I think one of the most important aspects of beer brewing is maintaining the temperature at a suitable level. Yes, there are other important aspects of beer brewing like proper sanitization and so on, but it is surprisingly that a lot of brewers don’t know that maintaining a more or less constant temperature is very crucial to creating a good tasting beer. I have been reading beer brewing forums for months now and I am shocked to read brewers giving other brewers advise like “lower the temperature fast!” and so on. Although keeping a low enough temperature for your yeast strain is important, what is also important is to ensure the temperature is lowered gradually. Do not “shock” the yeast with sudden increase or decrease in temperature as they will stress the yeast and it will produce off-flavours. My recommendation is to ensure your wort is at the correct temperature first before pitching the yeast. This way, you won’t subject the yeast to fluctuations in temperature since you need to either increase or decrease the temperature. Your only chore now is the maintain that temperature.

But truly, maintaining a constant temperature is not as easy as it looks. The ambient temperature in the morning and at night can vary quite a lot. And of course, the place where you place your fermentator is also important. I am guessing the best place to keep your fermentator is in an air-conditioned room. However, this is not always practical and to keep a temperature of 20°C in Singapore can be expensive. Well, there is always the storeroom or any place where there is no direct sunlight like your study but those usually range about 25-28°C. In Singapore, you just won’t get the optimal temperature for home brewing if you don’t have air-condition or some other resource.

One of the coolest thing to use to maintain a constant temperature for your fermentator is to just use a big plastic tub with cool water and add your fermentator into it. Then use a shirt or a towel to act as a wick to draw water over the fermentator. For best effect, blow a fan at the fermentator. Due to the evaporation that occured, the temperature of the fermentator will be go down. In the daytime where the temperature should be warmed, the evaporation will cool down the fermentator. At night, the decrease in temperature will be offset by the less warmer water and you will get a more or less constant temperature.

Or you could use something which I have been using since day 1. It’s a coolerbox. Basically what you need is something to insulate the interior temperature from the ambient outside. So either those camping ice box or a styrofoam box big enought to fit your fermentator will work. You can use water (like the above example) or just use ice like what I am using now. You either add ice packs or remove them to get the correct tempertaure. I have to admit, it can be a bit troublesome to change ice packs but in all seriousness it takes all but 5 minutes of your time. I normally change twice per day. If you are interested, please read the review I have done on the cooling box from iBrew. I managed to get a constant temperature of 15°C with the cooling box for one or two weeks. Pretty useful item for doing home brewing in Singapore.

Well, Singapore’s national day is coming soon. It’s on the 9th August and on that day we celebrate the birth of our nation. Yes, we have come far and we Singaporeans have build up Singapore to what it is now. A lot of our parents and our peers toll day and night with sweat and blood to achieve what nobody believed Singapore can achieve. For that, I am proud. I would like to repeat that I am proud of what SINGAPOREANS themselves have achieved. It is not a single individual or a single entity that is solely responsible for Singapore’s success, no matter what our newspapers and media tells us. Collectively, we are the ones that make Singapore as it is today.

However, even with National Day coming soon, I don’t see many residents hanging flags. In the past, I remembered seeing a lot of Singaporeans hanging the Singapore flag outside their flats. In fact, I once saw an entire housing estate with nearly every HDB block hanging flags in every single unit. No, they are not done by the RC or by some government agency but by the residents themselves. Hmmm….what a difference a decade can make. When I came back from work yesterday, I had a look at my block and there are about 4-5 flags out of about 150 units hanging currently. Sad but true.

Perhaps Singaporeans are too busy trying to survive than to worry about hanging flags and looking nationalistic? Perhaps most of the housing units are owned or rented out to foreigners who don’t like the Singapore flag? Perhaps the cost of flags is so expensive now due to inflation that most of us can’t afford a flag? Perhaps Singaporeans feel that Singapore today is NOT what they envisioned and they are expressing their disgust by NOT hanging the flag? Perhaps Singaporeans worry that hanging the Singapore flag will somehow create another round of inflation just like raising of their wages? Perhaps Singaporeans are no longer proud to be Singaporeans? Perhaps Singaporeans are afraid that by hanging the flag, they are painting a big red cross for Mas Selemat, the JI leader whom the government allowed to escape, to target them? Or perhaps all the Singaporean women have became maids in other countries and thus there are no one left to hang the flags? Who knows?

