Brain Enema of a Savage Mind

The Art of the Brew

Since the completion of my new mash tun my desire to homebrew has been back on the rise.  Over the years it’s come and gone.  There have been periods where I was making a couple beers every month.  Then suddenly I’d go half a year without brewing.  I’m sure there were any number of factors involved, but I know that my last falling out with homebrewing had to do with the fact I was really tired of doing extract batches, and my previous couple of all-grain batches had been absolute failures.  Those failures were not procedural in nature, but were due to poor equipment and setup.  So I sort of shelved the whole homebrew thing for a bit.  Last month I got all the pieces to put together a new mash tun, and my first brew with it had pretty damn great efficiency - creeping up towards 80% which is more than I could have hoped for.

I’ve already gotten in on the recent group buy for bulk grains.  Now that I can do reliable all grain mashes and no longer just mini-mashes, 55lbs sacks of my base malt are going to be essential.  For now I think I’ll be going with Maris Otter, but that may change later down the road.  I’ve always liked Maris Otter – it’s a very clean grain with good extraction.  I’ll also have to start picking up some 10ish pound bags of speciality malt so I can give my beers all the character that they deserve.

My first all grain batch with the mash tun was an IPA primarily using Ahtanum hops.  I’d been wanting to try these for awhile so I figured an IPA was the best way to showcase them.  I also decided to try and get a little bit fancy with this IPA and put about 8 ounces of Gambrinus honey malt in to it. I’ve heard people saying the honey malt barely adds any honey flavor, to people saying that even a tiny amount imparts a huge taste.  I guess a lot of it is a matter of perspective and soon enough I’ll find out how I feel about 8 ounces of the malt.

The IPA just went in to the keg today so now it’s chilling down and carbonating.  Come this weekend I’ll get to taste test my first all grain batch that actually fermented like a mad demon.  It smells great, it looks great, and I can’t wait to find out this weekend if it tastes great!

Taking Control of Your Online Identity

Recently on Lifehacker and a couple of other sites that I read regularly they have been talking about your online identity.  Who you are when someone types your name in to a search engine.  I’m sure you’ve tried it, most people have done what has been referred to as “vanity Googling”.  While vanity, or some level of curiosity may be the motivating factor behind people searching their own name online, it actually is something everyone should try.  Why?  Simple, so that you can be aware of how you are being presented should someone search your name.  That someone could be a potential employer, client, date, or any number of other people you’ve come in contact with.  If you don’t know what the search engines reveal about you, you could be in for a nasty surprise.

To be prepared for writing this I went ahead and Googled myself.  It had been awhile and I was curious as to what I might find.  Under “Alex Schwartz” it took until page 22 to reach a reference that was actually to me and that was a link to Dan’s florn.net podcast.  Under Alexander Schwartz the first reference I hit was after a few pages, and that was a link to my Amazon profile and wish lists.  Nothing terribly damning there other than learning which X-Box games I long to play, and what books I want to get next.  Trust me, it’s not that interesting, take a look if you don’t believe me.  Googling me doesn’t reveal much of anything about me(yahoo and Bing both turn up next to nothing while searching my name). In some ways it’s a good thing because I don’t have to worry about people finding out things about me that could be damaging.  I’ve been pretty good about avoiding putting anything online that could be taken the wrong way.  By the same token sometimes not finding anything speaks volumes.  Are people going to wonder if I’m secretive?  Not very interesting?  Haven’t done anything with my life?  A luddite (well, okay, checking my Amazon wish list, or the fact that I run my own domain, disprove that theory in a hurry)?  Not even real?  It leaves a lot of room for people to speculate and just plain wonder.  Paranoid?  Maybe a touch, but let’s face it, online life has been, in many ways, merging with our real world lives.  People have lost a shot at a dream job simply due to a dumb comment, or inopportune picture posted to the web.  Just like at a face to face meeting, you want the first impression of your online identity to be a positive one. Continue reading…

Big Orange Mash Tun

All the parts arrived over the weekend for my new mash tun.  My old setup was a five gallon cooler with a half-assed home made false bottom and some plastic fitting.  Not at all an ideal setup, but did a decent enough job for partial-mash stuff.  Still I had been itching to get back to all grain brewing, but knew I needed a better setup if I was to get decent enough efficiency.  Plus with only a five gallon cooler I could really only do about 10 or 11 lbs of grain in a single mash.  A lot of my all grain recipes are over that amount, or else right around it so all grain had always been a pain in the past.

With this new setup I should be able to do approximately 24 pounds of grain in a single bash.  That means I can pump out some high gravity monsters of five gallon batches.  I’ve got all the ingredients lined up today for making an IPA.  14 pounds of grain are all crushed and ready to go in to the mash in just a little bit.  This will only be my second brew since Gabriel was born, and my first all grain batch in I can’t remember how long.

Never a Dull Moment When they Remodel Your House.

I’ve always known that whoever did the additions to this house in the 80′s had no clue what they were doing.  I don’t know whether they were some sort of incompetent contractor, or some do it yourself yahoo who was reaching way too far with their ability.  I’ve cursed their unknown names like some religious mantra, almost daily since I moved in to this place.  While most of my best cursing is reserved for anything involving the kitchen, the living room hasn’t escaped my fury either.

My favorite example is when we went to replace the rather ugly and weather worn front door.  We bought a brand spanking new door from Home Depot.  Nice, clean looking, great window in the middle, and highly energy efficient.  We watched videos on replacing your own door and had some good printed material.  We’re both fairly handy and felt that the job was well within our means.  When we tore out the old door we discovered many things.  The first was they used no insulation in the walls at all.  The second, and more damning, was the fact that the door frame was cut at an angle.  We always thought warping caused our door to stick, but no, it was because it was put in at a bit of an angle.  Lots of sanding and pounding with a chisel later we had a frame that was much closer to resembling something straight.  A few dozen shims later and we had a door that looked good and opened and closed with ease.

All of this brings us today and the newest discovery of previous owner ass-hattery.  While stripping the siding above our deck one of the works idly kicked at a board on the outside wall of the house.  Next thing we knew our deck partially collapsed.  Yes, while on one side of the deck they dug posts, poured concrete, and all that jazz, on the side attached to the house they attached it to the masonry with wood lags.  And went less than a 1/4″ in to the masonry.  Seriously, a tiny bolt meant to hold some wood together was the only thing keeping our porch vaguely attached to the house.  That it never collapsed before this is a bit of a miracle.  Fortunately no one was hurt, and now it’ll get attached properly.

We knew there would be something that would got beyond the initial estimate.  There pretty much always is.  This certainly wasn’t what we had been expecting it to be.  With fingers crossed we hope this is the last deviation from the master plan of home repair, but you just never know.  Stay tuned.

My Blog, Now with More Minimalism.

My old theme had a couple minor glitches with the newest incarnation of WordPress.  Nothing major, but enough for me to decide I had used it for awhile and was ready for a change.  I’ve had a bit of a minimalism kick lately and decided to aim for a more clean layout.  Find one I liked and have been doing a couple extra nip and tucks to it in order to really call it my own.  Once I create a new banner graphic for it everything will be full steam ahead!