1-20-09 Man cave pics are now located my my facebook page!
The DOW Stout comp turned out quite well and fun was had by all. I think this will be a fun little competition for years to come! Now we will also have more time for our creations to take shape. I think I'm going with Wyeast Zinfandel, which has a higher alcohol tolerance for my Lodi Old Vines kit. I still haven't done anything with my honey, mustard seeds, or red peppercorns, but I'm getting closer now. i'm trying to decide whether to make a brown mustard ale or a mustard hydromel. Both could be good.
1-15-09 I bought an Old Vines Zinfandel kit from HoH on tuesday. Now I have to figure out which yeast strain I'm going to use. I look forward to trying this in 18 months when it'll be ready. I also put a Tri-County Fermenters group on Facebook. I'm in deep now.
I'm gonna try and take some pics of the man cave for posting here soon. More to come.
1-12-09 Armageddon may soon be coming... my wife signed me up for "Facebook."
I learned a lesson while cleaning out my converted freezer/keg serving vessel. Always place the temperature probe from your thermostat back inside the vessel after cleaning, if it is outside the freezer everything inside will freeze. Thus I didn't get to bottle this weekend and missed the deadlines for UM Mash-Out and The Bruery's contests. Oh well.
1-7-09 So I have to say I'm not liking winter this year much. It feels the the movie "Fargo," which I got to watch yesterday (again) as my wife and kids were at Awana. I really enjoy this movie. It's a really twisted and bloody movie, but it makes you think... like why the fuck would you have your wife kidnapped and how did you lose $320,000 on cars? I'm really thinking about changing me name to J3L-2404 too (Now you'll have to watch!). Anyway, I need some nice weather so that I can brew (outdoors) again. I did put my carbonating keg lid on my one year old wee heavy and my rhubard mead is ready to bottle, so it's not too bad. I also am ready to bottle my DOW Stout. very nice! More later on this (after the competition.)
1-1-09 Happy New Year! I did my second dry hop addition of 2.0 oz Palisade pellets to my barleywine today. I've coined this beer "Violence & Bloodshed" One more dry hop addition to go before I force carb it.
I suppose I should post my New Year's resolutions as well. (1) I need to lose some weight to take some pressure off my knee and allow my clothes to fit better (2) I will make a Berliner Weisse and one type of Belgian sour/lambic TBD (3) I will add at least 8 states to my contest win total (I'm currently at 24 and now adding new states to the list is getting tougher) (4) I will make my first Sake (5) DELETED...only my wife knows... (6) Read War and Peace.
12-30-08 Some days it feels like all you do is clean equipment. I don't think I realized just how much time cleaning and santizing would take when I first started brewing. I got both my Pyments transferred and one is great and the other is too sweet. I'm trying to figure out if I should keep it as it, blend it with something dry, or venture into the "grey" area of the hobby.
I may just let it sit for 6 months while I contemplate. I'm also on part one of dry hop trilogy with my American Barleywine (1.105 OG, 1.022 FG). I'm starting with 1.23 oz of Northern Brewer pellets, then moving to Palisade pellets, and finishing with '08 Amarillo leaf hops. I'm going to end up using over 12 oz. of hops in this 5 gallon batch. I can't wait to try the finished product.
Two other tidbits I'd like to share. (1) my in-laws live next door to me and split their time between here and Florida. When they are here, they have their calls forwarded from FL.
So at lunch today, someone from the Jehovah's Witness church in FL called and my four-year old son picked up the phone and answered "I'm Eric the Sandwich-Head" They hung up.
Feel free to try this one at home with your young children. I bet it also works well with telemarketers. (2) My wife and I have always been fans of "Jackass" and Bam Margera's shows. Today, we tuned into "Scarred" on MTV2. i can honestly say that I've never been tempted to jump a bike or a skateboard off/over something and smash of head into the pavment before. But this seems to be the premise of the show. I'm not much of a risk-taker, unless using 1007 in a lager is taking a risk, but I'm pretty sure that I'll let my kids homebrew before I let them skateboard. In fact, I think I can put skateboarding and trick BMX biking on my kids "Never Event" list.
12-25-08 Merry Christmas all. I just wanted to pass on what my wife got for me for Christmas. I received a T-shirt from Adventures in Homebrewing in Taylor, MI that on the bac says "I pass gas through my bung hole" Outstanding!
12-22-08 Well knee surgery is defintely cutting into my hobby. It seems to take me twice as long to get things done. I really hope it starts feeling better, but i have a bad feeling that I will soon again need to go under the knife. We'll see. My "Decemberfest" turned out pretty nice. It probably would be better with less bitterness, but it is very drinkable. I have three big beers that i need to transfer for bottling: a Strong Scotch Ale, an American Barleywine that I'll be multi-stage dry-hopping, and my top secret DOW Stout. It has now been over three months since I've last brewed.
11-22-08 I am post-op day #2 from my knee arthroscope and doing pretty well. i'm going to try and rack my New England Barrell Cider and my Chocolate Mead today. I am also going to work on my tap room setup. I bought a 21 ft2 freezer that I'm going to use as my draught fridge. I'm building a 4" PVC draught tower with three taps (One a stout faucet). It should look pretty cool. I'll post a pic when it's done. I'm also going to experiment with some wine and mead. I have a 1# bag of Peppermint leaves that I bought awhile back. I'm thinking about doing a one gallon batch of wine and a one gallon batch of mead with the leaves. I'm also thinking about doing a small batch of extract beer with the leaves and some cocoa powder. And finally, I'll be trying a test batch of mustard mead.