The big one: Ditting!

A funny thing happened on the way to Borders the other day.. I saw this, and needed to own it!

Next to the Europiccola to show scale.. 

That right there is my new temporary coffee grinder. It's a Ditting model KR1203. It's a bean grinder designed to operate in a retail shop like a Starbucks or similar, that goes through 25-60lbs of beans a day. It weights *88* pounds. It makes my Faema MPN look like a play toy. I got it for a song, and figured I could sell it for a few bucks more than I paid for it. It's quite an animal, I have to say.. it grinds a cup of beas in literally seconds and spits it out the bottom chute with no mess and no fuss.. it's a bag fill design with a single chute exit, so there's no doser to mess with. A real joy to play with. I'll be sad to see it go.. but Craigslist is calling me already. Rats! Here's a couple more pics I took of it.. just so I can remember her fondly.

Standard 20lb propane tank for comparison..

Standard 54lb Boxer dog for comparison.. oh, and my Faema bean grinder as well. 

Standard 38.4lb child for comparison..

NYC and related things..

So, we took a tiny trip into NY City this weekend.. Friday evening to Sunday afternoon, in fact. Something to do with a 10th anniversary of something or another. Spent a couple nights in a fancy hotel and saw some sights. This post is a bit picture heavy, so I'm going to clump some of them together for sake of brevity, but our trip was great. I'm not going to post about everything, but we did do lots of stuff that I was really looking forward to. The major things to get done was a 'Voyage of the IPA's' boat trip/beer fest on the Clipper City, a concert where we got to see The XX, The Bodies exhibit, and then everything else was just funny stuff we figured we'd try out while we were in there. This is a view out of the room where we stayed, and you can see from 5 floors up we have a nice view of the skyline and a small slice of Times Square was also visible, if I had been facing in the other direction when I pulled the trigger on this one. 

Here I am sipping an espresso at Abraço espresso in the East Village area. The espresso was awesome. The 'drip coffee' was well done, but not out of this world. It must have been a blend of some type, but was not identified as to what. It was prepared on a row of Hario V60's lined up on one of those multi-level shelves what hold the ceramic drippers above the cups you're dripping the coffee into. I forget what you call 'em right now.. but it was those things. I enjoyed it all quite a bit, but the place is so small, and apparently so popular, it took a while to get my order.. I still prefer Grumpy's, then, as I enjoy S.O. coffee over espresso still and Grumpy's has a much larger (nay, any, actually..) selection. And hey, they have Clover's, which are still fascinating to me.

After coffee, we hit up the Bodies exhibit at the seaport, but we can't take pictures there.. so, no pics. But honestly, it wasn't gross at all. There were no floating brains in buckets to see there.. the brains were all properly secured. Quite interesting, still.

This is me and The Boss at Jeremy's Ale house, at the harbor area, just before we got on our boat. That's Sa and her truly ghetto/huge Hard Cider in a 32oz styrofoam cup. Sweet. The draft line is below that, displaying a few of a truly generous selection of bra's, which hung by the hundreds from the ceiling at this place. Do not ask why, as we were there during the daylight hours, and it was fairly tame inside, still. And finally, me, with my Mothers Milk, Milk Stout. 16oz only, thanks.

Then, we got on the "Voyage of the IPA's" cruise for two hours, which was truly more magnificent than I originally had any idea that it would be. It was more like a beer fest, on a fantastic ship, that had no beer lines at all to stand in, with a good selection of only the best IPA's from the area. And, we got so close to the Statue of Liberty, we could have nearly reached out and touched 'er. Here's a bunch of those pics:

Some guys, loading the kegs..

Raising the Brooklyn flag..

"I'm the king of the world!!" Sorta..

If you're a fan of Garret Oliver, here's a couple pics of him. He was the ringleader of the show, and I cannot tell you how really personable and friendly this fellow actually is.  Really an approachable guy and a funny bugger to boot. And his pants rocked! He and Sarah talked fashion for a bit while I was getting a different brew up front, or so I'm told.. heh.

He continually referred to himself as "Captain Garret" and advised he would use his position of power to get immediately to the bar to obtain any beer he needed, if it came to a point where lines actually formed. Fortunately for the rest of us, that never became an issue. Funny guy!

Here's that statue I mentioned prior, as well.. we damn near pulled right up along side of it. Great tour, this was. I'd highly recommend it to anyone.

This, sadly, is the best pic we got of the xx concert. Sad, like I said. But the concert itself was really nice. Well done, and we enjoyed it quite a bit.

