Beer #6 is aging

Monday, August 27. 2007
Since it is aging, I managed to get a taste. The executive summary is that it is okay and has an FG of 1.022 (~4.5% ABV, which is progress).

Mistake #1 (no, it wasn't adding hops to a stout - stouts are better bitter) was the hop ball. In theory, it'd work magically. I just overstuffed it. So my beer didn't turn out quite as bitter as it should have for the hops I put in it. Unfortunately, I only noticed towards the end of my hops boil. I should have boiled longer, but I didn't. I boiled the rest of the hops for a short time (normally to balance out some hop flavor, but in a stout aroma hops are a little silly).

So I need to shake harder, and use better water. I'm not sure that the better water is an option. However, the beer is getting marginally better. So maybe it'll be good in a few years. Horrah!

Fingers = hurting.

Monday, August 27. 2007
And it is an electric guitar. That's just sad.

After about a 6 year break, I recently decided to pick up my guitar again. I'd forgotten how bad I am at picking. It came up in conversation with a friend last week (he's an amazing guitarist), and he said he realized he couldn't really pick when he heard Radiohead's "Street Spirit" -- and figured out that it wasn't fingerpicked. It is a guy, with a pick and a guitar -- fingers flying at mach 3.

Just for reference, check out the video on youtube: Radiohead's "Street Spirit"

So I sat down for an hour or so today and started picking it out. And boy do my fingers hurt. I bet if I played more than once every 6 years, I wouldn't be such a weenie.

Personal Project #74

Sunday, August 26. 2007
I started in on Alison's site today. She has some ideas that she wants to put into a simplified CMS. So rather than writing the whole thing from scratch, I figured the best way to do it would be to start with a LAMP system and install s9y. Then I should be able to hyjack a lot of the db code and make a simplified view. Problem is, I don't know smarty. Or php (well). But I'm making progress.

I got the dev environment set up tonight. I've got php + apache + s9y running. I've got the s9y distro under svn and live on the server. I've got a couple of entries in the db. I've narrowed my search down 1 or 2 s9y functions, but I can't seem to pull/display data through them. But if I had, this would have been a trivial project.

So tomorrow, we'll see if I can pull some data from the db.

My crappy phone

Wednesday, August 22. 2007
I have possibly the crappiest cellular telephone on the market. I'm somewhat proud of this, as it doesn't twinkle, download $4 ring tones that sound like crap, or leverage the power of enterprise-class web servers. It makes calls and has a "silence" function that makes it shut-the-****-up. Yet there are some things I wish it did. Learn words that I type in text messages is one of them. However, I learned tonight that it knows the word "muster," and I cannot figure out why. Nobody normal would use that (except me, of course... I'm normal). But alas, the next time I type Yoda, I'm actually going to have to spell it out again. Such is life.

Beer #6 recipe

Saturday, August 18. 2007
I should be writing this in a notebook, but I'm downstairs with a laptop and my notebooks are upstairs (and I'd be hard pressed to find a writing utensil). So I'll write the recipe here, with the complete intention on transcribing it later.

Ingredients:
- Can of hopped malt extract (I used an Irish ale kit can).
- 3.3 kg of dark malt extract (I think mine was unhopped).
- 1 oz Fuggles hops (because I like hops)

0 ) Start the yeast. This time, I used a smack pack, but even if I didn't, I'd be re-hydrating for a few hours.
1 ) Sanitize. I'm not convinced of the necessity, but it does inspire me to sanitize about 1/2 the surface area in the kitchen.
2 ) Heat the can of malt extract. This helps the extract come out easier.
3 ) Boil about a gallon of water. Add the can of extract and put a bag of extract into warm water (timing isn't terribly important).
4 ) Add the can of extract to the water. Bring to a boil, wait for the proteins to rise. Skim them off.
5 ) CAREFULLY add about 3/4 of the hops. The water will expand by about 1/2 volume. Don't let it boil over (remove the hops or remove the pot from heat or both). Once that settles out, re-add the hops. Boil that for 30 minutes.
6 ) Add the other 1/4 oz of hops and continue the boil.
NOTE: I was using a tea ball about the size of my fist for the hops... probably about 1 ball to 1/3 oz max. If you add the hops directly, you'll need to strain the wort after the boil.
7 ) Add the wort to the fermenter and let it cool.
8 ) Add water to lower the temperature and bring the wort up to volume (I use about 4 gallons). Add water until you get the gravity you want - today's SG was 1.060 @ 90F.
9 ) Aerate like a beast.
10) Once the wort is cool enough, pitch. I'm impatient, so I let it get to about 90 degrees before I pitch because warmer environments can kill yeast. But you should be fine at 90F.
11) Seal, airlock, put away for about a week.

I'll let you know how it turns out. Hopefully, my yeast won't fall out early this time.