Experimental Ale & the Start of Pumpkin Season

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

Saturday, we started off the morning with a good breakfast… and then we kegged our Honey Amber & Pale Ale batches that were ready…

 

Next up was setting up our Quad Core Kit with the 2^nd batch of Pale Ale, placing about a gallon in each container… along with their special ingredients for secondary fermentation… pineapple, kiwi, strawberries & Willamette hops...

 

We also filled a few bottles with the Pale Ale as well as some of Izzy’s Basket of Fire Jalapenos…

 

Later, we started up our first beer in preparation for Halloween & the Fall Season, a delicious Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Porter… which sounds a LOT sweeter than it will actually be… but it’s basically something along the lines of a Baltic Porter… but with additions of cocoa powder & pumpkin puree… and some special seasonal spices from our spice rack to really bring it home. Yes, it’s experimental… and hopefully just produces a wonderful full-bodied beer with a little twist… and yes, we’ll also be making another batch of our Pumpkin Ale (from last fall) but that’ll be a few weeks later so both are ready for Halloween get-togethers. Here are some pics from setting up the Porter…

 

Izzy also made us some jerky for the road trip to Utah next weekend... and we got some badass shirts for the SF Homebrewer's Guild...

 

Izzy has also made an entry for the NCHF Logo Competition but I'm going to hold off until the competition entry date to show you... it's pretty f**king awesome...

 

Sunday night, we were interested in going to see "Ghostbusters" in the theatre as they've been rereleased for their 30th anniversary... but they were asking more than $15 per person... so we said f**k that & watched both Ghostbusters movies back at my home theatre. Fantastic! I highly recommend it.

 

This week will be getting set for our road trip to Utah... so that'll be a lot of fun... Happy Labor Day everybody!!!

Going Experi-Mental

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

Last Saturday night, Izzy & I watched “TMNT: Turtles Forever” which is an animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie from 2007 that… basically crossed-over the series of the 2000’s with the series from the 1980’s via… wait for it… transporting through different dimensions. Now, the way it was cut & everything made me think that it was meant to be four TV episodes (there are “commercial break” wipes every 7-8 minutes) but it was actually surprisingly good. Basically the new Turtles who are serious & super secretive and… well, ninjas, are sitting at home in the sewer when there’s some news of video evidence of green do-gooders running around NYC. “It wasn’t us” so they go investigate… and find out that it’s the brash, smartass older Turtles from the 80’s complete with catchphrases… and basically they have no problem with just walking around town in their dimension. Well, there’s also both Shredders involved… and just check it out if you’re a fan. There are a few things you’d probably like about it. By the way, both April O’Neills are in it too and… okay, 80’s April somehow pulled off the yellow jumpsuit look… and the newer one… I think she’s 14 years old… or at least looks that way, but dating Casey Jones? Is that… is that just the way that things are nowadays? I feel sorry for kids nowadays… anyway, check it out. Lemme know what you think.

  

Sunday night, I watched “The Fisher King” starring Jeff Bridges & the late Robin Williams. It had been a LONG time since I’ve seen this movie… and I forgot how poignant& good it can be at times. From director Terry Gilliam (“Brazil”, “Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas”, “12 Monkeys”, etc) comes the story  of a radio shock jock named Jack (Bridges) who spouts off his mouth… and incidentally causes one of his crazy listeners to shoot up a bar killing seven people & himself. Well, feeling responsible, Jack goes into a bit of a rut… drinks himself into a stupor for the better part of a few years… and then is mistaken for a homeless man by some young white assholes just looking for somebody to beat up on… and they’re just about ready to set him on fire (no joke) until he’s saved by a homeless man (Williams) and his friends. Well, when Jack comes to… he finds out the homeless guy is named Parry & he’s… well, mentally unstable. As he tries to leave though, he finds out that Parry was actually a college professor… until his wife was gunned down in front of him during the incident that Jack “incited”. So feeling a little responsible, he tries to get Parry back on his feet… sorta… really just make himself feel better… but then stuff happens as they search for the Holy Grail. That’s right. Terry Gilliam made another movie about the search for the Holy Grail I believe that you might have seen. I don’t want to give too much away because I want you all to go check it out. There’s also a REALLY good performance by Jack’s girlfriend (Mercedes Ruehl) throughout the movie… and Robin Williams is pretty fantastic… and yes, even the Dude does a pretty decent job… though there are some parts where he’s just being the Dude too cool for school… and really just a great ensemble cast & one of those weird twisted kinda love tales with some heart tugging moments. There’s a lot of concepts brought up like how homeless people are actual people with backstories, how people react to tragedies, relationship dynamics, and a couple crazy silly stuff to keep you entertained too.  Check it out.

