Quick Tip: Checking for Leaks in your Draft System.

Okay, this sucks: pulling a pint off your kegerator and nothing comes out. It happened to me the other day. I checked my pressure: zero. I sprung a leak and all my gas went whoosh overnight.

If this happens to you, this is what you do. First, refill your gas. Then, hook it up, re-pressurize everything, and mix up some soapy water. Put the bubbles on all your connections and seals. We are talking about the lid seal, ball locks, pressure release valves, every place where you have a hose clamp -- everything. If there is a leak, it will blow bubbles.

I also have one more step. After I re-pressurize everything, I turn off my cylinder, and leave it overnight. If the keg is still pressurized by morning, I got the leak. If not, I do not lose a whole cylinder of gas because I missed the leak.

A Gathering of Angels Appeared Above My Head...

Julie and I will be on vacation next week. We are taking a Carnival cruise from San Diego to Catalina Island. I have a posts lined up while we are gone.

One place were are not going is Mexico, which is where the cruise was supposed to go. Carnival, in their infinite wisdom, has declared Mexico off limits. Oink, oink.

When we get back, I should have a post or two about our trip. See you all in a few days. Until then, bon voyage.

Quick Tip: How Long Can Malt Be Stored?

So you bought a 55 pound bag of grain, and you have not used it all. How long can you store it? The answer to that depends on a few things. Malt needs to be stored in a dry place, at room temperature, bug free, and uncrushed. In that case, it will go about a year. According to this online Mr. Wizard article entitled "Storing Grain and Rising Kraesen," from a September 1999 issue of Brew Your Own Magazine, it will get staling flavors if it goes much more than that, and may even eventually go rancid.

Bonus Post: Cruise Lines and Beer

Over the last three posts, I've talked about cruising and wine. However, I cannot let those go by without talking a bit about beer.

Even though I typically drink wine aboard a cruise ship, there are some beer choices available. They are outlined below:

Our very first cruise was aboard Royal Caribbean's Monarch of the Seas. When we got on board, to our surprise, they had their own beer available, called the Royal Beer. It is brewed in Belgium. We drank a lot of those on board.

Our second cruise was aboard Holland America's Ryndam. I was pretty excited about it, wondering what beer offerings Holland America had, seeing that Royal Caribbean had their own beer. To my disappointment, it was not much. Mostly, it was domestics, with import options being Heineken and Grolsch. I actually asked the cellar master aboard the Ryndam about the beer selection, and he said that they occasionally get Alaskan Amber on their runs to Alaska, but that is about it.

Our third cruise was aboard Carnival's Elation. I really did not know what to expect. To my pleasant surprise, the Elation had several imports worth drinking. They had Pilsner Urquell, Boddingtons, and Guinness, all nice alternatives to American light lager swill.

When our fourth cruise was in the planning stages, I wanted to find the cruise line with the best beer selection, since the cruise was for my birthday, and I, of course, am into beer. Doing my research, I found the drink menus for Norwegian Cruise Lines. Holy cow, they had beer like Warsteiner, Celebrator, Sam Smith, and Pilsner Urquell. They also had a English style pub on board and a German Bier Garten. This looked like the cruise line for me.

Unfortunately, we read the reviews of Norwegian Cruise Line ships at the online review site, Cruise Critic, and they were less than stellar. In fact, some of them were downright vicious, especially about food and service. This began a great debate about whether or not to take the cruise. Unfortunately, we decided not to do it, and opted for Holland America's Oosterdam instead, despite Holland America's poor beer selection.

As you can see, the beer selection aboard some cruise lines are not terrible. Obviously, some are better than others. However, like our Norwegian debate, there are other things to consider other than beer. I hope that this gives some insight to what is available beer wise aboard cruise ships. Cheers.

Part 3: Wine Experiences Aboard the Oosterdam

This is the third and final post about wine aboard cruise ships.

Last December, we took our second cruise aboard Holland America, on the Oosterdam. As I said in part two of this series, we really enjoyed our wine experiences aboard the Ryndam, so much so that we were really looking forward to this cruise and doing it again.

