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!

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.

Chickens and things...

Chickens and things? And you're like, WTF? Is this guy off his rocker now, finally? The answer is negative. I'm giving a long, hard look at raising some chickens this year is all. I thought about this last year too, but I guess the time to do it is in the spring, and I only heard of this a bit too late in the game last year and couldn't get into it. I didn't wanna rush a thing like this, where the lives of four animals might hang in the balance, you know? So, we're giving it some more thought this year, and I have till the beginning of April to make up my mind about what I'm gonna do. If I go ahead with it (and right now, I am planning to..) the day old chicks will come in some time in the beginning of May. Then they'll stay in a cardboard box for a month, graduate to a dog pen for another month, and finally will need to go into an outdoor coop that I'll have to build sometime between now and then. I'm thinking about a coop like this one:



It's called a "chicken tractor" and it has an open bottom that lets the chickens scratch at the ground while still being safe from predators while they're inside the pen. You also tow it around the yard to keep the ground from geting all torn up from being in one spot, and also to give the little screwballs somethign fresh to peck at.

That's all the chicken info you'all need to know right now to help me along with this project.. cause I'm still pondering the pros and cons of this adventure. Giveme some fedback, eh? And rest assured, should I go ahead with it, this blog will be filled with beer, coffee *&* chicken news. Prepare yourself!

In other news, I roasted up a 1/2lb of a coffee from Bali called "Blue Krishna" provided by our coffee friend from the west, Kevin. What a guy! We'll see how that tastes in a day or two. Stand by for that review.

As for the coffee of the day, I'm working the last.. err.. almost last 1/2lb of the Kenya AA from Robs run to NYC. I've got a cup in hand that was Aeropressed just seconds ago. Waiting for it to cool to a below nuclear level. I'll mention tht I still aeropress almost everything these days, dragging out my faithful Yama 5 cup vapot about once a week or so to maintain my karmic one-ness with it. Is "karmic" a word? Hmm... For a Kenya, still have yet to find the lemony brightness in this bean that I'm used to. I seem to find only a mild burnt/roasty thing no matter *what* level of roast I personally bring it to being light or dark. That's really throwing me off. It makes an (and I'm serious when I write this) incredible single shot of espresso, which is remarkable for a supposedly known "bright bean". But like I said, I'm getting a burnt, sort of flat cup at all roast levels with this one, and maybe that's working its magic when it comes time to throw it under the pressure of the La Pavoni lever. ..ok, now that I'm near the bottom of the cup and it's really cooled off, I can get the acidic qualities of this bean... it's almost a sourness. Why does it wait so long to emerge? Strange bean!

OK, Frank just blew me off cause "I'm tired" and doesn't wanna come over for a beer. Well now. The lineup is to crack a bottle of SouRED for the monthly taste and see how it's coming along, then break open a 2005 Barley Wine, and finish by attempting to kick the keg of Coffee Porter. What kind of girlyman is he? Let's go knock over that SouRED and see how that looks, shall we?

I don't think you can see it in the photo cause there's no light, but I'll be darned if that isn't the prettiest beer I've ever seen. Perfect clarity, huge head of dense foam, the exact right mahogany red color I was looking for... and not a trace of sour on the nose. Just that 'dusty' sort of dry weirdness still, like last time.

Drats. OK, let's taste it anyway..

OK, no sour in the flavor, either. Very malty, though. Has that dry kind of taste to it, too. But not really objectionable. Actually, more chalky than dry, I think is what I mean to say. I make it seem more bad than is is.. it's actually a really fine red beer... I just was shooting for a really fine red SOUR beer. Some kind of really juicy, fruity grape thing mid-palate, too. Actually, that's a really nice taste right there. Almost like that Amber that Rob (from Plymouth Roasting Company!) did a while back that he fermented with a red wine yeast and didn't like so much, that I thought was a fine example. So, at least we know Rob won't like this one! :)

I think I'll save the Barley Wine review for something to do tomorrow.. this post is getting a little long in the tooth anyway. Keep clicking my Google Ad link there, just before you split, kids! Dig it...

Roasting Coffee Demo.

You can't really prepare yourself for a thing like this. It's the most exciting 8 minutes of video ever recorded. I'd suggest you be sitting down for when this sucker plays.

This is a video, from the very beginning setup to the very end of cooling of the coffee roasting process. This is the thing you're gonna point your friends to when they ask you "How do you DO that?!" It's an instant classic! Like, Gone With The Wind, type stuff. Dig it!



Filmed and edited entirely by myself, it's a real masterpiece. A testament to the power of the iMac. Behold, the coffee bean roasting film!

Wow. Now I'm spent!

La Pavoni Double espresso from Jan 2nd 2009

Hello peeps!

So here's the first *real* post, a video I took a couple days ago from my lever machine (La Pavoni Europiccola, Millennium model) with the wife's video camera. The lighting sucks, I know.. first time I've really used the thing for any of my own devious purposes. More to come, I'm sure.. Anywho, I took a two minute plus size video and edited it down to whatever time it's at now, which is about a minute or so, using iMovie on my iMac. I love my Mac.



And yeah, that's Maggie the dog makin' all that noise in the background. :-)

While this thing is uploading, I'm drinking a really nice cup of Colombian Gedeo whipped out of my Aeropress brewer. I'll be taking some video of that thing pretty soon too. Stand by on that. I've rarely been this impressed with a coffee brewer so quickly. I was an instant convert on my Yama 5 cup machine, and my Hario 5 cup vac pot too, but most other methods leave me cold. This one, lovin' it.



Hey Kevin and Adrienne, I think you guys are now on the email list.. let me know what kind of notification and what form it comes in (i.e. just an email saying "There's a new post on Mike's retarded Blog" ) or how that comes across, OK?