There was lots more we did too, but didn't get pics of everything. Some of it was small stuff that I just have always wanted to check out, like the big library in NY.. I've always wanted to see what that was like inside. It's cavernous. I *did* get lost. I've also always wanted to sit in Bryant Park, my favorite park in NY, and just sip a coffee and read a couple chapters of a book, and so we did that Sunday morning. Also, breakfast outside on the sidewalk at this place down the street from our hotel was also fun, and something I needed to do as well. And it was beautiful, and I'll probably remember all of it in great detail until at least past tomorrow or Wednesday. :) Quite fun, and I'd even do it all over again.. maybe in another 10 years?

Carry on..

2009 coffee bean crop 2009 and the sourdough saga..

Here's a quick update on the sourdough project, the coffee tree, and the new Hanssens derived sour beer thing.

Observe:

This is day three of the sourdough project in the jar where I've been growing it. The first two das it was fairly slow.. not much to see, but today, it's got some noticeable bubbles and stuff on the surface. Figured I'd give it a post.. it's starting to stink a bit, too. No sourness.. just stinking. :)

Here's a couple pics of the new for 2009 crop of coffee beans.. check it:

Yep, there's three beans there this time, instead of the measly one I got last year. So, just like that, I tripled my output! Fantastic! Some year, we'll be able to grown a whole cup worth of coffee.. talk to me in a decade or so about that.

And finally, I got a chance to rack the Hanssens "No Problem" All-Purpose sour beer into it's 5 gallon container where it'll rest for about three months or so. I've got a sample of it right here that I'll try to describe.. It's flat and warm, mind you. Right off the bat, it's cloudy right now, but orange in color.. I get an aroma of oranges or clementines in the nose. Flavor wise, it's fairly bready.. lots of the original malty-ness is still here, almost like a spoonful of raw flour was dumped into this glass. In the finish, I'm getting more orange-ish citrus flavor and more bready-ness. Quite a bit after that, I'm picking up somethign else that I can't quite put my finger on. For a 1.050-something beer with only 23 IBU's, this has a fairly pronounced bitterness as well. This would be a fine drinker if it never goes sour.. but of course, I'm hoping for sour as heck. Bring it! I'll keep you posted on pellicles and weirdness in the carboy as time goes by.. take care!

Budweiser American Ale (what the..?) and a chocolate thing..

So, yeah.. I drank this thing. And I'll be honest with ya'.. I didn't hate it. I surely expected to, but I didn't. It has a faint whiff of hops in the aroma, and there's an atoms worth of hop flavor in there too.. the bitterness is well balanced as well. It also has a good caramel flavor too. As long as we're piling on praise for a Bud product, there's even carbonation! Whoo hoo! ;-) All that stuff aside, it's a bit on te thin side. If it had a bit more meat on it's bones.. you know, some malt backbone.. this might be a really good beer. Problem is, it's *so* thin, it's a big distraction for me from the large picture here.

In coffee news, I made this thing up:

It's a bit of a weird concoction I decided to tackle after talking with someone online about a Starbucks Chocolate Truffle drink they make. Essentially, it's a scoop of hot chocolate, a single shot of espresso, steamed milk on top of that to do a latte art thingy design on the top, and then some chocolate shavings (from a Hershey bar on a cheese grater..) on the top for design. Or so I thought. The shavings actually start to melt into the drink after a few seconds and contribute to the overall flavor as well. A curious thing, this. Not sure I'm going to drink a bunch of them, cause they take *forever* to make, but they're fairly tastey, and the coffee comes through quite readily.

And a parting shot.. a ridiculous picture of my dog:

Carry on!

Abid Clever brewer and another egg..

Yo..

So, the new Abid Clever coffee dripper/brewer arrived yesterday, just before I left for work. I was just able to put it through it's first run just a couple hours ago, and man, am I impressed! I did a 15 gram brew for a standard 9oz mug, and it was *bright*, really bright, and had huge flavor. I did an identical brew with the same amount of coffee to water ratio in one of my vacuum pots and the resulting cup was also very delicious, but notably less "powerful" in the cup.. as if I had used less coffee (which, as mentioned, I did not..) and a pretty fair ammount LESS of bright acidity in the cup. It was a faulous cup of coffee in it's own right, but just radically *different*. The vacuum cup was actually what I'd consider a normal strength cup.. the Abid brew was actually sort of "over the top". And that's something, coming from me! It's exciting news to me, because it shows that, with the same bean, I can emphasize or de-emphasize certain charecteristics based upon what I want the cup to taste like.. sorta like "do I feel like brewed coffee this time, or an espresso?" i.e. same coffee, different result, because of brew method.

