Roggen is down!

..and we're gonna give Timmay the win for that one. He was over last night and pretty much dealt the death blow on the Roggen. 5 pints at the very end of it's life and she was clear as a bell and tasting the finest. Really nice there, and then [poof!] gone. Replaced last night by the Rambler v1.2 I did up with Will S. Tried to pull a pint last night (cause I'd already primed it in the keg with a couple ounces of corn sugar..) cause I knew it was carbed, but it came out like muddy chocolate milk, all full of yeast particles. I grabbed another one this afternoon and tossed that as well, as it was like regular milk at this stage, so yeasty.. better compacted, I suspect, from the cold sit overnight, but not really drinkable.. and the third one, here:















..is still really cloudy, but I don't see any real huge particles in it. I wonder if it's gonna clear up, or stay this orangy-ish color. I've had a bit of what looks like a haze in some o my rye beers in the past, and, although this only has a single pound of rye in it, I wonder how that'll affect things. In a positive note, it's got carbonation the lies of which usually take WEEKS to settle in. So tight carb-bubble wise, it's crazy. Still tastes yeasty, but I've got a pretty good bitterness in the background, and a touch of flavor from the hops too. There's a big malt hit in the middle, and the rye, again, at just one pound, is coming through like a train. Rye is some crazy stuff.. big, big flavor impact from that grain.

In other news, here's a shot of the framework (or, some of it..) of the chicken coop I'm building here.. I spent hours on this yesterday, and some more hours today too already, and this is where I'm at so far:















Well, I'm off to put in the floor of the thing now. Went out and actually bought my first power tool today! Jigsaw. Yep. Power tool. Yay me.

Just wanted to share...

This shot was the bomb. 50/50 mix of a week old dark roasted Panama Peaberry, and a the other half of the same bean, light roasted from just a couple days ago roasting.. 15.5 grams in the basket and a whole lot of mad, phat skillz! Came together like the drink this was meant to be and 10 seconds later, it was gone. But it was really *good*. Just look at the redness in the crema on this thing.. you know that was tasty!

The Boss brought home a cardboard box about 2.5x2.5 feet square that I'm going to use for my chicken brooder when the babies get here in a couple weeks. I'd show you a picture of it, but, well.. it's just a cardboard box, and it's not that exciting. Maybe when I get the heat lamp hooked up and the wood chips and waterers in there I'll take a shot, but if you're gonna get excited about a pic of a cardboard box right now, you need to get out more often. I can tell you I need to get out more often, 'cause yeah, I was excited when I got the cardboard box yesterday and decided it was *perfect*. So, there's your litmus test.. me!

That's all men. Carry on..

Packaged up the 'Flaming Craftsman' Amber...

In a hostile beer combat zone such as this one, at Second Shift Brewery, it's really no surprise that we have so many casualties.. but we still feel each and every one, deeply. Late last night, this little guy (the Stove Top Pale Ale) kicked the bucket after putting up a pretty good effort at drinkability. For only ~2-ish gallons, it made it just over a month in battle after being suited up in a keg and put on draft line #2. She'll be missed..

Oh yeah, the '1903 Wheat' crafted on Second Shift's first ever driveway style Big Brew went up on tap line #2 in the above-mentioned dearly departed beer's place... I'll give 'er a week to carb up and report back on the thing.

I'll also say right up front here, just so you're prepared for the tough news when it comes, that the Roggenbier really can't have all that much left in 'er either.. she's marked down as 42 pints from the log keg she's in now, so there can't be much hope for surviving the weekend, I'm afraid.

Speaking of dead kegs, there's a shot of the main suspect now (seen below). Cause with 'er guard down perusing the battle hymn song list, no less. Also in this photo, a shot of the fellow with whom the Rambler v1.2/Flaming Craftsman Amber Ale was created with. As you can see by the strained look on his face, and the death grip he has on that karaoke microphone, the Stove Top pale ale at least put up a good fight and did some damage to one of his assailants before going down for the count!