And yes, hanging the flag doesn’t mean that you love the country. Any Tom, Dick and Harry can hang the flag, even those who seek to destroy our country from the inside can hang the flag.

I am quite certain that by now, you guys would realize that I am all into home brewing currently. If not, then let me tell you straight in the face that I am all into brewing beer at home. Of course, if I have the chance, I would also like to make some wine, cider and other alcoholic beverages. I am looking at making some very nice apple cider, but that have to wait. Anyways, a lot of people ask me why do I brew? You know, if you enjoy beer so much, why not go out and buy some. Or just visit the nearest pub with a nice ambience and have a drink there? Why bother and waste so much time and effort to brew a batch of beer? Well, there are certainly a lot of reasons why I brew beer and in the post I will highlight some of them.

1. Well, it just taste better. If you have not tried the beers I brewed, you may not agree. And in Singapore, we are so used to Tiger beer that we don’t realize that there are other types of beer. The beers you brewed from the beer kits will most likely taste better than the cheaper commercial ones you buy from the store. Unlike commercial beers which pasteurised, home brewed beers have no preservatives or any additives, so they are all natural and thus will taste better. Of course, high quality ingredients will give a better quality beer. And like wine, beer will usually taste better as it ages, which cannot be done if you pateurised the beer and kill off all the yeast.With a little more practice and some knowledge on beer brewing, you can create one of the best tasting beers you ever tasted, until you tasted mine.

2. It can be actually pretty easy. In fact, all you need to do is to add some dextrose to the beer ingredient kit and the resulting beer should work out fine and you can have a very decent drink in just under 4 weeks. I mean what is easier than that? But with that said, you can make the brewing process complicated as well, depending on what style and what type of beer you want. By using steeping grains and malt extract or even just all grain brewing. It can take from 1 hour to nearly an entire day to brew your beer. And you need to be very carefully with sanitization. But it is unlike cooking. You wonder why people spend hours and hours in the kitchen cooking dinner when they could have easily went downstairs to the coffee shop to buy chicken rice from the hawker? It’s the same reason.

3. You get to experiment and taste different beers. This is probably the best part. Plus it is way more fun if you do it yourself. You get to play around with malt extracts, grains, sugars, yeast, hops and other ingredients and make yourself a beer that is truly yours. Or you can clone a very popular commercial beer. I had the most fun trying out different different malts and beer kits and with hops to fine tune the best flavour profile for my beer. After that, I will start on steeping grains which will very likely improve the standard of my existing recipes. Again, this is exactly like cooking. If you enjoy cooking, you will enjoy brewing. You can make Wheat beer, lagers, Pilseners, India Pale Ales, Draught beer, stout and in whatever style you like it to be. If you fancy a Belgium Wit or an American Pale Ale or even a German Ranchbier, you can always brew it.

4. Cheaper. Of course with the high tax on alcohol in Singapore, it will definitely be cheaper to brew your own beer. Depending on the ingredients used and type of beer, you can save up to S$4 per 660ml bottle. If we add them together, that’s quite a sum.

5. Think of it as a hobby. I do. I mean it is like taking a break from your stressful life and relax by brewing beer, that’s it. Nothing much to it. Some people go around and attempt to kick a ball into a huge net while others jump off tall buildings with a rubbery rope around their ankles. I brew beer.

6.  Teaches me patience. One of the most important things that the brewer learns from brewing is patience. Imagine, after you finish your wort, you will have to leave it to ferment for a few days or even a few weeks. And after bottling, you will need to leave it to carbonate for a few days or even a few weeks as well. And if you are patient enough, you could age your beers for even longer and this of course will produce a even better tasting beer. So the longer you wait, the better the result will be. That’s beer brewing for you. In fact, if you taste some undesirable or harsh flavours in your beer, very likely, it will be solved with a few additional weeks in the bottle. I would like to tell you that for my first brew, I waited only 1 week till I bottled the damn thing. For my second brew, I bottled it after 2 weeks in the fermentor. For the subsequent brews, I waited a minimum of 3 weeks before I even bother to bottle it.