One disssapointing aspect? Packaging! I bought this from Spronomy, in PA, and the crazy bastards put a label on it and sent it off in the box it's supposed to be on the store SHELF in.. no other packaging in sight. Check it out:

In that photo, I'm pointing to a large dent in the box.. but you can also see the bottom of the box is just bursting open, about to let the brewer fly free into the Post Office room floor. Un-sat!

Here's a pic of the thing in hand:

 In this one, I'm pointing to the Sweet Maria's logo on the side, a well known and respected green-bean re-seller. Weird how it's on my particular brewer, since I didn't order it from them, though..

I'll get some more brewing tips and info, and maybe an action shot or two in a later post, when I learn a bit more about this thing. Stand by for that...

In chicken news, I'm sort of expecting another egg today.. I'm thinking it's an every other day sort of project for my R.I. Red so far, and I'm sort of thinking we're gonna get another one today. I was just out in the garage a second ago, when I heard an amazing cackling song from one of the birds.. I turned to check it out, and found the one egg laying Red was in the coop, fussing about in the nest, arranging feathers and wood shavings in there. She had sung this fantastic song, and I think it's the famed "egg song" I've heard so much about.. she's still out there messing around in the box, and no egg yet, but we'll see how that goes.

I also just switched 'em all over to layer feed, too. Maybe that'll help the process as well..

An egg!

So! Yesterday we went to a party in NY State, at Erin and Kevin's house for his big birthday bash/Octoberfest combo party. I had let the chickens out for a couple house prior to us leaving, so they'd be able to run around a bit before getting locked up for the rest of the day. Unfortunately, the kids seemed to scare 4 of the 5 away into some place we couldn't find them *just* before we left, so we had only the one lonely hen in the coop.. and then it was time to leave, so they were out for the rest of the day, on their own.

Just before we left though, I checked the box one more time, and saw my biggest R.I. Red was actually sitting in the next box.. I thought that was curious, but didn't think much of it cause I was still a bit irritated lookig for the rest of the flock which were quite cleverly hidden still. Come back to this in a moment..

So, we go to the party, and good times were had by all. It was a great fest, and the 'brats were really tastey, and there was a good cheese selection as well. Yumm!

On arrival at home many hours later, it turns out that the coop was all locked up.. seems our friendly neighbors to the east were able to locate the birds that evening and secured them up for us. Thanks guys! In addition to all 5 chickens being found, when  I opened the nest box door for a cursory glance inside, I found this:

I almost pee'd my pants, I tell you! 20 weeks, 2 days and one evening later, my chicken's first egg!  Of course, I suspect the R.I. Red that was in the nest box just befor we left.. she's one of only two really developed enough to produce an egg at this time, and she was last seen in the area.. so.. you do the math. Here's an up close pic taken during daylight in front my my computer here:

As you can (?) see, it's a slightly odd shaped egg, a bit long and pointy shaped... and quite on the small side.  Actually, a quick trip to the gram scale (at 41.2 grams) puts it on the high side of the "peewee" class.. the smallest size egg recognized by the USDA! It's normal, according to my research, to have chickens start out with small and unusual sized eggs, so I'm not worried.. just sorta curious when the rest are gonna step up to do their work.

As a side note, I'm drinking a vac pot prepared coffee with 14 grams of coffee per 9 oz of water.. this is a deviation from my now normal 18-15 gram hit in the morning. Just wanted to step back to my old standards and see how things tasted. Well.. weak is the word. I don't like it. Time to re-brew and start the morning off right.

That's all for now..

Clever Coffee Dripper.. sort of a silly name, eh?

I couldn't help myself. When a new coffee brewer comes on the market, it gets my attention. When a new coffee brewer made specifically for single cup brews comes on the market, it *really* gets my attention, re: Aeropress, small vac pots, manual pour-overs.. etc. Now, when a new coffee brewer made for single cup extractions comes on the the market and it's DIRT CHEAP, and get's RAVE REVIEWS from the places I look for for coffee info comes on the market, I lose all control of my credit card. I took a second loks, and then a thirteenth look.. and then it happened. I ordered it. $13.50 for the Clever Coffee Dripper (yeah, I know.. but the product is so cool!) and I hope to have it here soon. Pictures when the thing comes in.. there's a million on the web right now, though. Go take a look.