In a follow up to the brew day, Will came back for a beer packaging extravaganza. His half of the bounty was packaged up into 54 brown bottles and sent off for a weeks sleep before coming out to play. Things went off without a hitch during the bottling process and I think he's gonna be good to go with those little guys. There was a fair amount of some sort of hazy/yeast in suspension that irritated me a bit, but hopefully a few days in the fridge after bottle conditioning will flocculate those guys out.

Also of note, last night me and Will opened up a small bottle of a Cantillion Kriek he brought over.. and I'll say, it's damn near as powerfully sour as the regular non-cherry version. It hurt on the first sip, and then evolved quickly into the beer I love so much. Will, on the other hand, made a hell of a strange face, and pulled the rip-cord sooner than later. Something about "churning in my guts" or whatnot. Sorta resembled Jody's intro to big time sour, if memory serves, 'cept Jody claimed he tasted burned rubber instead..

That's all for now. Go click the money links on the right side there, you cheapskates!

Fixed the truck, saw some chicks, got some pics..

So I fixed my R/C truck. Got some new RPM rear hub carriers that are totally indestructible, according to news on the street. They fit like a glove and my truck is back on the street. Better news is, I scored a new NiMh battery at the hobby shop that's 4600 maH and goes for 3.5 times the duration of my other batteries. Strange thing is, it's a totally different truck with that in there. I can pull wheelies on demand now, off a tiny bump in the road and just flip the truck over backward. Way too fast now, too. Easily 35-40 mph. It's a real handful on the street.

Also, went to Blue Seal last Saturday while waiting for the kids to get out of ballet class. Walked in the door and was immediately greeted by the tiny chirping sounds of baby chickens! Surprise surprise! They're so cute, I wanted to pinch their heads off! A few more weeks till mine get here. Just a few more weeks... still gotta build that coop, too. Hmm...

And finally, got some pics from Will, finally. Finally! {nudge} ;-) Check it:



Here's the man stirrin' the mash in the mashtun, and..



Here we are adding some hops to the boil kettle. This was destined to be an American Amber, so we went with a slight variation on the Rambler recipes, tried and true, version 1.2. It's ready to bottle or keg today, in fact.. but we're not gonna get around to it till next week. Post on that in due time..

Click the links!

Later..

Clover

So, I went to NY with the family a week or so ago.. Hit up a Broadway show of Mary Poppins. We were just trying to take a pic of the Mary Poppins marquee when these two scrubs kept getting in the way of the shot.. irritating, but we couldn't get a better angle.


This is a pic of me, out of order in the series now, but a pic of me at Grumpys cafe in NY with my Ethiopian Sidamo in hand. This was brewed on the Clover machine, see below...


..and here it is, below! And me standing in front of it. I was gawking the whole time it was being made, yeah. It was totally awesome. If you're not familiar, look it up online, but essentially, it's a sot of a combo between vacuum pot, press pot, and Aeropress coffee. IT makes one single cup of whatever size you want, in one shot. The process is total immersion in a heated container thingy on top/inside sorta of the machine, and the operator totally controls both the ratio of coffee to water by individually weighing out the amount of grounds to drop in (and just ground, just prior to brewing here, thank goodness!) the water temp is fully digitally controlled as well, which is also really cool. For ~$10k per machine, I guess t better be pretty cool. Clover has a good website with lots of Youtube videos to check as well, which will explain this better if that didn't work for you.

Boy, do I look irritated in this photo! I really wasn't. I was giddy, really. Like a kid in a store. It as awesome stuff in there...


After my Sidamo, which was the finest coffee I've ever drank, I had a parting coffee by way of a Single Origin espresso of a Guatemalan bean that I can't remember the name of.. but in any case, it was also the best espresso I've ever experienced as well.. and I've had a few really good ones. It was like coffee and honey and crack, all mixed up together.. possibly also infused with a million dollars of goodness. I've never had its equal, or anything like it, really. In any case, this bazillion dollar Synesso three group was put to good use by an expert craftsman (craftswoman? It was a girl working the thing at the time...) for my espresso, and I can't imagine going to NY again and not having this coffee. Just sick!

