Thursday, April 2, 2009

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.

Monday, March 30, 2009

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...