Over at HBT they have something of a system whereby informative posts get canonised into their wiki. We currently have a situation here which goes a little like this:
1. New guy (or gal, although so far it's just guys) comes to forum, asks for quick-start style advice.
2. New guy/gal is bombarded with information, some of it opinionated or conflicting.
3. New guy/gal gives up and PMs one or two people to see if they can get a more resolute answer.
If anyone is willing to write the following into the wiki, in the tersest possible form, please do:
1. An introduction to the basic kit required for extract, and AG brewing.
2. A "starter shopping list" for grain and hops, specifically stating the recipes that will cover them for.
3. A walk-through of brew day, fermentation do's and don'ts (i.e. GET YOUR SANITATION AND TEMPERATURE CONTROL SORTED OR ELSE BAD THINGS HAPPEN), and bottling/kegging procedure.
We can then relegate debate to threads, and direct newcomers to the wiki pages rather than bombarding them with (well meant, but overwhelming) volumes of replies.
I recognise that we can find this information elsewhere, but there's no harm in having our own version so long as it's accurate.