In other news, while doing some poking around at this above-mentioned item, I came across a lot of good info for coffee brewers doing stuff with weights for coffee *and* water amounts, instead of X grams for Y liquid ounces of water. It's all, in my case, 14 grams for 255 grams of hot water. As it turns out, with the fact that water expands when you heat it, it's apparently easier to just weigh the stuff on a scale as you infuse it, instead of trying to eyeball the volumes. I'm interested in using this with my Aeropress in the future, because the only downside to the press is with fresh coffee, the bloom get's so outrageous, it's hard to tell where the actually water volume is inside the tube. If I use water weight after tare'ing out the scale, I'll be much more consistent. I dragged out the brewing scale this morning and tried it, and I'll be darned if it really wasn't so! The only issue now is, the Boss will have my head of I try to keep this other scale out in the easily accessible kitchen area.

Is it just me, or is single cup brewing getting an aweful lot of attention lately? Aeropress, this new Clever dripper, the famed Clover in the big shops.. 5 years ago, all of this would have gotten you laughed out of the coffee shop.. now, it's standard issue. Heck, I was reading just the other day where there's already coffee bars with manual pour-over stations, Clever drip stations, single serve Halogen heated vac pot lineups.. etc, etc. It's not just espresso for a single serve anymore.. I like it!

A week and a half old now...

Here's some new pics of the babies at a week and three days old. Most of them have a good portion of wing feathers in now. One has damn near all of 'em fully in. The Barred Rocks are a little on the slow side, growing in.. but they're coming along too. I dropped their brooder temp to 90 degrees and they all seem to be really happy with it still.





























Here's a shot of my latest masterpiece of egg'n'bacon'n'bagel perfection.

Behold!















that cup of coffee is a Colombian 'Palestine' S.O. masterpiece as well.. really well done, with 26 grams in 9oz through the Aeropress. You *do* have an Aeropress, don't you?

Not much else to report, really... still stalled on the coop while waiting for a router from my boy Rob to arrive, but now that I have it in hand, I should be able to do a little something something on the window I figured out how to install in the coop. Probably be able to figure out that and get some pics in by tomorrow. Stay tuned, true believers...

Click my Google ads, you miscreants!

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..

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.

Coffee Brix? OK..

Been screwing with my Aeropress a lot these past few weeks. I still highly recommend it. I believe it may now be my favorite prep method. Every once in a while I break out my Vac pot to stay in tune, and I notice a definite difference in the taste. Sometimes one coffee preparation method makes a better taste in the mug than the other, but usually they're pretty close. Yesterday I was messing around with my Brix meter again while making a cup of this newfangled Wonko bean that Kevin sent me.. and I measured 1.9 on the meter. This, according to the SCAA, George Howell and Alan Adler (the guy who makes the Aeropress) multiplied by 0.85, roughly translates into the Total Dissolved Solids percent (TDS) of the cup you're measuring. According to SCAA stuff, they're currently thinking a number of 1.25% TDS is right on for brewed coffee. Well, I measured the Aeropress cup I was drinking yesterday and found it to taste like pure heaven.. and as it measured the 1.9 brix I mentioned above, that translates into ~1.6 TDS. A little stronger than SCAA thinks is ideal.

Today, I measured a cup of Yama Vacpot I brewed up using the 7 grams per 5oz water ratio I usually shoot for with vacpot and came up with 1.4 brix, equalling 1.19 TDS. A little short of the SCAA number of perfection. This cup was LACKING. Little body, a touch of astringency, and overall sadness compared to the cup of perfection I'd had the day before. Hmm.. seems I like my coffee on the higher end! I'll try for 1.25 TDS tomorrow and see what that tastes like before I get too carried away with this stuff, but it's an interesting new idea to wrap my head around. Plus, it's a way to meausure and quantify different prep methods and test them with roughly the same TDS numbers for the coffee, with only the brew method being the difference. Sort of levels the playing field that way, between brewers...

What a geek!

Now, go click that Google money link, you cheapskates!

Forgot to mention: kettle pickup change..

