free tunes for you!

Remember back in October when I said I had mixtape ready? Well, I finally bought some blank CDs, so if you want one, email me or leave a comment. Since I am so late, this comes with a pretty nifty paper sleeve, and a BONUS MIXTAPE!

Wicked exciting.

So yeah, if you want it, let me know your address. And you KNOW you want it, so it's really just a matter of addresses at this point.

cranberry-orange or orange-cranberry?

The final flavor will be the judge. So far, it smells great. Super great. This is one beer I am psyched about!

Here's the recipe:

• 1 3/4 lbs crystal malt 40
• 3.3 lbs Thomas Cooper Light Malt Extract
• 3.3 lbs Thomas Cooper Wheat Malt Extract
• 2 oz Kent Goldings Hops, 4.9%
• 1/2 oz Saaz Hops, 5.8%
• 11g Nottingham brewing yeast
  
• Peels of 5 pretty good sized navel oranges
• 2 qts 365 Organic cranberry juice

... and here's the steps:

• Heat water to ~150°F
• Start sanitizing necessary equipment (fermenter, hydrometer, airlock, strainer)
  
• Add crystal malt
• Rinse necessary equipment
  
• Add heat, mine was about 190°F–200°F for 15–20 minutes
• Take out grains, add malt extracts
• Bring wort to boil
• Add 1 oz Kent Goldings hops
  
• Boil vigorously for 30 minutes
• While boiling wort, wash and peel oranges with vegetable peeler
  
• When 30 minutes is up, add orange peels and remainder of Kent Goldings hops to wort
  
• Boil vigorously another 30 minutes. Enjoy the aroma; holy sweet god damn it's so good!
  
• Add Saaz hops
• Boil for 5 minutes
• Put the brewpot in the ice water in the sink
• Add cranberry juice
• Add 2–3 gallons water to fermenter
• Start the yeast according to packet directions
  
• Stir wort and cool to about 100°F
  
• Add cooled wort to fermenter; add more water if needed
• Measure original gravity: 1.044 is what I have got
  
• Add yeast
• Put on the lid, add water to air lock, put it away, and begin waiting
  

I am more excited about this beer than any of the other three so far. Seriously, the orange and hops combination is one of the best smells ever smelt by man. This man, anyway.

UPDATES:

• Final gravity is 1.018
• Bottled on December 6, 2008.

morning off

So for those of you who missed the news, a power cable blew out downtown, causing some fires underground and some manhole cover explosions. Apparently no one was hurt, which is good. The power went out for a bunch of the theater district and back bay, including the Hancock tower, where I work. That meant, in a nutshell, that I had the morning off. I spent it bottling my pumpkin ale. I do not have high hopes for it. The taste I had had a very bitter bite to it—too much pumpkin pie spice, methinks. It reminded me of the spice beer referenced in Dune. I checked the mirror and what do you know? My eyes had already turned blue!

Oh wait, that's a recessive gene, not a dependency on [spoiler alert!] dead worm.

Anyways, I got it bottled, cleaned everything up, and by that time things were getting back to normal, so I grabbed dunkin' donuts and a veggie sub at the local sub shop and headed in. This really worked out in my favor, since I had meant to bottle that this past weekend in order to get another batch brewed before I went home for Thanksgiving.

The post regarding that brew is forthcoming.

go speed go!

Do you ever have one of those days where you just need to get pumped up to do your job or whatever? And maybe your tunes aren't cutting it? Yeah, me too. So here's what I did:

I took a ripped version of Speed Racer to work, downloaded mplayer (because I was missing some codec somewhere to get the sound to play, and it just worked, and it rules), and I just play it and listen to it during the day. I pretty much have it memorized anyway. It totally gets me going every time.

You should watch it. I tear up during the final race every single time. Seriously. I almost cheer out loud.

It may be ridiculous, but this is pretty much my favorite movie.

my first mead

This is how I did it, for good or ill:

• Put a gallon of water in my brew pot and starting heating
  
• Mixed some Clorox and water to sanitize my hydrometer, stopper, airlock, and jug
• Added 3 lbs of honey from Trader Joe's to the water
  
• Got the water up to around 180°F, and left it about there, really just took the lid off and left the heat on. I think it got a little hotter.
  
