My inspiration for this mead several years ago was to make something that had a similar flavour profile to a nice peated scotch. The maple syrup was allowed to fully ferment out to leave just a subtle woody-ness and it works in conjunction with the tea and oak spirals I aged the mead on to provide a pseudo-barrel aged taste to the final product.
I usually use 88% Lactic Acid. As a second choice I would pick Phosphoric Acid (usually comes as 10%). If you can find a stronger phosphoric acid then it's probably the better choice as I think it has a lower taste threshold than lactic but it's really fairly negligible between the 2. Citric acid has an extremely noticeable taste (think sour candy like warheads) and carbonic acid is a weak acid which is usually found in beer as the result of dissolved CO2.
How does she feel about "The return of the son of monster magnet"
Dead Branch is a relic that gives you a random card every time a card is exhausted. Shivs exhaust when you play them so if you have a Blade Dance or 2 (especially if you can upgrade them) you can generate several random cards every turn. Some of these randomly generated cards might also be 0 cost or will exhaust also when they are played which generates more random cards. Basically a Dead Branch run is where you lean in to playing as many exhaustable cards as you can and just seeing what happens. It's inherently an impossible run to utilise a consistent strategy for because the cards you get every fight are always different. This particular run I was lucky that I picked up a Lizard's Tail relic (revives you to 50% HP when you die) as well as a Fairy in a Bottle (revives you to 30% HP when you die) so even if I happened to draw a useless set of cards via Dead Branch at a crucial turn, I was still somewhat safe from just being insta-killed.
Image Screenshot-20231129-170127-Slay-the-Spire hosted in ImgBB
cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/16444266
> I'm not often a fan of Dead Branch runs because of how unpredictable they can be but this run was fueled by Shivs with the Shurikan and Kunai relics generating a ton of strength and dexterity so I was really just trying to play as many cards as possible every turn and see what fun Dead Branch created! Picking up an early Apotheosis certainly didn't hurt either as it meant I was happy to get Fusion Hammer for the extra energy per turn!
Image Screenshot-20231129-170127-Slay-the-Spire hosted in ImgBB
I'm not often a fan of Dead Branch runs because of how unpredictable they can be but this run was fueled by Shivs with the Shurikan and Kunai relics generating a ton of strength and dexterity so I was really just trying to play as many cards as possible every turn and see what fun Dead Branch created! Picking up an early Apotheosis certainly didn't hurt either as it meant I was happy to get Fusion Hammer for the extra energy per turn!
Yes. You can mash (as in enzymatically convert starches to sugars, not as in mashed-potatoes) any gourd (think pumpkin, squash, potatoes, sweet potatoes). They tend not to add too much noticeable flavor to a beer (just a general earthiness and some color contribution) so it's often recommended to oven roast them a little first to get some caramelization. Here is a recipe that uses sweet potatoes.
"I'd hit him right in that fake nose. He'd have plastic lying all over the floor," Trump said, while standing there with lifts in his shoes, five different hair transplants, a girdle, and three layers of bronzer makeup.
Such a great album opener. I love when people are hearing it for the first time and turn up the volume to hear the intro better and then, well, you know...
So it is finally almost time! The event I'll be pouring my Oat-wine at is this Saturday, October 14th at Brooklyn Navy Yard and tickets are still available if anyone is going to be around NYC and wants to try it (as well as 29 other beers!).
As an added bonus, here is an image of a lovely pellicle starting to develop on my 1st attempt at making this beer which got way too hot and so I decided to pitch some Brett blends in as well as an oak spiral in the hopes of somewhat salvaging the batch. It's starting to develop some funk which I'm very excited about but I think it will be another few months before I'll really be able to tell if it will be drinkable or will end up getting distilled into some dubious liquor...
[posted this as a top level reply by mistake at first]
I’ve never played the board game because a) it’s pretty pricey and b) I don’t have a consistent group to play it with. I also do love digital adaptations of epic board games because it makes managing turns, cards, health etc way easier. That being said, this port of Gloomhaven is clearly very taxing on the aged hardware of the switch. I’m sure the PC version of the digital adaption runs better/faster/prettier etc. I’ve been playing by myself and despite all my complaints about the switch version, still thoroughly enjoying it.
