Daylight Spendings.

A busy weekend is behind us; we spent Saturday out in Easton with the Morris clan, eating delicious food and hiking through a nature preserve. Finn missed her nap on the way over (we left from her dance class) and crashed about mid-afternoon, which meant I carried her for most of the hike. The trees were in full color, and the entire trip was bathed with golds, yellows, and greens just beginning to turn.

Back at the homestead, we finally took a saw to the holly tree in the front yard, trimming the bottom 5′ back to the trunk; it’s amazing how much it opens up the front yard. I hauled brush, mowed the lawn, painted a cabinet, fixed the upstairs sink, and tore the passenger-side exhaust down on the Scout to find I need a new gasket above the heat riser; I think I’m going support my Light Line dealers and wrap that purchase in with new shop manuals.

I also tried the IPA on Saturday evening, and I’m very, very pleased with the results. It’s rich, full-flavored, and has no trace of caramel or molasses undertones. I brought some next door to the neighbors’ for the Sunday evening football game, and he agreed with me. I’m hoping this will be the motivation he needs to buy supplies to brew himself.

The big honkin’ HP LaserJet is now installed and running at work; after cracking it open, cleaning off the transfer drum and installing new cartridges the other day, it’s printing much, much cleaner and seems to be happier. I have to haul the Phaser back to the house and set it up somewhere quiet, but I’m not looking forward to humping it up the stairs.

Busy During Snowtime.

Compare and Contrast:

Let’s see.

• Our hand-me-down IKEA shelf is assembled and in the den (temporarily).
• The coal cellar has been de-insulated and shot with Tigerfoam, as well as the southeast corner of the basement.
• The 4,000 ton color printer is broken down and loaded in the Scout, ready to be driven to work.
• The server is high and dry in the front corner of the basement.
• Finn made it to dance class during the middle of the ice storm.
• There’s 5 gallons of Pumpkin Ale fermenting in the basement.
• My DJ Lance costume is assembled and ready for tomorrow.

Bottled Up.

I got about two cases of IPA bottled last night, after a brief panic about bottlecaps. In an hour, I’d washed and sanitized three cases of bottles but only counted out 49 bottlecaps. A quick text to Mr. Scout confirmed I could stick any remainder in a growler for the short-term, but as it turned out I only got about 4½ gallons from the fermenter. After siphoning off the good stuff, that was down to about 4¼ and I had three fingers of sludge at the bottom, two of which were good but muddy beer. I bottled the clear stuff and added a little sugar to the mud, bottling that separately and marking the caps. I figure it’ll settle in a few weeks and the last few sips will have extra, uh, flavor.

I also ordered more Tigerfoam for the basement, which should come in in the next week or so. The plan is to shoot the outside sill of the coalroom and any remaining sill in the basement that didn’t get hit on the first pass, then use any remainder for the wall back in the coalroom. Then I’ll put up kneewalls and insulate to try and keep the heat inside.

Demolishing, Repairing, Moving, and Wiring

What a difference the right cough medicine makes. First I tried the CVS knockoff of Robitussin, which did absolutely zero for my cough, increased my snot output from six tissues an hour to twelve, and made my throat hurt worse. Then I tried Mucinex, which was exactly what I didn’t need. Let’s just say that my nose was not meant to expel that much fluid, ever. I went back to Dayquil, and life is good again.

A few weeks ago, during the height of Hurricane Irene, a big tree landed on our friends’ porch, flattening it. While we were blessed to have escaped the storm with no damage, we wanted to do anything we could to help them, so I offered my back and our truck to get it into a dumpster as quickly as possible.

Saturday morning I loaded up the Scout with the Sawzall and an assortment of heavy demolition tools, and found a group of men discussing strategy from underneath the fallen roof. We lightened the free-standing side by removing shingles, then split it in half with a chainsaw and broke up the clean side.

The heavy side was another problem. It came down and wedged itself between the house and one of the concrete pillars, with the pivot point directly above the door—a beautifully restored Craftsman, surrounded by original stained glass. After some discussion, I suggested putting a rope on it and pulling it off with the Scout, which wound up being the plan.

Five minutes of tying knots, a minute to spin the hubs, a light foot on the gas, and the whole thing pivoted up and on to the pillars. We adjusted the ropes and I pulled it off onto the lawn, where we broke it up and had it into the dumpster by noon.

After finishing up there, I headed home and did some Scout maintenance while waiting for the roofing guy. I installed some snaps on the soft top, wire-wheeled and POR-15′d some rust areas, tried scooting the Tuffy console forward, and pulled the drivers’ door panel off to make sure the linkage was working correctly.

The roofing guy brought his proposal over, and it looks really good. I like this guy, he has a BBB A+ rating, and my neighbor (anal retentive in a good way) recommended him. We’re going for it. I’ll be very, very sad to see the slate go, but happier to have a 30-year roof with a ridge vent in place for winter.

Today I helped another friend move his office out of his basement and into a converted church in Oella; between moving computers and running wire and testing equipment, I spent six hours making sure things go smoothly for him on Monday. When I got home, my girls had returned from Southern Maryland with St. Mary’s County ham, fried oysters, and several sides from the fall dinner, which I’d missed. Thank you ladies!

In other news, my IPA is in a secondary fermenter with the hops, and will be there for another two weeks. Im looking at a pumpkin ale for batch #5, and my neighbor (he of the commercial kegerator) is going to give me his single regulator as well as sell me his C02 tank so that he can upgrade. So I may be able to keg the IPA when it’s ready, depending on the timing.

