Day-o-the-booze

Bottling day for the porter. FG 1.012 I am really curious to see how it is carbonated and cold. Still striking me as a bit odd, and can't pin why.

Bottled the Malbec as well and a great day with sdog and olr as always. It came out really really well. Racked the cabernet and added a little bid of the wood chips, and topped up with a bottle of the malbec. I think it will be spectacular.

Leaving bright and early tomorrow for gun season. Weather is looking rough for the ride with rain starting sun afternoon and continuing on until mon am 7ish, the some snow?

Musical obsession of the day

Live version of "Round Here" by Counting Crows on Howard struck a nerve. I was never into them much before I guess, they are really talented it seems.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WiRLHBAxrU&feature=related

Porter transfer

Oh porter, can you transfer yourself there please?

Gravity 1.014. Taste is..different. I think it will be drinkable for sure. It's not bitter like I thought it may be with the 1/2 lb of black patent. It's almost light? It's a touch fruity perhaps because of the hops? Can't pinpoint what I am tasting. Still bubbling every 32 secs or so and gravity of 1.014. Seems odd, i expected gravity of 1.02 ish? This may need to go to a beer meeting to they can tell me what I am tasting.

Final addition

Mowed the lawn to pick up the leaves and got at least a little bit of grass clippings in there as well. Pile is now officially full. Center is starting to smell earthy and was a little steamy on the frosty day. Turned it up a little, but there is so much it wasn't too simple.

Bubbles

Bubble spacing for the porter:
Wed AM None (blowoff)
Wed PM 4 secs (bubbler)
Thurs AM 3 secs
Thurs PM 3 secs
Fri AM 4 secs
Fri PM 11 secs
Sat AM 28 secs
Sat PM 28 secs
Sun AM 32 secs
Sun PM 52 secs (secondary)
Mon AM 52 secs
Tues AM 1:45

Err, Toasted Hops?

Tonight was the night to brew a Porter. There are numerous reasons to thank the stars I am again single, but 2 boilovers on my own damn stove, now that's just fantastic. What exactly is the substance that will help me remove this carmalization??

Had 2 pots boiling at one point swapping liquid back and forth to leave headspace and cover evaporation. Worked pretty well. Note to self, do not put the lid on next time. Note to self, don't do it a second time either. I have a feeling I may have burnt something in the pot. 2 of the muslin bags came out with a dark spot on them. We will have to see how this turns out.



Finished the wort chiller while water was heating up and it worked like a CHAMP. Was down to 111 degrees at 7 minutes, though it slowed significantly after that getting to 72.

Put a mesh strainer in the top of the bucket and siphoned through it with height for aeration. Worked like a charm, ended up with 2 inches of thick head on the top. Assuming that is good.

Finally cracked open a brown ale to have while I brewed and it was freaking fantastic. I see another batch of that coming next I do believe.

Porter Recipe:
1/2lb Chocolate Malt
1/2lb Black Patent
1/2lb Crystal 60L
Steeped at 154 for 45mins

6lbs Muntons Plain light malt
1oz Bramling Cross whole leaf 7% 60 Mins
1oz Fuggles whole leaf 4% 15 minutes
1/2oz Fuggles 7 mins
1/2oz Fuggles 3 mins
1 Whirlfloc tablet at 15

Wyest 1028 London ale

OG 1.052

Soyanara

Off for some much needed vacation in the mountains. Tues - Sunday is the longest stretch in years. Weather is perfect and trap line is set supposedly. Giddyup. Ordered 25ft of 3/8" copper to make a chiller yesterday for $19.99. $77 at lowes for 50.

Bottling Day

So, I'm retarded. The line I measured on the primary fermenter was 4.25 gallons, not 5. I was wondering why there was so much headspace in the better bottle. Filth-flarn, filth.

Anyhow, bottled today, leaving tues am for the last week of archery and didn't want to wait until the following tuesday, though I probably should have. FG of 1.015. Broke a bottle capping, but other than that, got 22 16oz bottles capped and 15 12oz swingtops. (4.16Gals) If they hold carbonation just as well, I think it may be worth the investment?

Still a bit cloudy, should have gone the full week in primary and 2 weeks in secondary but had to get this batch in the bottle. Excited.

What next? Porter on the brain, but oatmeal stout running a close second.

Final stats:
Alcohol (volume) 5.5%
Alcohol (weight) 4.3%
Apparent attenuation 72.3%
Real attenuation 58.6%
Specific Gravity 1.023

Mmm, floaters

Such clever titles the last few days eh? I purchased 2 cases of 24 empty 16oz returnable bottles yesterday for a grand total of $3. Couldn't see spending $60 on the swingtops. I must say, the process proved a bit disgusting with some mold involved etc. I think all is well now. Soaked in double strength hot 1-step solution for 15 minutes for cleaning and label removal, then used the sink attached jet washer to clean them out (thanks Matt). After the first 9 bottles and the floaters in the sanitizer bucket, they got an extended hot jet wash before and after the soak.

