As I posted earlier, my Tap-a-Draft is broken. 'eh, I wasn't super pleased with it anyway; it didn't do a splediferous job of carbonating anything. It was nice to do small batches, however. This is why I haven't been posting much here. Luckily, my friend Dave was able to carbonate my last batch (4.5) for me.
Verdict: I quite like it. The extra carbonation helped a lot. Also, I noticed that it tastes much better in a glass than it does out of the bottle. This is because a glass exposes more of the aromatics to the nose. The flavor was good, but still a bit astringent. It was much stronger than any of the other "real" batches. It won over more "syrup preferred" people than any previous "real" batch. But there was still something that was just a bit off. I'll keep working on it when I can.
Emphasis on "when I can." I don't have any carbonating hardware right now. I suspect the next thing I would buy is a full real soda kegging system, complete with mini fridge and CO2 canister and tap and all. Expected price: $350 to $400.
Money received for Christmas: $185. I'm about half way there. Do I try to convince my wife to let me kick in the extra to get the whole system? Do I beg, borrow and/or steal the money from my birthday for the rest? Do I find something I can sell for about $200? Hmm.. Decisions. :)
Oh! In case anyone is reading this that doesn't know me through some other channel, my wife and I now have a baby girl: Zoe Katharine Hahn Smith, 4lb 8oz, 17.25", 12:04pm, Dec 12, 2006, 4 weeks and 1 day premature. Check out
If anyone wants to help me to my goal of getting a small keggerator at about $400 for all the bits, feel free to PayPal to mark@halibut.com. :)