I've never played the board game because a) it's pretty pricey and b) I don't have a consistent group to play it with. I also do love digital adaptations of epic board games because it makes managing turns, cards, health etc way easier. That being said, this port of Gloomhaven is clearly very taxing on the aged hardware of the switch. I'm sure the PC version of the digital adaption runs better/faster/prettier etc. I've been playing by myself and despite all my complaints about the switch version, still thoroughly enjoying it.
I've been obsessed with gloomhaven since it was released on the switch. Sure it has a lot of UI issues and absolutely devours my switch's battery life but it really scratches a heavy strategy itch in my brain. It is a very difficult game but with every failed "run" you keep all the gold and experience you gained so even failing a scenario helps progress you towards leveling up and being able to buy new items to help you in future endeavors. Every win I have eked out has felt really hard won and rewarding because of that.
Settings are saved automatically. Maybe force close app, clear cache (not data!) and reload?
So I have previously posted about the two (!) brewdays I had for my entry (a 10+% A.B.V. Oat-Wine) to my Homebrew Club's annual fundraising event, Brewminaries Present: Cornucopia. Batch 1 accidentally shot up to 89°F overnight but instead of just dumping it, I decided to let it ride to see if it was salvageable and brewed again (batch 2) with a different yeast and an insulated jacket I could add ice packs to. Well batch 1 was still tasting super hot a few weeks into "conditioning" so I decided to throw in a pack of Omega Yeast Brett Blend 3 and just see what happened whilst I added some Biofine to batch 2 and let it cold condition in the keg. The event is still a few weeks away so hopefully batch 1 develops some funk before then and I can serve it alongside batch 2 which I'm actually happy with how it turned out. Regardless, If you are around in NYC on October 14th and want to try this beer (and many many more) come buy tickets to the event!
Join us at the Brooklyn Navy Yard Building 77 on Saturday, October 14th from 1-5PM to taste over 30 different beers from some of NYC's best homebrewers! Tickets on sale now!
About the event:
Explore over 30 delicious beers brewed by some of NYC's best homebrewers inspired by nature's bountiful harvest! Beers will be separated into 8 categories: oats, wheat, corn, rye, fruit, vegetables/herb/spice, sugars, and miscellaneous grain. Your entry fee gets you a souvenir glass and unlimited samples of homebrew for the duration of the event! The event will take place on Saturday, October 14th from 1-5PM at the Brooklyn Navy Yard Building 77.
I'll make another post in the community for more visibility, but here is the ticket link for the event. It's going to be on Saturday, October 14th from 1-5PM at the Brooklyn Navy Yard Building 77.
- Southern Oregon
- Northeastern California
- Northern Nevada
- Southern Utah
- Southwest Colorado
- Northeastern Arizona
- New Mexico
- Texas
I would say the reason something like TOSNA goes against the manufacturer's directions is because the manufacturer just provide a "generic" usage recommendation (e.g. 1.5g per gallon or 1/2 tsp per gallon) when they amount you use should absolutely be customized to the batch you are making. I would argue that the most important part of TOSNA isn't the fact that the nitrogen sources are "Organic" (although I do firmly believe that organic nitrogen sources (i.e from dead yeast cells) that do not contain DAP lead to fewer temperature spikes from rapid fermentation and therefore produce far fewer fusel alcohols and therefore require less aging time to "mellow"), but that it is the fact that it is a "Tailored" protocol, taking into consideration not only the total volume of must, but the gravity of that must, the nitrogen requirements of the yeast being used for the fermentation, whether there is fruit being added which would reduce the extraneous nitrogen required to be added for healthy fermentation etc.
I would guess YAN is more important because what's the point of having free nitrogen if the yeast can't actually utilise it.
I've never done experiments between SNA and front loading all the nutrients. I don't find the staggered additions difficult to do or a burden and I'm typically degassing/oxygenating anyway for the first few days. Plus it gives me an opportunity to take samples and see how fermentation is progressing.
Sure it's technically more work than the one and done method of front loading but not enough of an added burden that it's too much effort to bother.