• Left it on for a half hour or so
  
• I skimmed the scum off the surface as needed
  
• I then realized I had no funnel, so I MacGyver'd (or MacGruber'd, maybe?) one out of aluminum foil and duct tape
  
• Added some champagne yeast to water, per the directions
  
• Dumped the honey water (must) into the jug
  
• Added the yeast (most of it, didn't need it all) to the jug. Couldn't take a hydrometer reading in the pot, since it was too shallow, and didn't dare in the jug, since I didn't want to lose it. I guess we'll have to guess the strength.
  
• Topped it off with some more must, and put in the airlock.
  
• I wrapped the jug in a dark t shirt to help block the light
  
• Cleaned up.
  

We'll see how this turns out. Even if it sucks, what am I out, ten bucks? Not a bad little experiment.

my great day

Today I actually got into work on time and got some stuff done. Went to T-Mobile to see if they could fix my phone (the screens stopped working), they couldn't, but since I have the insurance and they replaced my phone six weeks ago, I called them up, and they're sending me a new one. I wanted to be mad but the two girls I talked to were really sweet. Then I had lunch, which was also pretty good. Things were going OK.

Then I learned that I have no other tasks at work except the one that the CEO is hot-to-trot for and is kind of a pain in the ace. Then I got to tell my friend (whose project I have been working on for about a year) that her stuff has gotten postponed, again.

Then on the way home, I was going to go to the gym, but instead I drove my car into the back of someone else's car on the Mass pike. Nothing major at all, no one was hurt, my car's front bumper has a little damage (who cares?), his just has a scratch. He had to stop quick for another fender-bender (again, no one hurt), and apparently new Mercedes' have better stopping ability than old Civics, by about a couple feet. Unless, of course, the Mercedes is in front. Who'd have guessed?

I then went to the grocery store quick, then the liquor store for some Guinness, and then home. Got home, went to put on some comfortable wind pants, couldn't find them, filled out the accident report, cracked open a beer, and watched Speed Racer to cheer me up.

I couldn't even call my insurance company, since my phone is busted.

It's not even Monday; what the heck?

UPDATE: If Dinosaur Comics doesn't make everything ok, I don't know what does. And for the record, it did.

my very own pumpkin ale

Last Saturday I brewed up a batch of pumpkin ale. It was my very own recipe, loosely based on some I had found online. Here's the notes:

Ingredients:

• 1lb 2 row grains
• 3.3lbs Thomas Cooper Malt Extract, Light
• 3lbs L.D. Carlson Breiss Dried Malt Extract, Golden Light
• 3 cans Libby's canned pumpkin
• 3oz East Kent Golding hops (for brewing), 4.8%
• 1.5oz Hallertau hops (for finishing), 3.9%
• 11g Nottingham brewing yeast
• 1tsp (heaping) pumpkin pie spice

Steps:

1. Steep grains at 160°-170°F for 20 minutes
2. Strain to pail, and then back to brew pot
3. Heat wort to boil while sanitizing other equipment. Put can of malt syrup in hot water
4. When the wort is boiling, turn off the heat, add malt syrup, dried malt, pumpkin, and half of the brewing hops
5. Return to boil. Boil for 30 minutes
6. Add the rest of the brewing hops. Boil for 30 minutes
7. Add spice and finsihing hops. Brew for a couple more minutes
8. Cool it down, strain into fermenter, measure original gravity, and add yeast

Notes:

• Original Gravity: 1.057
• I steeped the grains too hot, about 190°F. Need to be more careful.
• My carbon monoxide detector went off. I had to open some windows and turn on the fan. Should have done this from the start, as the one burner of my stove was going for hours.
• To strain I used a large steamer. It worked really well.
• Getting the wort back to a boil when I added the malt took a while. Also, my brew pot was quite full.
• I used canned pumpkin since the grocery store did not have pumpkins for sale. This was a bit of a pain, as the wort ended up thick, and straining it was time-consuming, and a pain in general. This could really haunt me when it comes time to bottle.
• The wort smelled delicious

We'll see how it turns out.

UPDATES:

• Gravity at 1.020 on November 14
• Gravity at 1.018 on November 16. I was going to rack it today, but it's still going I guess.
• Gravity still at 1.018 on November 24. I bottled it.