Kyle Rankin @kyle@librem.one

After mashing, the next step is the lautering process, where I remove the grain from the mash water and rinse it with hot water to extract more remaining sugars.

This is my lauter tun. It's an electric brewing kettle that I used to brew beer with before I got my Grainfather. I fill this kettle with the appropriate amount of water, heat it to the proper temp, and then connect a hose to a spout at the bottom and use gravity to move the water to my Grainfather.

#brewing #happybrewyear #beer

Even though I need to wait 90 minutes for the next step of the process, I'm not sitting here idle. A key part of having an enjoyable brew day, I've found, is to clean up incrementally during these down times, and prepare everything for the next step. For instance, after I started the mashing process, I put away all of the grain grinding equipment and my bag of bulk barley, swept loose grain from the floor, and now I'm preparing my lauter tun for the next step.

#brewing #happybrewyear #beer

During this 90 minute mashing process enzymes in the malted barley convert starches into simple sugars like alpha and beta amylase. The ideal temp to convert each of these sugars is different, so recipes pick temps somewhere in the middle based on which sugars they want the most of. This choice can affect the body and residual sweetness left in the beer after fermentation.

#brewing #happybrewyear #beer

Once all the grain is added I add a mesh screen above the water level in the kettle, attach a recirculation arm to my Grainfather's pump and tell it to start the 90 min mashing process. It recirculates water throughout the process to improve efficiency and clarity in the beer.

#brewing #happybrewyear #beer

After the water heats up I can "dough in" or add my ground grain to the mash water. I have a long metal mashing paddle that makes it easier to stir the grain as I add it to remove clumps, which helps improve mashing efficiency later. Basically you are making a barley porridge and the consistency at the end is pretty similar to oatmeal.

#brewing #happybrewyear #beer

While the mash water heats up, I grind my grain using a hand grinder. For some recipes I get my malted barley pre-ground, but I have started buying my base malt in bulk, and the barley comes whole.

Grinding the grain removes the kernel from the husk and exposes more of the starch to the water so the mashing process is much more efficient. Malted barley contains an enzyme that will convert starches in the barley to sugar when immersed in water. #brewing #happybrewyear #beer

Happy Brew Year! Today I'm going to brew a simple Mexican-style dark Lager which traditionally were based on a Vienna dark lager but with US ingredients including flaked corn. In this thread I will document my brew day.

The first step is to heat up my mash water. I brew beer using a Grainfather brewing system, which automates a lot of the process for me and shaves a few hours off of my brew day. #brewing #happybrewyear #beer

@josh My main recommendation is to use a static generation plugin (like SimplyStatic) so you can separate, segregate, and protect the dynamic PHP Wordpress site (even potentially on a different non-public server), and then generate and host just static HTML. It has the side benefit of making your page load quickly with minimal resources and allows you to host it anywhere that accepts static HTML.

@kirschner This book had one of the best descriptions of what it was like to come of age online in the late 1990s, and in contrast to the current era. That section alone would be useful reading for folks who weren't online in that age but are part of the recent wave of interest in open protocols like ActivityPub.

@EleazerBryan It is fitting that the darker the chocolate, the more metal. #metal #heavymetal

@whack I'm so sorry Jordan.

@penguin42 The comments about tasting the heavy metals were just a joke. That said, my understanding is that there are tighter regulations on the percentage of actual chocolate (compared to chocolate-flavored syrups and the like) that must be in Canadian chocolate bars.

I did a side-by-side comparison with chocolate I bought at a Canadian gas station, and the same brands (KitKats, etc) when I crossed the border into the US to see if I was just imagining it, and I could taste the difference.

@primalmotion My trips to France definitely ruined me when I come back to the oversized, dry pastries we pass off as croissants here in the US.

When I visited Canada I was surprised at how much better the chocolate, even the inexpensive mass-produced chocolate, tasted compared to comparable brands in the US.

I could be because Canada has tighter regulations on % of chocolate in their recipes, but today I learned it was probably also the lack of lead and cadmium: https://metro.co.uk/2022/12/29/hershey-facing-lawsuit-over-heavy-metals-found-in-their-chocolates-18012980/

@Triffen It seems weird to "like" this post given the context around it, but I wanted you to know I really do appreciate that you are sharing your perspective and experience.

@shawnp0wers It is another example of how quickly people can form factions/sides they identify with, and "other sides" that are the enemy. Then if anyone with less extreme, more nuanced/balanced views on things dares to say something critical of "their side" (or favorable of the "other side") it must mean you are with the enemy.

I do wish people were more capable of seeing issues and opinions past a binary "us" vs "them" because few things fit so neatly into a dichotomy.

@shawnp0wers It is a shame those folks don't want to try things out over here and see whether they prefer it.

@epic @hacks4pancakes In other countries some people don't use butter at all, but prefer jam or even marmalade!