7. It makes beer. Yes, the result of all your hard work is beer. You get a lot of it. So you don’t have to worry about not having beer when your friends come around. And you will find that your friends are coming by more often than not because you have an endless supply of good quality and delicious beer to share. And beer brewing is all about sharing with your friends! Life is good.

PhpBB is a free open source forum script and has tons of features to make it one of the most complete open source forum script out there. And best of all, it is pretty easy to setup. Anyway, nowadays a lot of such scripts are pretty easy to setup. You can get your forum up and running in under 20 minutes. If you don’t need the power and the flexibility of vBulletin, then PhpBB is your best choice (plus it is free). And with the launch of PhpBB3, the latest version offers web administrators and webmasters a whole lot of new options and features like new profile option, antispam technology, powerful PM options and many many more.For a more detailed feature comparison, please take a look at the PhpBB website.

This guide is meant for anyone who wants to setup PhpBB3 as their forum script. It is a very basic step by step guide on how to setup your forum script. It doesn’t include details on configuration of the script. Below are the requirements:

1. Basic knowledge of FTP, MySQL setup and general web server configurations
2. Web host or a web server (Standard PHP Support)
3. Understand basic Windows commands

First of all, you have to download the PhpBB3 from PhpBB website. You can do it here. After you have downloaded the file, you will need to extract it as it is zipped.

I am using IZArc to unzip the files. You can use any other software to unzip your files like WinZip or UltimateZip. All of them work fine and the steps to unzip the files should be pretty straightforward. You should extract them to a place where you can remember.

As you can see above, I have extract the files to my desktop so that I can easily access them when I need. You will need to upload these files (the unzipped files) to your webserver using a FTP sofware. Some webhost have their own uploading script which requires you to login to their website and then upload the files from there. Please do the necessary changes needed. However, most webhost supports FTP access to their server so you should be use FTP as it is more stable and gives you more options.

As you can see, I am using Filezilla as my FTP Client (software). This is a very stable and good performing FTP Client and I would highly recommend it to you. However, if you are using other software to upload the files, please do the necessary changes. Other FTP Clients include CuteFTP, SmartFTP and CoreFTP. Their functionality and features are basically the same.

The next step is to upload the files which you have previously extracted to your webserver/account. So after you have connected to your webserver using your FTP Client, upload the files to your server. Ensure that all the files are uploaded. Do note that you should upload the files inside the PhpBB3 folder and not the phpBB3 folder itself, unless you are looking to set it up in a subdirectory named phpBB3.

There you have it, all uploaded.

The next step would be web based so you need a browser for it to work. Internet Explorer is fine. Mozilla Firefox works too. What you need to do is to browse to the website you have just uploaded the files to. So for example, your website address is “http://www.somewebsite.com”, you will key that into your address bar. However, if your files are located in a subdirectory, let’s say in the phpBB3 subdirectory, you will need to type “http://www.somewebsite.com/phpBB3/” in your address bar instead.

PhpBB script will detect that the configuration of your forum has not been done and you will be directed to this page instead. Here you can follow the step by step wizard to setup your very first PhpBB based web forum! Your next step will be to click on the Install tab located at the top left of the webpage.

Before you proceed, you will have to setup your database. This would normally require you to login to your webhost’s control panel and setup the MySQL database. You will be given a database name, database user and password. Please ask your web host for help if you don’t know how to do that. If you are using Cpanel, please refer to this site for a tutorial on how to setup a MySQL database. If you have already done that, well, the only thing you can do is to click on Proceed to next step at the bottom.

From this page, you will see that you are having some problems with the installation. Some files and directories are not writable and this will cause problems with your installation. You will need to remedy that. However, this would require you to use your FTP Client to give write access. The folders you need to change attributes are the cache folder, the files folder, the store folder and the image/avatars/upload folder. You will also need to give write access to the file config.php.