So, last time I forgot to mention about the change I made to the kettle. Look back to here for that original post... but I'm referring to the change I made to my boil kettle pickup where I took out the slotted manifold and used a very long 3/8ths tube that ran around the outside of the kettle and picked up wort from the side. It was designed to be used primarily with pellet hops and maybe a few whole hop cones. As it turns out, I did a beer with Jody a week ago and had really good luck with it. No issues with the wort recirculation during cooling, which was one of our problem areas in the past, and no issues with runoff when the chill was done. I'm not sure how it'll fare with a mixture of pellets and whole hops, or whole hops alone.. but if I'm gonna run whole hops only in there, I'll probably just swap out to my slotted manifold, which I know works great in there. The right tool for the job, eh?

In other beer related news, the big brew off with our newspaper correspondent fell through for the 14th, but the big brew is still gonna be on! Turns out I'll be brewing an American Wheat with Don this time around. Should be good times there. I haven't had an Am. Wheat on tap in way too long. I should be doing a regular split batch of 12 gallons with the newspaper guy, Will Siss, on the 28th and later on we're gonna try to get the band back together with everyone and have a re-do of the big brew so we can give Will a proper introduction to home brewing. Hey, he asked, right? :-)

On the chicken front, it should be mentioned that I actually put in my order for them last Thursday, I think it was. Put in for two Plymouth Barred Rocks, two Rhode Island Reds, and one Golden Comet. All supposed to be good egg layers and people friendly birds. We'll see. Gotta really put my mind to the task and figure out what kind of coop I wanna build now. I keep fluctuating on it lately.. can't make up my mind. Anyway, they won't be in until beginning of May, so no hurry there. Pete, you listening? Get your hammer and saw ready!

Went down to Rob's house yesterday to see his new coffee bean roaster. Totally didn't think to take pics. Rob, help a brother out and send some pics to post? Curious device! A big ol' turbo charged rotisserie for chickens, originally, now turned to roasting coffee beans . Vented to the outside too, keeping *most* of the smoke out of the room, especially for the amount of beans we were roasting in that small room. He went from about roasting 1 pound batch sizes at a time, to 2.5-ish lbs at once. Way more than a typical home roaster for just himself needs, certainly. He sent me home with a "South American Blend" that he got from the company who sold him the machine, which I'll review in just a minute. Still heating water for that now...

Rob also has got himself a brandy-new Grindmaster 1.5 lb grinder, which is really nice as an everything-but-espresso coffee grinder. I could totally put that on my coffee cart and use the hell out of that thing for my Aeropress, vac pot and filter coffees. Snap! No pics of that, either.

OK, went with 28 grams for a 10 ounce mug for this South American blend, of which we know nothing other than that. Aeropress was the method. The beans themselves, strangely, smell *exactly* like a bag full of pretzels! Unfortunately, I don't like pretzels... but we'll see how the coffee tastes. It's only day one after the roast, so it's still too young to really be judging, so we'll have to revisit this tomorrow and the next day for sure, but.. It's still too hot to drink, but I'm getting an aroma of /mint/ in this thing. Like, the sort of thing you smell in Andes Candies? Yeah, that. Dunno 'bout how that got in there, but that's what I smell. It's got a 'green' taste to it now, still sorta hay-like.. hard to get around that at the moment. Overpowering right now. I get a bit of a earthy-ness in there, Sumatra like, and that pretzel thing too.. not typical of South American coffees, so I'll have to chalk that up to the new roast still settling in. Let's check back on this one in a day or two, eh?

That's all I got today, kids. Keep clicking that Google Ad there, you cheapskates!

Beer update...

So I just racked the beer I made with Jody a couple weeks back, into a keg. Final gravity was 1.010. This was the one I dry hopped in the carboy in primary, towards the end of fermentation. Gotta say, this thing tasted *awesome*. Like, *really* awesome. Candy-like, in fact. Just hops galore in there. Unfortunately, it's the second keg I have now that's *outside* the fridge and not hooked up to anything. Got a small Pale Ale in front of that one to go first. I will say that this beer was fermented with the Coopers Ale yeast and this time, I did NOT pick up any green apple flavors from the brew.. so, maybe I got it this time? Keep the ferment temp under 70 degrees and you'll be OK with Coopers? Stay tuned, kids, I'll report back in a bit when she's tapped...

Roasted the last of the 2007 Guat. Antigua the other day. First cup of that out of the chute yesterday and it was awful! Really bitter stuff. So today, I dialed back the grind a few notches, and the coffee was much improved.. not quite perfect, but much improved. Goes to show how sensitive the grind can be to a particular bean.. and goes to show how important the grinder is to the overall process. Making coffee isn't just throwing some grounds into a pot of hot water and calling it OK. It's meaningful stuff, to know how much coffee you're working with (weight being ideal.. ), the fine-ness of the coffee grounds, the temperature of the water you're brewing with and the overall amount of water to coffee ratio. Keep that stuff in mind, folks! SCAA rules here, 7 grams of coffee per 5oz of water. LIVE by it! Keep all that stuff "in the box", and work with the grinder to adjust your flavor. If your grinder sucks, all hope is lost, however. Time to whip out that credit card and live a little!

