Tofi's collected home-brewing techniques  (last updated June 18,
1998)   Get ready to boil. Put some water in your big pot, say a
gallon and a half or so, put on the lid, and turn the heat up to
"high". After a while, this will start to boil. Take off the
lid.  Now the thing to remember about boiling is to be careful
not to make a mess. You've got this big, say 3 gallon, pot on
the stove, with a gallon or so of boiling water in it. Carefully
add your malt extract or honey. And stir it a lot. You don't
want to scorch the bottom and caramelize some of the sugar.
(Well, probably not anyway.)  Now, as you are stirring the
liquid, called "wort", and running the heat on high, remember to
watch it very carefully. There may be a bit of protein in the
extract or honey as well. What will happen is that as it starts
to boil, it may make a bunch of foam that does not die down, and
this will spill out and over everything, making a big sticky
mess.  To avoid this, turn the heat down quite a bit when it
first starts to foam