So,  lets go back to the FTP Client and do the necessary changes. As from the picture above, you will need to right click on the folder you want to change the attribute and choose File attributes. Oh, you do the changes on the files which have already been uploaded to the server and NOT on the files located on your PC.

There, ensure that the Write permission is ticked. After you have done all the changes to all the folders and files mentioned above, you will return back to your browser and click on “Test Again” at the bottom of the webpage.

Hoorray, we have done it. Everything is now writable and you can “Start Install”! So, go ahead and start installing.

Now, it’s time to setup your database configuration. Key in the information as indicated. For the database server host, it should very likely be “localhost” as most webhost keeps their database server on the same machine. However, if you have problems accessing your database,  please check with your webhost for the correct settings. For the database server port, you should leave it blank unless you are instructed by your webhost otherwise. For the prefix, you can change to whatever you want, but I would recommend you to left it as it is unless you have another table on the same database with the same prefix. After you have keyed in all the necessary information, click on Proceed to next step.

Done. Your database settings are all done. Click on Proceed to next step to setup your administrator configurations.

This step is simple, just key in the administrator (that means you!) username, password and contact email address. Please write down the username and password so that you won’t forget it. Would be a waste if you do as you will have to do it all over again. After you have keyed in all the information, click on Proceed to next step.

Woohooo! We are almost there. Your only option is to click on Proceed to next step.

Once everything is setup properly, you will be greeted by a page like this. This is where you configure your forum. There are tons of options for you to edit and change to your heart’s content. I will not cover them in this tutorial as the options are just mind boogling. And it would be more fun for you to test them out yourself. However, most of the options are pretty simple and you should not have any problem understanding what they mean.

Anyway, if you look carefully, there is a red coloured remark at the top of the page. It is telling you that the install folder is still on the webserver. You will need to delete it from the webserver for security reasons. So what you need is the FTP Client again.

You will need to delete off the install folder. So right click on the folder and choose delete. You can of course rename the folder or move it somewhere else. But why bother? You are not likely to use it again. And in the rare event that you need the install folder, you can always upload it to the server again. This is actually a very important step as hackers can make use of the files in the install folder to do nasty things to your site.

Anyway, there you have it. You have setup your very first PhpBB based web forum. Do not be afraid to experiment with the settings. And you will later need to change the forum to suit yourself, so you will have to change the themes or even create one yourself. I wish you the best of luck on your newly setup forum and will “many many” visitors frequent your forum. But don’t forget about me.

Found a pretty nifty software for you to backup your drivers. It’s called Double Driver. Weird name, but hey, who cares. As long as it works, I won’t give a hoot’s ass if it is called Double Anal. The funny thing is that the developer of the software is called BooZet. Hmmm……This freeware allows you to check your system’s drivers and choose which drivers you want to backup. Just in case when you need to reformat your PC due to some problems, you can make use of those backup drivers instead of searching through the Internet. I know, I work as an IT support and if you have a lot of PCs to install with all sorts of different configurations, it’s going to be very tedious for you to search for all those drivers. Yes, imagine able to get the drivers with just a few clicks. Of course, this requires you to backup prior to formatting your HDD. It is just sad to see that Microsoft’s database of drivers is seriously lacking but it is understandable, seeing that there are a whole lot of hardware for the Windows OS platform compared to other Operating System.

Double Driver comes with a small package (about 1.4MB). All you have to do is to download it, install the software and then let it scan for the drivers. You can then choose which drivers you want to backup. Easy Peasy. I would recommend you to backup the drivers on a seperate drive. I mean if you format your HDD, then backup drivers will also be formatted and you are back to square one.

I would also recommend you to clone your HDD after you have formatted your PC and installed all the necessary software and programs. Cloning is much faster than formatting and installing (both software and drivers). And nowdays there are a lot of free software which you can use to duplicate your HDD which requires just a few clicks of the mouse. Again, easy peasy.