Roofing, Coughing, Brewing, and Drawing

We had a visit from the roofing guy this morning, who climbed up to the peak like a billygoat and measured the whole thing out. He’s recommending we do the front porch roof when we do the slate section, which is probably a good idea, and he’s going to quote us for the gutter on the back side as well. So hopefully we’ll know something in a few days.

I haven’t been writing around here much; it seems like the days are flying by. Finn has been home with a fever and a cough since yesterday, and Mama and I both feel something in our throats too. Hopefully we can fight off whatever might be brewing in our immune systems.

Speaking of brewing, I have IPA in the basement almost ready for its second fermentation period. The foam is gone and the airlock is pretty quiet, so it’s just about time to transfer to a secondary carboy and dry-hop the brew for another week or two. The problem is that I don’t have another carboy, so I’m going to have to buy or borrow one in a big hurry. My neighbor is talking about replacing his single regulator with a dual-pressure version (for homebrew and commercial kegging) and offered his single to me—which constitutes much of the cost of a kegging setup.

Tonight I’m going to go back for my second night of figure drawing class this fall; I’ve got brushes this time, so I should be able to pick up where I left off in the summer.

IPA in the Fermenter

I invited our neighbor over on Saturday evening to observe as I brewed a kettle of beer. This time everything seemed to go a lot smoother, excepting some wonky readings with Jen’s candy thermometer as we cooled the wort down. This time I boiled it right around 200° and made sure not to let it burn at the bottom of the kettle, as well as making sure the final wort wasn’t too hot to kill the yeast. Once it was in the fermenter, the entire basement filled with the scent of hops as it started bubbling. The krauzen is much thicker this time, and there’s a layer of hops at the top, which tells me it’s working hard.

Random.

Lots of things are happening around here, but I haven’t had time to write them all down. In no particular order:

My sister-in law and fiance asked me to come and take a look at a house they were considering purchasing in the Hunting Ridge neighborhood. A little Google-Fu revealed it was the former house of some acquaintances we’d made through friends who live two doors down the street. It’s a beautiful house from the street, but over a year of being on the market hasn’t been kind to it. Walking in the door, I was immediately faced with debris left behind, which included clothes, papers, books, a drum kit, mattresses, and most hauntingly, piles of toys. Knowing the couple had split up, and that their departure was most likely done in a hurry was depressing. In a more positive note, I was snooping through the basement by the light of my iPhone (I hadn’t had time to go home and fetch a flashlight) and came upon an old Cones and Rods poster with my name on it.

Yesterday, before bed, Jen, Finn and I spent about a half an hour playing with a balloon left over from the birthday party. All we did was play a game of keep-it-in-the-air. Time stopped; she giggled.

I have a new brewing kit ready to go, if and when I get some free time to brew it: it’s called Chinook IPA, and it’s a two-step fermentation recipe. I’m already down to about 18 bottles of the English Pale Ale, which has settled down from its initial molasses-like flavor into something that tastes only mildly caramelized. Brew and learn, I guess.

Due to all the rainfall, I haven’t been in the Scout for two weeks, other than to pull it out of the garage to put the soft top back on. I have to source a new bolt for one of the bow brackets, which disappeared while I was reinstalling everything. I’m also going to buy a pair of pipes to use as sleeves for installation of 3-point seatbelts, which I’ll have welded in when I get back out to Chestertown to have the bumper constructed.

Flickr in the House.

OK, I fixed the issue I was having with my Flickr feed plugin last night; I’m not sure exactly what the issue was, but it’s working now. It seems like a lot of people are using that to get to my Flickr account, because as soon as it went down my view counts dropped to zero, and now that it’s back up my counts are back up again.

Sadly, it looks like the fuckheads running Yahoo are looking to sell it to somebody; apparently AOL is interested in buying/merging the company, which means nothing but trouble. So, added to my housekeeping list for the site: shopping around for a new method of serving photos (or adding them all to the site itself).

I’ve been holding back on tying my Facebook account to my Flickr feed, and I rarely link to weblog posts on Facebook, but I’m thinking that having things more tightly organized would be nice.

Brian and I cracked the first two homebrews of the new batch in Corolla, and while they weren’t perfect, they weren’t bad, either. I think the sugars got cooked too hot and caramelized a bit, which gives the batch a slight molasses flavor, not unlike (but not nearly as strong as) the Hefeweizen batch. I poured out 12 more bottles of the Hef on Sunday, and I think there might be one 6-pack left down there.

Wow!

Your humble correspondent, the media star.

…For future reference.

Not So Pale Ale.

Batch number 4 is in the bag (or, I should say, in the fermenter). Everything went a lot smoother, based on the knowledge I gained in Chestertown this past weekend. Brian’s friend Kevin invited us over while he was interviewed for a newspaper article on homebrewing, and while we watched I picked up on a bunch of tips and tricks that helped me avoid a bunch of the gotchas that made my last batch a little suspicious. One of the things I picked up on was only using one bag of ice to cool the wort and then filling the rest with water. And, don’t cover the wort as it’s brewing. I also learned that it’s not really as important when the extract goes in, but all the timing should be based on the hops. I’m also going to need a new hydrometer; this is the second one I’ve broken in three batches. I’m also going to look for a long plastic stirring spoon and a large strainer to make transferring wort cleaner.

Update: I killed my yeast. Turns out the thermometer I have is bad; I checked it vs. a kitchen thermometer we’ve got in the drawer and it’s at least 30° off, so when I added the yeast the wort was still somewhere around 110° or so, which is too hot for the live yeast to live in. We took a trip to Maryland Homebrew and I got a second envelope of ale yeast to add this afternoon; hopefully I can salvage it. Rats!

Update Update: The yeast is partying like it’s Thursday evening down there. Lots of foam, the valve is dancing, and I’m happy.