You know there used to be alot of people posting here that seem to have stopped posting. I’m Wondering if they check in some time but leave no Trace. If it’s true would love to hear from you and why your not posting. I know this has kind of become mostly a newbie forum but hopefully it’s more than that. Please no complaints about the format that’s been well established. I know there’s alot of extract and biab brewers on here maybe that’s it.
Who are these long lost lovers you speak of.
I don’t know, guys like Pietro and zwiller and others were a wealth of knowledge. Just wondering that’s all. Denny makes a token appearance once in awhile I’m not in his league and I always enjoyed the back and forth of some of the real technical stuff
Ken Lenard. Beersk. Glad to see Dave is back. The whole AB INBEV MILLER COORS EU S AFRICA MODELO GRUPO thing( have I left any consortium out) may have some of them MIA.
Some of those guys are floating around some different sites, but yeah, their contributions are missed.
I’m glad rebuilt cellars still contributes. I remember dobe12 mentored me. And mullerbrau stops in occasionally with kegging advice
Hey don’t get me wrong plenty of great people on this site I’m just being nostalgic that’s all. Happens when I’ve had a few
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I’m still a newbie but I sure do love all the suggestions and advice given on this forum. Today I’m making a Smash beer. 10 lbs rahr pale malt 2 oz warrior. .5 60 m .5 30 mins .5 5 min .5 0 min. Us 05 slurry. Mash 152 60 min 5.5 gal. 2 g dunk sparge BIAB…crushed my own grain today on a corona mill setup. Does this look good?
Looks pretty good. I used a corona mill for my first year of all-grain brewing. Works just well enough to keep you from buying a nice grain mill, but poorly enough to really tick you off every time you use it, especially if you have upwards of 20# grain to mill.
Upgrading to a MM3 was the best thing I did, and had no idea at the time how easy it could be.
I would’ve thought the word “home-brew” would’ve gotten through to Pietro and he could chastise us once again… Sadly not… Sneezles61
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I’ve been moonlighting this and other forums for over 8 years, but only recently created an account. I chose to finally start participating with this forum over the others because this one feels the most welcoming to all skill levels, and doesn’t have all the drama and bickering like some of the other forums.
I do miss reading the comments from those folks already mentioned, but those of you that are still here offer great advice, and are plenty entertaining at the same time. So please stick around! 
Also, I may be brewing on a three vessel direct fired system now, but I started with a BLUE rectangle cooler, and I use both Briess and Rahr 2-row, but mostly Rahr. 
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Pietro was also good for popping in on NE IPA discussions and techniques. He was also kind enough to give me my very first beer score on some samples I sent him last year. 
@Sgwink looks like a pretty good crush to me.
Rad
I’m glad. Pre boil gravity. 1.035 at 7 gal. Boiling down to 5.5 gal. Is it considered a Smash if I add cane sugar? 
Yes
I can list the reasons I don’t post here much anymore (with no further comment on the format), many of which you had already guessed, and all of these are in fact interrelated in some fashion:
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Less intriguing topics than other forums, with lots of newbies while the experienced old codgers are gone.
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Consequent low traffic compared to other forums / snowball effect.
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The Facebook factor. ALL forums are dying slow deaths due to the fickle Facebook loving populous of the 2010s, and this forum is hurting more than some others for the above reasons.
This is not to say that this forum cannot survive, or that it is useless. Perhaps it will survive. Each forum has its own unique flavor of community, and this one can become even more awesome, IF we hang around and can attract more people in than who leave. However, I do fear the truth is more like #3 above, and that all forums will soon die, within the next 3-4 years probably.
Anybody else out there remember usenet, like rec.crafts.brewing? I was big into that in the 1990s and early 2000s, but spam eventually took its hold, and with the advent of forums such as this one, usenet is pretty much dead today. I see the same kind of thing happening again now with forums. Something else comes along to take its place, and it’s bye-bye forums. It’s going to happen. And I can also say, I’m not pleased with Facebook much at all either. It’s really all kind of sad. But, at least we’ll still have Brulosophy.com, plus good podcasts such as BasicBrewing.com, to keep us going. A few good things like that don’t seem to be dying, not yet anyway.
I’ll hang around from time to time. But this place is, sadly, well past its prime. Five years ago, this place was booming, and it was hard to keep up with all the traffic. If traffic is what you seek, there are other places out there… AND the addresses do NOT all begin with www.facebook.com/…
As much as I miss the old guys, what makes me sad are new posters who don’t stick around. I hate to think they do their first kit, come here and have us tell them about temp control, they hate their first beer, and give up. I make a point of steering folks to forums, including this one, but the quiet is deafening.
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I can definitely see your points @dmtaylo2 and am glad you are willing to offer your sage advice from time to time here. It’s sincerely appreciated! To your point on changing times however, I am not sure that the format change was the main contributor to drop in daily content, I think it had been happening for a while and NB tried to make a change in hopes of bringing some of that traffic back. I know that some people got frustrated by it and didn’t bother to try to learn it and moved on. As you said it may be more to a fundamental shift in technology/interaction. As a boycotter of FB (because I am stubborn and and oldish fart 
) I will be extremely sad if that’s the only place I can find answers for brewing in the future.
I got onto this forum back in '13 because I purchased my first post Mr Beer brewing kit from NB and was hungry for knowledge. The welcoming format and people here who answered all my stupid noob questions kept me coming back. I have browsed several other forums for information but not really connected with a community like I feel I have here even if some of those sage voices I relied on have dropped off and are missed. I am glad that several dedicated people have stuck around and do my best to pay it forward to the only forum I ever felt encouraged to contribute to. I have much less experience than some but this forum feels like home to me and hopefully always will.
Rad
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But indeed do think many forums will go away. In the near future. This one we can get it going as long as possible. And indeed i am new to brewing. Now 2 years busy. And do learn lots from more experienced brewers. Who try to give us advise on beter brewing. Hey we got to start somewhere
Very good choices.
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I was frustrated when the change came. Been here for 16 years now so I chalked it up to resisting change. Now after it has been a while I am more used to it but I still get frustrated. If I had to vote on it, I would vote to put it back. Sorry NB.
There is a very good group of regulars that share knowledge or try to find it for someone. All of them can take a joke too. There are some that I will admit have more techie knowledge than I do.
OK that said, what was the name of the kid that we weren’t even sure was old enough to drink a beer that posted all kinds of crazy ideas on how to brew. He finally made a You tube video of how he did an AG. Then he suddenly disappeared.