Finally I had some time to spare and I decided to bottle the Australian Pale Ale I have brewed about 3 weeks back. Yes, I have been busy with work and my nephew had fallen sick a few days back, I had to go and take care of him. Poor boy, he had a very high fever. Anyways, the whole process of bottling took about 1 and a half hours. If you remembered, previously I used glass bottles to bottle the Hoegaarden clone. But this time, I used the old PET bottles I had. The reason is that I found no advantages of using glass bottles. Not only is it heavier and more difficult to handle, you need to be very careful as well. You won’t want bottle bombs which could be very dangerous. But I bottled 2 APA beers in glass so that I can age them longer.

Anyways, I had a little sample of the brew and I discovered that this time, there isn’t any some sort of weird flavour. In ALL my previous brews, I always felt that there is some little aftertaste which I can’t really describe and I can’t put my finger into. Sort of like a dull soapy feeling in the beers I had brewed. I have been very thorough in my sanitization all the time, so I doubt it could be infection. And even after I used different kits(like Cooper’s and Morgan’s) I still felt thatweird dull soapy taste in the beers. Perhaps it is due to the santiziers? The problem what that is I will always rinse off the rinser even for non-rinse sanitizers. I don’t like the smell and flavour of Iodophor in my beers. So,this could be possibly the “kit twang” that brewers often complain about. Kit twang usually comes from the metal can that the malt extract comes in. If it is kept under warm or hot conditions, this will cause the malt extract to darken and very likely the ingredients will no longer be fresh. Plus, the metal can will impart some metallic flavours into the malt extract. Possibly the cuase of the dull soapy flavour in the beer? Well, the thing is that nobody has actually describe this “kit twang” in detail before, so it very difficult to be sure. The good thing about this is that I no longer tasted this soapy flavour in this brew and I am happy. Note that this “dull soap” taste isn’t exactly strong in the previous brews. Once you drink the beer cold, you can hardly taste it at all.

First of all, this Cooper’s APA kit is a very new can. The due date is somewhere March 2010. Usually these kits will last about 2 years and so I am guessing that this APA  can is about just 3 or 4 months old. Wow, talk about freshness. I will be brewing my next APA (with another can with the same expiry date) perhaps next week and I will compare the results. Hopefully, it will be just as delicious as this time. Thank you, iBrew for bringing in new and fresh kits for us to enjoy. You won’t want old kits when you are brewing beer. However, I believe that Homebrew has also brought in some new kits (Morgan’s) just a few months back. They are the Queenslander and the Chairman’s Selection from Morgan’s.You can also give them a try.

Now, that’s one huge hypermarket! I think it is bigger than the one at Vivocity. It’s like neverending rows of stuff nicely arranged for your convenience so that you can start buying. I always enjoyed window shopping. Just go around and take a look at the goods and prices offered. Of course, I do buy some stuff once in a while. Usually some food stuff or perhaps even snacks. However, I normally go there on the weekdays and seldom do I see a crowd. In fact, the only crowd I see is at the food court and only during lunch hours. I guess this would be a great place to go if you hate the crowds and the supposed “excitement” often associated with crowds.

Anyway, there is a huge selection of stuff at Giant. I am sure that you will be able to find whatever you need there. And the prices at Giant is usually quite reasonable and considering that the rental there should be lower than the rental at Vivocity, perhaps they have more offers and discount at Tampines?

If you are thinking of going to the Giant Hypermarket, you an drive there. The plus point is the parking is free. Yes, you won’t find that often in Singapore anymore. Definitely more tempting than the one at Vivocity because the cost of parking (plus the crowd) at Vivocity is like crazy. If you are taking the bus, you can stop at Tampines MRT Station or Bedok MRT Station and take the free shuttle service. For Tampines MRT Station, the pickup point is at Tampines Central 4. For Bedok MRT Station, the pickup point is just at the bus stop in front of the Bus Interchange/Food Centre. The shuttle service comes about once every 30 minutes.

Oh, I forgot to mention, there is Ikea and Courts nearby too.

