It’s basically finely-pulverized maize (corn). You’ve gotta have a strong arm to beat it when cooking though, as it gets pretty stiff. It ends up resembling very stiff mashed-potato. Searching around for similar South-American types reveals only Atole, which looks pretty much the same, only thinner. I’m sure there must be something similar though.
There’s a list of the African names for the same dish on Wikipedia, so trying YouTube for some of these might yield recipes.
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Luckily, not everyone concedes the final word on what is and isn’t beer to the German beer police. There’s some great beer that is not in thrall to that dogma. Let a thousand brews bubble.
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Technically yes. Usually however you need also an acid or lye, and elevated temperature. Sometimes enzymes will do.
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I love enzymes. especially when they make beer. As a complete off topic post–but slightly tangential due to the mention of isinglass–here is a handy chart for alpha/beta amylase and starch conversion for brewing. I am sure it is old hat here, but I still may get it framed.
If falcor eats this post, I hope he appreciates the grapefruit and lemongrass notes of the hops.
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You yeasty heretic! If it’s not Reinheitsgebot, it’s just not pure.
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This was issued as a protectionist scheme for wheat beers, as in to prevent mass acceptance due to their ‘complex’ flavor, and is a total scam.
“No wheat beer can claim to be brewed to the Reinheitsgebot of 1516, because until the 17th Century, when the Kurfürst (the ruler of Bavaria) granted himself a monopoly in brewing beer with wheat, the use of wheat in brewing was specifically forbidden in Bavaria.”
http://www.europeanbeerguide.net/reinheit.htm
The ‘purity’ side of the argument is and has always been silly. (geez I am a nerd :P)
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Oh, so actual gelatin protein from vegan sources? That’d be interesting. I’ve used agar agar to make gelled stuff (coffee gel goes boing!) and the texture’s a bit firmer than Jello but generally as good; it’s easily obtained if you’ve got Asian grocery stores around. When I was a kid, my mom used to make all those scary 1950s/1960s gelled-stuff dishes (usually sweet ones with Jello and stuff in them, but sometimes savory ones like tomato aspic), and some of them would probably work with agar.
What annoys me is things with “kosher gelatin” in them, like that’s supposed to be ok. Yogurt shouldn’t need extra gelling help if you make it right anyway.
I don’t object to non-fish fining agents for beer; I’ve got some carrageenan in my bunch of brewing supplies, but haven’t gotten past the simple-kit stage yet to actually need them (mostly brewing ciders and some mead so far.)
Yeah, but who would do that?
For one silicone lube is a whole lot of whywouldyoudothat. But then, going down on someone after using using non-edible lube, that’s even more whywouldyoudothat.
Sometimes you start out confident in one set of skills, but halfway through you realize you’re going to have to make up for it in other ways, and really don’t want to stop the session just to wash up.
Seriously, there are many ways it could happen, even if it’s not necessarily a super common occurrence. Personally, I prefer silicone lubes because they don’t dry out as quickly as water based lubes, and don’t have to be reapplied so often. Also, where I am, it’s easier to get unscented silicone lube than it is to find unscented water based lubes anyway, which is the really big deal for me.
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Just an observation: French fries, to beer, to lube.
(Story of my life)
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It turns out that dimethylpolysiloxane is a really useful molecule, with a lot of diverse uses 
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Might be more that a little off-topic here, but coconut oil isn’t a bad replacement for silicone lube for some uses. And it tastes good. Nothing wrong with silicone, just throwing it out there as an alternative. 
And you can use it for frying chips as well. 
Just not at the same time.
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I recommend trying coconut oil, which among other obvious benefits, is approximately free compared to anything at a sex shop. And for some things cocoa butter can be very nice, although it’s not quite as convenient.
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I appreciate the tip, but coconut oil doesn’t fly for me. Coconut’s smell triggers migraines along with most of the scents used in cosmetics and personal products, especially the really flowery and fruity ones. Worst one: Grape.
I’ll take a look at cocoa butter. That one’s manageable for me.
I have on occasion used EVOO, which was interesting to say the least.
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I imagine the garlic-infused one wouldn’t work so well.
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I would think EVOO would be way too slippery.
I personally don’t think that the coconut oil we use smells like coconut at all (Spectrum brand). I have smelled some that do, but this one doesn’t. At least not strongly or cloyingly in a way that brings to mind scented stuff (which I tend to abhor myself).
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BTW, just to contribute an on topic comment, anti foaming in the food industry is critical. Either you abandon the idea of “fast food” USA style (I.e. three minutes from order to fried food at less than six dollars) or you use anti foaming agents.
I have seen ten gallons if liquid triple in volume in 45 seconds. Luckily it was only wort at 212F, and just stained the ground when it over flew. Gallons of oil at 350/375F? That stuff is nightmare land. I’ll take the odd silicone molecule over 15 gallons of peanut oil foaming up.
(The appropriate response to a rapid wort boil over is OH GOD OH GODSHITSHITSHIT. Pretty sure it is in Websters)
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Tisdale Saskatchewan is known as “The land of rape and honey”. As a kid on band trips, we got a lot of mileage out of the puns from that slogan, prominently displayed on a large sign on the outskirts of town.
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It can - it has happened to me at home, usually when frying multiple things in the same oil after several uses.
Alternate solutions are to skim, filter, or replace the oil more frequently, but that costs more.
So that’s where the Ministry album name came from!
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