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.

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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!

Fire in the Roaster!

So this is Rob's new Grindmaster 1.5lb bagger/grinder. Stick a bag under the chute, set the knob to whatever you want it ground to, and hit the start button. Slick system, nice looking machine. All the grind settings are adjustable and the burrs can be fine tuned with that screw in the center of the dial there. Nice machine!












This thing here is his new "5 lb roaster", who's name I forget now.. but it's a fancy, hot rodded rotisserie thingy, with an added set of heater coils on the bottom, and a fan assisted exhaust vent that you can see there on the left side of the thing. We did some screwing around with it back on Monday and found it to be pretty much in it's element at a 2.5 lb batch size. We're thinking anything over that is gonna take too long and 'bake' the beans rather than roast 'em. This thing makes an impressive cloud of smoke in the room if you don't have your fan thingy going!


Here's a pic of his "old" roaster, a 1lb Behmor, siting atop the new machine. Cute little bugger!



















This here (below) is really the "before" pic, however. This is what happens when you turn your back on an automated roaster for a "couple of minutes" and the beans catch fire. This blackened mess is the remains of the now defunct 1 lb roaster you see above. So sad!

Another one down! Send backup beer!

Dead! Just splattered myself all over with the foam of it's dying, co2 infused breath. You can see the stats yourself in the pic, and this beer was brewed by Don S. and myself way back in November. She lived a long life, for sure. She's survived by the tiny stove-top pale ale I brewed in the kitchen a few weeks ago.. the 18th of February, in fact. So, brewed and tapped in well under a month. Sheesh! Now to see if it tastes like anything worth drinking..

In other news, the place is just about ready for the big brew on Saturday. All ingredients lined up for me and Dan to put together an American Wheat. Yes, you read that right, *Dan*, not *Don S.*, as Don had a last minute colonoscopy scheduled that he just DIDN'T wanna miss, not for beer or anything. So, it's me and Dan picking up the slack. Good luck with that project, Don!

Some more updates to follow tomorrow or so.. interesting news about a roaster fire I recently heard of...

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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.

Kicked a keg..

Sorry to announce the passing of a keg yesterday.. the often turned to, but sometimes off limits "Brett Brown", kicked the bucket. Originally brewed with Frank A. way back last summer, she was a good beer, and my first foray into wild yeast brews.. it was a tasty one!

Taking the Brown's place is a new wild beer, a Pale Ale, brewed with Pete W. at the end of January, where the second generation of Oro de Calabaza from Jolly Pumpkin was used to ferment in a wild 10 day fermentation. We'll see how sour she is by the end of the day, I'm sure.

Also, kegged the 2.5 gallon mini-batch yesterday, that I made on the stove top from all grain. Tastes distinctly of green apple. Again. Just like the last time I used Coopers dry ale yeast. I have a feeling that's not a coincidence! Might have to stop using that stuff..

*In addition*, , I know.. I know.. long list of things done just yesterday, but also threw 1/2 an ounce of Cascades into the brew I made with Jody R. the other week.. Hope to leave that in there a couple days or three and rack into a keg at the end of this weekend of mine. Smells great! Can't remember the last time I dry hopped anything. Sorta really lookin' forward to this one..

Got two kegs and a carboy to clean now.. I'm off to work!