 

Tuesday night was our company Softball opener… and I was actually a little ready this year. No, not really hitting the batting cages or fielding grounders a bunch or anything… but I have been running a bit… but most importantly, this year I’m dressing the part. That’s right… in previous years, I was my usual amazing self… wearing jeans and raggedy ass “everyday” sneakers. This year, I’ve got some actual baseball pants& some good running sneakers. Heck, even my socks are supported for betting play and match our colors of navy blue & silver. Yup, I’m lookin’ pretty fine this year. We even have new uniforms. Nothing too incredible, but definitely better than the ones we’ve used for the past decade or so. As for the actual game, both teams started out slow so it was tied 0-0 after the first three innings. I played the first two innings and… 0-for-2 with a ground out & a pop fly. Nothing in the field came my way either. Then I substituted out since we had about 16 players to work in. Over the next three innings though, we pulled out to a 15-1 lead… and after the last inning (and a few gimmes), we won 15-5. Afterwards a few of celebrated with pizza & beer… and I’m liking our chances to pull off a three-peat this year & win our 3^rd consecutive championship… but I may be getting ahead of myself. I have to start playing better on a personal level before I can claim anything on that. Lots of fun though & a great way to hang with coworkers, especially since I’m too damn busy to do so when actually at work.

 

Thursday night, Izzy came over to my place and made me a wonderful dinner of Hunter’s Sausage in what basically because a Irish Red Ale reduction sauce… fresh sliced tomatoes from her garden with lemon pepper sprinkled on them… and some homemade garlic sourdough bread with a little cheese mixed in & garlic butter. Needless to say, it was pretty f**king fantastic… here are some pictures…

 

Also on the menu, was our Bock that is finally ready for consumption… and as you can see, it’s a beautiful color… a little darker than your typical Maibock… and the taste is pretty amazing as well. I’m a HUGE fan of Bock beers… and this is really good. If I had one lone criticism, it’s that it’s a little more bitter than a bock typically is… but I think that’s because we used the Chocolate Malt instead of the Black Prinz that was recommended to us by the Anchor Brewers a few months ago. You see, when we were making this, you had to know somebody who could get Black Prinz as it wasn’t a readily available malt, basically a priority malt to professional brewers as it provides the coloring and characteristics of a chocolate malt… but without the bitterness that usually comes with it. Of course, about two weeks after we started this Bock, we started seeing Black Prinz available in homebrew stores… so now we’re REALLY excited about this already delicious beer, now with Black Prinz instead of Chocolate malt. It’s one of my favorites already. BEHOLD!!!

 

Saturday, Izzy & I made another batch of the simple Pale Ale recipe that we made last week… but we have different plans for this batch. A month or so ago, I had purchased a Quad Core Kit, which is basically four one-gallon glass carboys as opposed to one five-gallon glass carboy. Last week’s batch’s plan is basically to ferment for 10-14 days and then we keg it so it’s ready to drink in about two weeks’ time. The plan for this 2^nd batch is a little more experimental. We make the batch, set it up for primary fermentation for about a week, and then transfer into the four separate one-gallon carboys, each with a different ingredient to add in secondary fermentation… and any extra (that 5^th gallon) to be bottled so it’s ready to drink in a week or so. As far as secondary ingredients, there are a lot of different options that you can do. Fruits & berries are also good for sweetness or tartness of just the hint of flavor, dry hopping is good for various bitternesses, you can even add things like liquor or wine to give it some of those characteristics. For this batch, using essentially the same base wort, the different ingredients in the containers will be:

 

1)      Dried Strawberries from our dehydrator

 

2)      Dried Kiwi from our dehydrator

 

3)      Dried Pineapple from our dehydrator

 

4)      Dry Hop - TBD

 

5)      Bottled with Izzy’s Jalapenos in each bottle

 

Then after about 7-10 days of secondary fermentation, they’ll be bottled & we’ll have five different Pale Ale varieties to contrast & compare… six if we still have some leftover from last week’s batch in the keg. True, we’ll only have about 10 bottles of each, but with those samples, we can see if there’s a particular kind that we REALLY want to make again for a full batch. It’s pretty exciting… but then again, I’m now kind of a beer nerd.