I don't often use nutrients when I'm brewing beer unless I'm making a big beer (>8% A.B.V.) and I want to ensure a nice healthy fermentation. I do however use nutrients every single time I make cider/wine/mead since the fermentables here do not provide enough FAN (Free Amino Nitrogen) and so without them fermentation is sluggish, throws off a ton of sulfur and often requires a long conditioning/aging time to get to a point where I would want to drink it.
As for the actual nutrients I use, for beers I will use Wyeast Beer Nutrient Blend and for mead I rehydrate dry yeast with Go-Ferm and do a Staggered Nutrient Addition of Fermaid O over the first 4 days of fermentation along with oxygenating/degassing with pure O2 through a sintered stone.
I've requested this feature before, but I think it would be helpful in filtering out those spam posts that I'm sure we've all seen by new users promoting either products on Amazon or various medical drugs. The posts themselves seem to pretty quickly get downvoted heavily but since I browse almost exclusively by New, they still appear in my feed. I block the users posting them whenever I see them but more always pop up eventually.
I'm not sure when it changed, but recently the top option when you go to an album and hit the 3 dots to bring up the menu where you can add stuff to the play queue has been changed to "add to library" and I seem to repeatedly hit that by muscle memory when I want to add things to the play queue and then get confused when they do not play automatically.
Update:
This is an example of what I want to open the hamburger menu. https://sendvid.com/328hidfa
Original post:
Up until the latest update, pressing back from the homepage would open the hamburger menu allowing for easy access to jump to a specific community or go to your profile etc.
I agree with people that this action being caused by the "back" key was unintuitive and unexpected and much prefer the new and more obvious result of pressing back from the homepage which is to exit the app. However, there is now no longer a way to easily open the hamburger menu when browsing one-handed and this is an oversight!
I propose that a "left swipe" from the homepage opens up this menu (currently swiping left from the homepage does nothing)
cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/954190
> As the title says, I brewed a Brown Wheat Ale with Applewood-Smoked Leaf Hops. This was my first time using smoked hops and I'm happy with the result. They imparted more of a subtle smoke flavor than smoked malt. Recipe is available here if anyone is interested.
Sorry for the wall of text!
TL:DR great brew day ruined by AC shutting off overnight and fermentation temperature skyrocketing. Fixed by brewing the same beer again and choosing a different yeast.
So I had posted a few days ago about weird and wacky ideas for making an Oat-centric beer for a homebrew event in October. I came up with this recipe for my take at an Oat-wine and started making a yeast starter on Monday for a brewday the following day (which was yesterday).
I had been worried that using a high proportion of oats (33.3%) as I was might lead to a stuck sparge so I am happy to report that my combination of a 15 minute beta-glucanase rest at 110°F (43°C) and a hefty 1lb (~450g) of rice hulls was fantastic in preventing this. It was at this point that I encountered my first obstacle.
I had calculated that I would need 2 gallons (~7.6L) of boiling water to bring my mash up to Saccharification temperature but this ended up being not nearly enough. I was aiming for 152°F (67°C) but after adding all the boiling water the mash had stabilized at around 142°F (61°C) so I hastily boiled another half gallon in a tea kettle and added it to the mash which managed to bring the temperature closer to where I wanted it (148°F (64°C)) but at this point the mash was already extremely thin and I didn't want to just keep adding more water so I decided to just roll with it and accept I would have a slightly more fermentable wort and therefore a drier final beer.
After this the brewday was fairly routine. I had planned on an extended boil to bring my final volume down to 2.5 Gallons (~9.5L). I accidentally overdid the boil a little and after cooling down to as low as my ground water could go (71°F (~22°C)) I ended up with only 2.2 gallons (8.3L) in the fermenter. As luck would have it, my yeast starter was almost perfectly the correct volume to bring the wort to the full 2.5 gallons so after oxygenating the wort I pitched the entirety of the nice active starter into the fermenter along with a Tilt hydrometer and closed everything up. My original gravity was 1.087 for an overall brewhouse efficiency of 68% (on the lower side for me but it was a big beer so I had expected this and was pleased with how everything had gone) At this point I cleaned everything up and went home for the night (I brew at work instead of in my apartment).
When I came in to work this morning it was clear the AC had turned off overnight and I could see the airlock on the fermenter going absolutely crazy. I opened up the Tilt app on my phone to check on the stats of the beer. It had only been around 16 hours but the gravity was down to 1.037 and the temperature was at 89°F (~32°C) which was far hotter than the top end of the range of the yeast I was using (Scottish Ale: Optimal range 63–75° F (17–24° C)).
