Folks: First post from a baby ,aspiring brewer.I admit to being a mullet, that is I mull and consider for a long time before doing most things.I was an ex-beer drinker for over 15 years when I had a taste of Steel 211, by Miller. It reactivated and old love for brewed drinks. Can anyone give a direction I mean recipe ideas for brewing with the topic line details? I have acquired 2 books on brewing: 'Brew your own", by Parkes and, "the New complete joy of home brewing" by Papazian. Again, as a neophyte, a point comes up. It appears that brewing temps are important, and larger likes 50's and ales like 60's. So are the seasons used to brew by? Or do brewers use an a/c-ed room to set the right temp for brewing? I also notice a discrepancy about the 2nd stage of brewing: a large bottle with a one way valve, or an open mouth bucket with a clean towel over it. Any info about when you should use each method? Fran

The one way valve is the way to go. There are a lot of differences between how people home brew now and how they did 15 years ago, so there are a lot of different methods proposed in various books. Some significant changes seem to be,

(1) To prevent infection from unwanted microbes brewers now use sealed fermenters, ie. big bottles (carboys) or plastic vats with screw on lids (and the air-lock/valve), as opposed to open buckets.

(2) Brewers no longer tend to use table sugar/cane sugar as a cheap fermentable to bulk up their beers. Various malts, dextrose, corn syrup, honey and even rice syrup are used instead - they're more expensive but flavour wise are invariably better.

(3) Brewers used to scoop the Krausen (Floating yeast build up) off the top of the brew as it was fermenting, the consensus now seems to be to leave it the hell alone because the larger yeast mass will help it ferment through more easily and you're only exposing it to unwanted oxidization and microbes.

A free (and possibly also the best) source on modern methods for begginers is this web-book by John Palmer,

http://www.howtobrew.com/sitemap.html

I don't know what "steel 211: 20% dryer and sharper carbonation" is , but for dry/sharp beers you can use fermentation modifying enzyms. I used some I got from my local brewcraft store in a pale ale and it made it dry and sharp ,

Joseph.

Thanks Joseph, I will take those brewing fermentation tips to heart in my first try.My cloudy reference to "21 steel" was it is a newer beer that sparked my interest in brewing. Here in central Indiana its only available at Krogers. If/when I have the expertise id like to replicate it "20% dyer with sharper carbonation".I did not spot it listed in the clone site. Thanks again, Fran