Brewhouse Resumes Operation

Are you as excited as I am? I made new beer yesterday. Making beer gives my life meaning. Although so do my generous donations to the Society for the Preservation of Vintage Midget Porn.

I decided to make more pale ale. That recipe is a killer. I still have a gallon or so of the old batch, so I'll see if I can't drag the keg to ManCamp in a couple of weeks so we can drain it.

I feel like I'm way behind the curve in beer technology. Everyone else is batch sparging, and I'm doing it the old way, just because it's so damned easy. And I never did buy a wort chiller. I still throw the bucket of hot wort in the pool. People say a wort chiller will give me a better "cold break" and improve the beer, but I don't see how it could be better than it is now.

And I don't know what a "cold break" is.

Here's an interesting bit of news: the tsunami disrupted the beer faucet supply. The best beer faucet in the universe is the Vent-Matic. All other beer faucets (except stout faucets) get stuck if you don't use them a couple of times a week. People will tell you to grease the parts with keg lube, but it doesn't work.

The Vent-Matic somehow avoids sticking. It absolutely never sticks. I bought one, so I know. But when I tried to buy more, I kept seeing "out of stock" on the sites where I shop. Turns out the Vent-Matic is made in Indonesia. It went out of production for months because of the tsunami.

They're supposed to be up and running now, so I'll order two more faucets as soon as I can. Try these things. You'll put your old stainless faucets in the trash.