As many of you guys know, I have been brewing beer a lot for a while now. Well, about 5 months already and I have brewed about 5 batches. And many of the brews you see me either adding some sort of baker’s yeast (boiled and as Yeast Nutrients) or actual Yeast nutrients into the brews. And I use them even for my brews which are all-malt. Some brewers say that all-malt wort contains everything the yeast needs for a healthy fermentation. And I agree with them. All of my all-malt brews came out fine without any stuck fermentation or problems. Even without some amount of adjuncts, my brews came out fine.

So why do I use Yeast Nutrients? Well, think of them as you taking your vitamin pills every morning. You don’t need them as you can get Vitamins from the food you eat everyday. But it sort of gives you a boost to help you through the day. Not to mention, even with a decent amount of food, you may still be lacking some important nutrients for your body to be in tip top shape. Remember that the Yeast is working very hard to convert sugar to alcohol for you and you want them to be in the best of shape to create the best tasting alcohol. So why not just give it a little push? Only good things will happen if you do that.

Yeast nutrients are not expensive. I got a bottle of yeast nutrients (about 28g) for just S$3. I use about 2 teaspoon per batch. If you find it too expensive, then just use baker’s yeast. I found one pack about 50g about S$2.50 or so. Remember to add the baker’s yeast to the boil to ensure that any bacteria or germs is killed. I was told that normally baker’s yeast are not that clean or sanitized as compared to brewer’s yeast because they are supposed to be baked (which kills the germs and bacteria present in the baker’s yeast) anyway. But they do work. I always get very active fermentation when I used Baker’s yeast as yeast nutrients.

And I am not kidding you. Just take a look at this article and check them out for yourself. I have seen quite a number of brush sets for Photoshop and the ones that are listed in the article beats them all hands down. Best of all, these are freely available. I am guessing perhaps it is time for me to change the logo of this blog with one of these brushes. Not many people know that you don’t need to have much skill in Illustrator or Freehand to design a logo. In fact, pre-built brushes in Photoshop can be easily used to create a pretty unique design which looks completely different from the brush set itself. And now, with these very beautiful brush sectors, I think this blog will look better. Just imagine the CSS background with one of the images made from the flower vectors and how good it would look. That is if I can get my fat ass off the chair and start my Photoshop…..

Lets all be glad that there are talented people out there very willing to share their skills in graphic design so that untalented people like me don’t have to waste our time trying to figure out how to use some freaking difficult imagine vector program. Let’s keep our fingers cross that there will be even more brush sets or vector graphics available for slackers with a blog/website.

Na, not really a challenge or anything. It’s just another excuse to get completely drunk. And hey, that’s what we always wanted right? Yet another excuse to get drunk and go around acting silly and stupid? I myself usually don’t need to find excuses to act silly or to puke my guts out, but “some people” need the excuse or their wives will get pissed and they will have to sleep on the couch at night. Poor guys. Not surprisingly, this is a yearly event.

Anyway, iBrew (and other sponsors) is having this event and it includes beer competition, beer games, beer quiz, beer  talk and most importantly free flow of beer for “sampling”. What? No swimsuit models or swimsuit competition when it is held at the beach? I am guessing that the free flow of beer is the main highlight of the event, although some competitive souls would be interested in winning the beer competition.  The beer competition is where brewers submit their high quality beer creations and hope to get the grand prize of a (plastic) trophy and S$300 of prizes from iBrew. Wow, it makes me so damn eager to go and join this competition! I wonder whether I can submit my Cooper’s kit beers and claim that it is an all-grain beer during the submission? Beer is beer right? I believe that there is also another competition at the event proper - Best-Beer-On-Premise competition. Basically you vote for the best beer you tasted from brewers at the event, that is if you are not dead drunk on the floor or puking on some poor little kid’s bicycle.

Okay, I think enough of my nonsense and I will provide you the details for this event.

• Date: 23-08-2008 (buy 4D 2308 now)
• Venue: East Coast Parkway Area E2 (next to East Coast Park Food Centre and Sailing Club)
• Time: 12pm to 5pm (yes girls, you are going you sweat your pants off so wear something skimpy)
• Fee: S$30 (quite okay, considering that it’s free flow of good quality piss)
• Bring: Your own brews (and not your grandmother)

For more information, go to iBrew’s site here.