Stegmeier bottles were fairly beat up and the glue was really thick like the barrel paste from elementary school. The Straub bottles had a much better box, nearly new bottles and the labels came off like a breeze. The 1 box of Straub they had there was full to the top with spider webs and leaves. Glad we looked before I picked that one.

Ick

For the first time, I in fact voted for a republican for president yesterday. Kind of a bummer. I think this guy is dangerous, a verified racist and fiscally irresponsible. He is now the commander in chief elect so I wish us all the best. So many chose to focus on the color of his skin or the fact that his party was different than Bush. I understand the displeasure with Bush, god knows I have it myself, but this dude is bad news. Does this mean it is acceptable now for a klansman to run for president? I certainly hope not, but it is quite a precedent. Not since LBJ's second term have we knowing elected an open racist. This is a huge step backwards for both America and the democratic party.

Election day Vino

Having had my fill of politics, Bob's call that it was wine night was an absolute port in a storm. Degassed the malbec and added clarifier. The spinny attachment thing was pretty cool. Hopefully we didn't do too much harm and got all the bubbles out. The shiraz spritzer is kind gross and I hope to avoid that this time. Also added about 1.5oz of the medium oak chips. Plan is to let that sit for the next 2 weeks and see what happens. Tasted it and it seemed a bit thin like the shiraz was, but pretty good overall. Hopefully the oak will add some body, and some time will add even more.

Since there is no where near enough fermentables going on in my life, we decided to start on the extra fancy australian cabernet. What the heck am I going to do with all this booze? OG for the cab was 1.084 for god's sake. This will be some strong stuff. The juice tasted fantastic, very sweet obviously from the OG. 4 packs of oak powder proved a challenge to dunk and mix but we were up for the task. We had a bubble already after dinner so things are looking good. Looking at the time frame and an extra transfer step, this one won't go to bottles until Januaryish?

Lame

So telerik has me grinding my teeth again. Who would really want to stay on page 2 after a data rebind?? Should this not be a default? This came out of the default being to display page 2 of a 1 page radgrid after a page forward

"
Hi sortagreen,
To reset the page index for the grid when you change the selected item in the dropdown (and the data source for the grid respectively), merely set <RadGridInstance>.MasterTableView.CurrentPageIndex = 0 before the call to the Rebind() method of the control.
"

Can I really vote for a republican?

While an admittedly unvetted email, it pretty much sums up this election for me. My traditional democratic values of environmentalism and personal liberty have been kicked to the curb this cycle in honor of giveways. There are so many quotes that ring true, but this just happened to come in and it's correct. Our political future is in a death spiral.


During this election year let's be reminded of these words:
* You cannot help the poor, by destroying the rich.
* You cannot strengthen the weak, by weakening the strong.
* You cannot bring about prosperity, by discouraging thrift.
* You cannot lift the wage earner up, by pulling the wage payer down.
* You cannot further the brotherhood of man, by inciting class hatred.
* You cannot build character and courage, by taking away men's initiative and independence.
* You cannot help men permanently, by doing for them what they could and should, do for themselves.


The author?

Abraham Lincoln

Thought of the day

All that we are is the result of what we have thought. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him. - Buddha

Then I get this fortune at lunch.
Success is when you get what you want. Happiness is when you want what you get.

Secondary

Moved the fine smelling ale to a clear better bottle for secondary fermenting. This is my first time with this step so it will be interesting to watch how it clears. There was about 3/8" of trub on the bottom of the bucket and quite a caking on the lid and inside from all that fermenting. It smells absolutely fantastic. Taste was much better than expected, great even especially given the yeasty, flat and warm state of things. I am getting excited.

SG was 1.016. Still a little higher than I would expect but the next week or two should see that go down right? Perhaps should have waited a few more days, but wine needs to be racked tues at Bob's house and I didn't want to let this go until wed.

This project kicked a desperately needed side project of basement cleaning and organizing off and it is amazing how much nicer thing are already.

After only 5 hours in the secondary, some clearing occurred at the top with a layer of sediment forming at the bottom. Color went from a reddish to almost black.

Added a fair bit of leaves to Pyle, along with trub mixed in with approx 4 gals of water. It is supposed to rain tonight, I can't believe after all the rain we had over the last couple weeks how dry it is in the center. Smells pretty earthy, but no temp raised that I can see. I am not going sit back there with a hose to get it started..