Friday, August 26, 2011

First adventures with the pottery wheel...

So, just finished reading that book I got on pottery wheel stuff and now hat I've scored some clay, I've given it a whirl on the wheel for the first time. Took my perfectly cleaned up wheel and turned it into a disaster real quick, that's for sure! Here's some first time ever spinning pics..

New box of clay...

Gettin' centered on the wheel.

My first pull!





Disaster!

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Bryan's Fat Tire clone...

I'm talking to Bryan on the phone as I'm drinking this beer, and so I wasn't really thinking about taking too many notes as I was discussing it, but hey, what the heck..


It's supposed to be a Fat Tire clone beer, but I'll be damned if I know what a Fat Tire tastes like, as it's not really available out here. It's coming from a Grolsh bottle with a truckload of yeast stuck to the bottom, but this presents no more trouble than to make me really may a bit more attention to the pour. I know for certain that I've got a deep mahogany colored beverage in front of me, though. An American Amber has a good range of color it can occupy, so I'm sure he's in the ballpark with this. It's got not much of a smell on the nose with the exception of a faint brown sugar note. Sorta like Brown Shugga by Lagunitas, but not offensive, like Brown Shugga is (one man's opinion!). Other than that, not gettin' any hop aroma. No hop flavor either, as we go further along. It's got a bitterness to make the beer perfectly drinkable, but it's definitely a malt forward product. It's clean, and a bit of a fruity ester comes along in the flavor, but not much.. certainly not enough for me to pinpoint what the ester is flavored like. Like I said, it's clean, no defects, and well brewed. I'm thinking I liked some of his earlier reviewed beers a bit better, but this is still a well made, solid beer. Nothing wrong with it, and I'd drink another one.. but my first choice would really have been his Belgian style thing first.

Come on Bryan, get that All-grain rig together and let's see what you can do. and put some frickin' hops in the damn thing!

Monday, August 22, 2011

Pottery wheel adventure, anyone?

Just became te new owner of this thing:

Potters wheel

Upper bearing

Lower bearing and pedal apparatus

The other side!

Model number plate
According to the serial tag, it's an Amaco model 4-402 manual wheel. Old school! It's heavy, solid cast iron tub and metal everything else. It's a little spindly looking, but it's actually built like a truck. I'm going to wash it down a bt and see how it ticks and see what needs to be serviced before I start messing with it.  I'm fortunate it's all in one piece and appears to be ready to use right now.. stay tuned.