A little update on the sour Pale Ale I brewed with Pete a while back. I'm now 5 beers into it and t just gets better and better. The flavor is becoming more refined as time goes by. Focusing in on a good core taste. I'm really starting to enjoy it now, and thinking about the next one in line... this Hoppy Pale Ale with wild yeast is definitely not the normal beer.. but it has it's place.

Classic Pale Ale and some damn good coffee

Unfortunately, I've got no pictures of this event, but I brewed with Jody yesterday, and we brewed the blandly named "Classic Pale Ale" from a recipe in BYO mag. No disasters occurred during the day, so I had no reason to change the name from "Classic Pale Ale". As you all may or may not know, my beers are generally named from some sort of bad thing, or disaster, that occurs during the brew session. So, I guess maybe a bland name is a good thing after all? Hmm.. keep that in mind while making your beer selection here next time, eh? ;-)

Anyway, she's fermenting nicely downstairs now. It's mostly 2 row pale ale malt, a 1/2lb of 20L crystal, and a 1/2lb of Caravienna. 1.050 O.G. in the end run, hopped with Columbus and Galena at 60, Centennial at 15 and Cascades at 5. There should be some dry hops in here, which I think I will do at the end of primary after the action subsides inside the glass bottle.

We tasted the Oro de Maggie that was in the spare 1/2 gallon bottle next to the real deal, and what had been a wonderful beer last time I tried it, really tasted quite mean this time around. I hope the big bottle is OK. The small one has been goofed with quite a bit, so I know it's really not the same beer as in the other carboy.. but still.. it makes me nervous.

In coffee news, I'm drinking possibly one of the nicest coffees I've ever had, courtesy of Kevin from NY. He brought me two to play with last time he was up and this one, the Organic Ethiopian DP Bonko "Black Sun" is just not of this world. It's a "blueberry-esque" Ethiopian like you might have had before, but this cup has it all! A wicked good mix of the berry notes, acidity, body, etc. It's *awesome*.

Uncle Jack is coming over tonight and we're going to be cracking open up the only bottle of Oro de Maggie that has ever been capped.. we'll see if that's any good tonight and go from there. He's also indicated that he's going to bring something else special up for a test as well.. but we'll see when that gets here. Stay tuned, true believers! And don't forget, click that Google link before you split..

A new Kettle idea.. and some guts.

What you're looking at is my new idea for siphoning out of my boil kettle. We're sort of going backwards to simplicity here from the more complex that way it was before. The old design, which I don't have a picture of, was a down tube ending in a "T" connector that went into a circular ring shape that sort of encircled the divot at the bottom of the pot. On the bottom of the ring was a lot of hacksaw slots. That was used to filter the hop material out. That worked great when only whole hops were used, but I'm finding
whole hops hard to come by, and pellets much more convenient to use. Problem is, pellet hops clogged that ring-thing up in a heartbeat. Complete blockage, and no flow. So, I screwed with a weird "U" shaped thing for a while that just was a straight through tube with no straining mechanism on it at all, but picked up wort from the side of the kettle, right about where the end of this current tube is now. That worked great for pellet hops, but kind of jacked up the immersion chiller a bit because the two devices interfered with each other. Also, the straight tube got totally plugged once or twice by a simple hop cone getting jammed right in the end of it. So, my newest idea is a tube around the outside, ending in a hole at the end.. just like the old one that got plugged. 'cept this time, I made three small hacksaw slots right at the very last half inch of the tube, just in case of that stray hop cone. We'll see how it works. Just like the other straight tube design, this one requires you to tip the kettle to get the very last bit of wort out. Me and Jody are brewing tomorrow, so we'll see how she goes on her maiden voyage. Stay tuned..

Now, the guts, you ask? Just a little snippet from the interior pics of the Gaggia Espresso machine I was fooling with the other day. Took apart two broken ones and got one functioning one back together from the two. Here's some photos of the wiring and pump mechanism chaos inside.











As always, keep clicking my Google link on the side there. Don't be a cheapskate with the mouse button! ;-)