Still no pics of the Will Siss brew day.. cause someone is holding back on photo's still..

Broke the rear hub carrier on my VXL Rustler from a few posts back.. slide of death rounding the tree in the side yard a few days ago, and crashed the thing into the corner of the cement on the house. Goin' out to get a replacement piece this AM. No more R/C news today, kids!

Still pondering my chicken coop. I think the see-thru roof is gonna cost more than it's worth... but still thinking that part over. Will start building soon.. I think.

Otherwise, click that google link before you sign off, you cheapo's, and we'll see ya's in a bit.

Another one down...

And it's down! The Dunkel is down! Survived since December, it passed away last night after a *difficult* fight to the end.. but alas, she's gone. Following in 'er footsteps, a standard American Pale ale, with no sourness at all embedded inside. Some of you will find that refreshing, I'm sure.. (ahem, Sarah!)

Still waiting for some pics to come back so I can do a post on the brew session with Will Siss, where another newbie was thrown into the homebrew fire for the first time. We'll see if he's hard core and sticks around for a bit.. ;)

In other news, not beer related, the Boss picked up an Apple TV the other day at the West Farms store. We've been goofing with it a bit as-is to see how it goes.. but today, I think I'm going to hack it with the Boxee install so I can get Hulu feeds and stff on there. I'll report back on how this things goes (The Boxee install..) as time goes on. The ultimate plan is to completely ax the cable wire in the wall and run cable free. We'll see how that goes...

Rustlers, Devils and Maggie..

That's a fabulous picture of the deviled eggs I threw together the other day and ate for lunch and dinner (there were a lot of them! Spanned a few meals there..). I'm still gearing up for what to do with the eggs form my chicks when that day comes. :-) I never made these things before and wanted to show off my mad egg skillz. ;-]



This here is a photo of the Traxxas Rustler R/C I picked up last weekend and haven't had a chance to write about just yet. It's a VXL model which just means that it uses the newfangled brushless motor technology. Google it, there's lots of info out there on 'em. It's really pretty fast.. 30+ mph, and it's great fun chasing the dog with it. She's never had something that's faster than her chase her around, and it works wonders to tire her out by nipping it on her heels.



On to the real meat of the show! This here is the Oro de Maggie beer you've all been waiting so long to hear about. Check back on some previous posts to get the whole details on this, but suffice it to say, it's gonna be great. I just finished kegging it a couple hours ago, and everything went smooth. It's got a fabulous light golden color to it that doesn't quite come across in this pic as it does in person. There's a good sized maltiness to this beer, and a residual sweetness that I just don't understand, coming from a beer that finished out at 1.005 S.G. 6.3% abv in the end run! When I racked it from primary after about 10 days, it was still up at 1.033 from it's O.G. of 1.054, and during the course of time from January till now, the wild yeast went in on it big time, knocking that down. It's got a distinct sourness to it now, but not a huge, overpowering sourness. So, let's recap: Malty, Sweet and sour? WTF? How did that combo come together? Common brewing sense says this thing should be thin as a dime with an F.G. like that. I don't get it either. Just tellin' ya what I taste here in this warm, flat sample. My gut says it's a winner though, and for a 2.5 month start to finish sour beer, I think I can totally reccomend this Jolly Pumpkin yeast.. really nice stuff there at the bottom of those bottles. And that yeast flocculates like the dickens, too. Both beers I've made from it is clear as a bell rigt from the first beer off the tap. It's gonna be some more time in the keg downstairs till it gets some time in the fridge on the gas, so you'll have to hang tight till some other kegs kick to get the full report on the finished product. As always, I'll let you know when it's done and ya'll can come up for a taste.

Now go click my Google ads!