 

It was also time to bottle our second batch of ChocoNut Stout, so we added the coconut extract during the bottling process & they should be ready in about two weeks. Mmm… this is the version with the Black Prinz instead of Chocolate Malt (discussed earlier during the Bock) so it should be interesting. Upon taking the final gravity, we tried the amount that was in the hydrometer and… yeah, it was pretty f**king delicious... and only going to get more delicious when carbonated…

 

 By the way, this is how active our Pale Ale was this morning... we had to add the blowoff tube...

Anyway, that was the week that was… hope you all enjoyed reading about it… or learned something maybe, I don’t know. Not sure who all reads this thing anymore. I also wanted to do a special shout-out to my lovely ladyfriend Izzy for making me some wonderful meals & helping me start a mini garden in the backyard, both pictured below... and Big Ben for his magnificent Mead that he shared with us...

 

Have a great weekend everybody!!!

AWARD WINNING BREWERS!!!

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

First up, just a real quick news story that I thought was interesting & pointless all at the same time…

 

Deadbeat Dad Sentenced - An Ohio appeals court has upheld a judge's order that a deadbeat father can't have more kids until he pays his back child support. The decision this week by the 9th District Court of Appeals didn't provide an opinion about whether the judge's order was appropriate (or technically legal, temporary castration?). Instead the appeals court said it didn't have enough information to decide the merits of the case without a copy of the pre-sentence report detailing Asim Taylor's background. In January 2013, Lorain County Probate Judge James Walther said Taylor couldn't have more children while he is on probation for five years. The judge said the order would be lifted if Taylor pays nearly $100,000 in overdue support for his four children. The (Elyria) Chronicle-Telegram reports that Taylor's attorney is arguing that the order violates his right to reproduce… which is obvious… but I was more surprised that he only had four children. I mean… we all know lots of deadbeat dads who have LOTS more children… some of them go Antonio Cromartie when trying to name them all & just forget… but at least he has multiple concussions to blame for that. The topic aroused is… should the “Idiocracy Prophecy” be stopped? Now… I’m sure there’s extenuating circumstances as to why he owes $100,000 in back child support stemming from a combination of lawyers, evil exes & delinquency fees… but the mind boggles at this sentence. Should the courts have this kind of power? How would the order be executed? By which I mean the zygote? Obviously he has some sort of latex allergy that prohibits him from wearing standard condoms… so will his special ordered condoms be covered by the courts? Will somebody be assigned to follow him around for any casual hookups that may result in zygote? If not, will his parole officer be inquiring into his affairs? Is temporary castration the answer? How the f**k is he going to make $100,000 without robbing a bank or winning the lottery? Obviously he’s not raking in the dough… at least on the books. What about deadbeat moms? OH YES!!! They exist… I assure you. What of them? My brother’s ex-crackwhore wife is on child #6 with father #6… and apparently her first five children are with the fathers (except my niece who is with my brother). Should she be restricted from reproducing? Look… it’s a stupid sentence that’ll never fly… but it does raise some questions. Should society pay for unwanted children? That’s obviously a coldhearted way of looking at it… but obviously most REAL parents are having trouble raising their own children… so why should they be further burdened because of others? Is it fair to them? Conversely, is it fair to the children caught in the middle of all of this? “Sorry, mommy was drunk one night & daddy was a rolling stone so… I guess you’ll just have to enjoy a life of neglect & poverty.” Ugh… deadbeats anger me… sometimes I’m glad that I didn’t get laid throughout college so… I’m pretty sure there’s no little me’s running around out there. Hmm… except from sperm bank donations… but obviously those parents are pretty well to do. Anyway, if you ever need a fun topic for discussion at baby showers… you know where to find me, enjoy!

