Yikes guys -- disappointing show. Mostly based on lots of old, outdated information (like John's lautering experiments from years ago, plus a lot of opinions) that are starting to be challenged by the new generation of brewing geeks. Worse thing is when Jamil ridicules some of the up-and-coming brewers who are doing lots of home experimentation to test the common myths. It gets really embarrassing when the hosts make blind accusations of people not knowing their stuff because they don't take the time to research it themself when the opposite is true. Kind of ironic that the hosts make assumptions without doing their RESEARCH and stick their foots in their mouths! C'mon guys -- tone down the egos, learn what's new in the home brewing world, and get back to being real beer geeks. Thumbs down this round. Boo.

Excellent tips for improving mash efficiency. Learned a lot. Have been struggling lately with 60%, and using the tips discussed in the show, I hope to improve things a little. Keep up the great detailed discussions.

I agree with Armybruer that the egos are a bit large. Jamils is riding right a cocky and arrogant at times. It is hard to argue with all his awards but, there are winning brewers that brew in many difffernt ways. Some of the brewers have done research by brewing for years,using different equipment, crush, water chem, etc, and keeping great notes. To me that is some of the greatest research.

@ArmyBruer: I'm curious what is old and outdated with John's lautering experiments. Granted, one may make an argument for old (although we're talking only 10 years out of a span of several hundred with regard to modern lautering), but what is outdated? It has been a while, but I've read the relevant appendix in his book and I've read his posts to the HBD when he was doing the experiments, and I would like to know what has changed since. As I recall, he set up a bunch of experiments using fish tanks and colored water, and he compared his results with good agreement to theoretical fluid dynamics models. Has there been some fundamental change in the laws of physics in the last 10 years, or perhaps somebody has figured out how to analytically solve the complex fluid dynamics differential equations and show that he is wrong? Or is this a case of "that is so five minutes ago" whining? If you're talking about efficiencies with regards to fly sparging and manifold design, I think its safe to say that John knows his stuff.

It would also help if you had pointed the rest of us to these new experiments that are going on with the up-and-coming brewers you mentioned so that those of us with an interest can check them out.