Like on the Ryndam, we wanted to befriend the cellar master. However, the wine guy we met did not show the same excitement and charisma that they did on the Ryndam, who had come up to us each night to see what we were drinking, and talk about wine. On the Oosterdam, however, they only came up to us the first night to pimp the wine tasting. We ended up signing up for the wine tasting later in the cruise, anyway.

Later, we were disappointed to find out that the wine tasting was to be held in the culinary arts center, which is like a small theater, with a kitchen for a stage. This did not sound nearly as elegant or intimate as the tasting aboard the Ryndam, which was held in the Pinnacle Grill, the premium restaurant on board. As a result, we canceled the day before the tasting.

The next day, we ended up walking by the tasting, and peering inside. It was a packed house with someone on stage talking about wine. Like we suspected, it was very impersonal. We were glad we canceled.

In the end, the best wine we enjoyed was wine we brought on board ourselves. We did not even try any of the wine offerings aboard the ship.

So, what did we learn? Just because you had one experience aboard one ship does not mean you will have a similar experience aboard another ship, even if it is the same cruise line. It is not that the experiences aboard the Oosterdam were bad. They weren't. It simply was not the Ryndam.

Post Script:

All was not completely lost. The Oosterdam had a master sommelier to teach cooking classes, as a guest instructor, for our cruise only. We took a couple of the classes.

The one take away we got from the cooking classes was a nice wine recommendation: Castle Rock Pinot Noir. Castle Rock Pinot Noir is a well priced Pinot Noir, at about 12 bucks, that is a good value. When we got home, we tried it. It was quite enjoyable. As a result, we've added the wine to our wine repertoire.

The nice thing about Castle Rock is we found it on the menu of a Italian style wood fired pizza joint, walking distance from our house. It is nice to be able to look at the wine list and see another wine we enjoy. Every time we drink it, I think back to the cooking class on the Oosterdam.

Part 2: Wine Tasting Aboard the Ryndam

This is part two in my series on wine aboard cruise ships.

Last year, my wife and I, along with her parents, went on a repositioning cruise aboard Holland America's Ryndam. While on the ship, every night at dinner, brought a bottle of wine. Very quickly, we befriended the cellar master aboard the ship, who would visit us each night to see which wine we brought to dinner.

One night, he invited us to the premium wine tasting. We became very excited, as all of us were into wine, and happily accepted the invitation.

The wine tasting was held at the Pinnacle Grill, a premium restaurant aboard ship. There was a small group of us gathered in the back of the restaurant, sitting at tables next to windows in the ship. It was a quiet, intimate setting.

They brought out plates with various items placed on them. These included a piece of shrimp with chili sauce, piece of chocolate, smoked salmon, a piece of sausage, and more. There were also about six glasses strategically placed around the plate that they filled with a mix of red and white wines.

Before we tasted each wine, the cellar master gave a short introduction to the wine, describing the region it came from. He was quite knowledgeable about wines. As we tasted the wines, we were also invited to try some of the various foods on our plate with them.

To be honest, since it was almost a year ago since this happened, I do not remember all the wines we tried. There were two that stood out, though. First was the Niebaum-Coppola Rubicon. Now, I had tried a variety of Niebaum-Coppola wines in the past, and was not impressed, so I was not that excited about this wine. Admittedly, though, I had never tried the Rubicon, which is their high end, premium wine. After trying it, I was greatly surprised. It had rich cherry flavors, balanced with supple tannins, and a long finish. It was a beautiful wine. Second, there was an ice wine on the menu, and I had never tried ice wine before. I remember it being sweet like honey-dew melons. It was so good.

Now that some time has passed, what I remember most about the whole thing was not necessarily wines we tasted. It was being on the water in an intimate setting. It was the beautiful presentation. It was the passion the cellar master had for the wines. After all was said and done, we all went away feeling that it was well worth the money, and would do it again in a heartbeat. In fact, I remember the tasting more than anything that we did on that trip. It was definitely the highlight.