 

Wednesday night, after probably the hottest day that I’ve ever experienced here in downtown (a scorching 92… yeah, I know… I’m a puss now), I met up with Bubbles & we had a nice little dinner at Little Nepal over on Cortland (really like that area) and caught up on the events in each other’s lives. She’s still growing weary of San Francisco… but not sure where she’d want to move to just yet? I like it here… dare say I love it here… but it’s hella expensive… and it’s not like I need to live here for any particular reason… but yeah, I plan on staying for a while… at least another year… but we shall see. After dinner, I dropped her off at her apartment, headed back home & had four packages waiting for me…

 

The first contained my PS3 which had been sent off thanks to the “Yellow Light of Death” but hopefully I can copy the files & get a few more years out of it. Yes, it’s one of the originals from 7-8 years ago… but I keep it pretty clean from dust & changed out the hard drive to a 500 GB system a while back… and never had problems with it before it… just decided to stop. Anyway, this company gave it a once-over, changed out a few things that’re usually the problem & hopefully it’ll work out for a little bit longer because… there’s pretty much no way that I’m going to buy a PS4 any time soon. I just… don’t play enough for it to be feasible.

 

The second was from Amazon… and it contained two new books… “President Me” by Adam Carolla, which is basically things he would change if he were President of the United States… and “Shrinkage” by “Bald” Bryan Bishop, which is essentially a chronicle of the first year of his life after being diagnosed with a brain tumor. Fun subject matter obviously, but apparently he has a well-written, lighthearted & ultimately thankful approach to it… and I like supporting their endeavours… so yeah, I’ll have to give them a read… and hopefully get them signed this Sunday when I see them in person at The Palace of the Fine Arts for a live podcast… with special guest Mike Rowe.

 

 

The third contained a large refill of PBW (pretty nifty powder cleaner for brewing supplies) and a quad core kit… which is basically four one-gallon fermenters with the fixings… but essentially it’s a way for us to take a standard five gallon batch of homebrew… and experiment a little bit if we wanted to. For example, if we wanted to test out different yeasts from the same wort to see what might work best in another large batch, we can split them up into the 4-5 fermenters and test them out simultaneously. Another option might be if we do the same primary fermentation… but then in the secondary we want to dry hop… or add fruit… or maybe some bourbon… or vanilla extract… or cold lager as opposed to standard fermentation… and on and on… so that we can find the best recipes possible in the simplest time… and we’re kind of nerds… so that may be awesome. Another options… let’s say that we want to do a lager or bock that requires cold fermentation. Well, it’s difficult to get a full 5-gallon carboy into a fridge, especially with roommates… but if we split it up into one-gallon carboys… then we can put one in the fridge… two in another fridge… and maybe two in another, so there’s a little flexibility there. I’m really excited about the options with these… so I’ll be sure to keep you posted.

 

The fourth & final package of the day… was actually an envelope… and it contained… the results from the Napa Homebrewers Classic that we entered last month. As you can see… we’re now officially… AWARD-WINNING BREWERS!!!

 

Yes, we took 3^rd place for an American Amber with our Honey Amber recipe… and scored “very good” on the judging with 37 out of 50. Now, the Oktoberfest scored a 27 which was okay… but as mentioned, I thought it tasted watered-down a bit & the judges kind of confirmed my suspicions… but yeah, the Honey Amber turned out amazing & I couldn’t be happier with the results honestly. Eight months into it & we’re already winning fairly prestigious awards! A big wholehearted thank you to all of the judges out there… and we’ll definitely take your feedback to heart. Now, I’m curious to see how we do with the other competitions… including the SF Homebrewer’s Guild competition results that will be announced at the barbecue in Golden Gate Park this weekend. Fingers crossed on that one but there’s plenty of great competition within the Guild.

 

I also just got back from the SFHG Leadership Meeting to settle everything for the barbecue too... and it's really a great bunch of guys & gals that I get to hang out with... so yeah, really excited about the brewing thing right now... like I've been the past six months but MORE so... cuz now we're award winners.

 

Anyway, that’ll do it for this evening… and this weekend should be pretty EPIC!!! Last weekend before the cruise includes a night of beer-based exploration with some of my coworkers Friday night… the big barbecue on Saturday… and then attempting to avoid Bay to Breakers before an evening with Izzy, Adam Carolla, Mike Rowe & other badasses. Have a great weekend everybody!!!