I was able to wrestle down the fermenter temperature by covering it in wet paper towels and blasting the AC and a fan at it but I'm still pretty sure the beer will be an undrinkable fusel alcohol mess that not even an extended amount of cold conditioning time will fix.
Thinking through my options I decided the best course of action would just be to re-brew the batch and go for a different yeast that was more sensible in these temperatures. I had considered using a clean-tasting Kveik strain such as Omega HotHead or Lutra Kveik but I ultimately decided against this because I am of the opinion that even with adequate nutrients and oxygen, the Kveik strains tend to impart an off flavor that I don't like in the final beer. I therefore decided to go in the complete opposite direction and choose a lager yeast which I would ferment around 50°F (10°C) in the keezer we use for serving beer.
At least I could learn from mistakes of yesterday's brew and so today I brewed the exact same beer again and even slightly improved my efficiency! (Original gravity up to 1.089 from 1.087 at the same volume). I was still only able to cool the wort down to around 71°F (~22°C) with an immersion chiller and so the batch is cooling overnight the rest of the way and I'll pitch the yeast tomorrow when I come into work.
I haven't dumped the original batch that fermented too hot so now I guess I'll be able to do a side by side test when both are finished and I'll have another update for you all!
In this post, we explore the weaknesses of popular board game genres as well as the board games that defy those weaknesses.
Here is the recipe I'm going with. I'm planning on doing a long (~120 minute) boil to get some caramelization of the wort for color and depth of flavor and also because I think having a fairly thin mash will help avoid a stuck sparge.
Original post:
My homebrew club has an annual fundraiser every year where all the brewers have to adhere to a theme that changes every time. This year's theme is adjuncts and I've been assigned Oats as an adjunct. Now I have brewed several Oatmeal stouts in my time and I want to go for something more interesting and out of the ordinary. I was thinking of Brewing a Barley wine with a hefty portion of the grain bill switched out for oats to make an Oat-wine if you will.
I was just wondering if anyone had any other wacky suggestions? I have access to pretty much all the ingredients available (I actually manage a Homebrew store) and several months before the event itself which is in mid October. As an aside, if anyone is going to be in NYC in mid October and wants to go to a fantastic event where you can try approximately 30 different beers made by some excellent home brewers have I got the event for you!
What character were you playing as and what combination of cards/relics made it so satisfying?
For me, I just had a (unfortunately unsuccessful) run as the silent which consistently generated 7 or 8 energy per turn because of [Hovering Kite] and [Tools of the Trade] as well as 2 copies of [Tactician] and [Acrobatics]. All this energy I was pouring into [Poisoned Stab] and [Bouncing Flask] and just generally having a very good time poisoning the hell out of everyone and trying to generate enough defence with an [After Image] to turtle my way to victory in every fight. My deck unfortunately struggled with AoE and eventually I fell to the Scourge of all singular-target-focused decks, Reptomancer.
It isn't possible to overstate the impact this story has had on all kinds of media (books, films, video games, music etc) since it was first published in 1955. The world Tolkien writes about feels alive and full of history (in part because he spent years creating a complete overarching mythos and history of this world and the people in it (of which the Lord of the Rings is but a small part).
I'm running the latest beta (1.0.82) so firstly I like to say thank you for updating the community listing in the side panel! It now is correctly showing all the communities I'm subscribed to.
My feature request I would like to see in the app (and someone please point me to it if it already exists) is a post Score threshold filter. What I mean by this is, I like to browse posts by new so that I see more rapid change/turnover in my feed. Sometimes posts appear that have an extremely negative post Score (most recent example I have seen was at -41). If I were browsing by hot, or top or any of the other sorting algorithms, these posts would be weighted so low that they wouldn't appear. Is there a way to set a score threshold (say something like -5 (or even better make it user settable)) so that any posts with a score below that threshold get filtered out of all feeds?
Author: Alex Shanks-Abel It’s often said that we eat with our eyes first, an idiomatic expression used to convey the idea that our expectations are influenced by what we see. This trope unquestiona…
