Tom Kern – Page 23 – Rollingskull

The mysteries of fermentation…..

3 batches of beer and three different experiences in the fermentation department. I have to say I did not expect there to be this much variation in how the wort gets converted into beer via the yeast.

The first batch was a text book case of fermentation. Within 24 hours there was alot of CO2 being produced and the air lock went nuts for about three days. By day 10 it had been quiet for 48 hours and I transferred the beer.

Batch 2, wasn’t as by the book it took 36 hours for fermentation to really set in. When it was done there wasn’t nearly the yeast layer on the bottom as there was from the first batch.

This third batch has just been goofy… it was 20 hours when fermentation appeared to be in full effect. The air lock wasn’t bubbling at all and the beer was quiet most of the week. The funny thing was the air lock never did anything. And then last night I checked on the beer and I noticed two things. 1.) it smelled like Banana’s in beer fridge. 2.) The bubble layer on the top of the beer was now two different shades of cream instead of one. once I started to pay attention to things a little bit closer I noticed that the air lock was bubbling not constantly, but about once every 4 to 5 seconds.

The other thing that I have noticed is the consitentcy of the color of the beer has not changed in the course of the last week. I do not know if that is a normal part of brewing since this is the first batch that has not been done in a water bath. So for thoses of you paying attention it’s basicaly the first batch that has not been fermented in a trash can.

Also of note is the fact I’m using a live yeast culture instead of the normal powdered stuff. So this may be a side effect of that or it may be more along the lines of the wort was to hot when I pitched the yeast and the survivors have finally made it to a critical mass of fermentation.

And since this post is truly useless with out pictures I now provide you with a photo gallery of the beer from the last week.

Sunday July 27th at about 13:00 (Brew+ 13 hours). Notice the patchiness of the yeast layer. On the top of the carboy.

Please tilt your neck to the right to see this picture in the proper orentation. July 27th at about 20:00 (brew + 21 hours) notice the dark brown spots and the loose consitency of the yeast layer. I have no clue what that means. Also you would expect the air lock to be doing something at this point, however there was no activity at all.

The smells like banana’s stage. August 3rd 15:00 (Brew + 7days 14 hours). The ar lock going every 4 to 5 seconds. Noitce the light cream areas on the yeast layer. Those are new and have been shift all day.

On the subject of Master Chief….

I’m glad I only paid $20 for Halo 3… the single player campaign left something to be desired. (a balanced experince would be a good place to start)

In Halo’s defense… it is supposed to be primarily a online game not a single player game.

I’m just happy I didn’t pay $60 for it.

On the subject of Niko Bellic…

So after just over 2 months and about 44 hours I beat the main story of Grand Theft Auto 4 last night. Yes how exciting is my life when I’m talking about beating a video games. That is not really the point of this post. The point of this post is the single player experince on a console.

I had forgotten what the single player experinice on the console could be like. The last time a game enthralled me this much was 1998 with “The Legend of Zelda: Orconia of time” which is in my book the best Zelda game to date. I do have the Zelda games for Wii and Gamecube, but I got through about 80% of them and then put them down. I just lost interest same thing with the last three metroid games too (and just for the record there the best one of the series is probally still Super Metroid from 1993). I don’t know what it is about the Grand Theft Auto game that has kept my attention. It had a pretty good story which is a nice change of pace, it’s wasn’t the classic play the good guy or play the bad guy, all of the characters had depth of some sort even the secondary back ground characters. And no it wasn’t the random senseless violence of it all either, though I will admit that launching a few RPG’s down a busy street in the game does have a certain amount of fun to it all. Then again so does running from the cops.

I wish I had the same love for the multi-player experience on Xbox Live. While Xbox Live is the best service amongst the current generation of platforms (I didn’t care for it when I borrowed the PS3 and the online mulitplayer in MarioKart makes me want to dig out my eyes) I just don’t like it. I was talking with Curtis about online multiplayer games and we basically came to the same opionion that it still isn’t there on the console like it’s been there on the PC for 10+ years now. And I think that this the problem for me is I’ve been playing on line on a PC for so long that I have very high expectations. Now by no means is the PC multiplayer experince unified, but at least it’s a consistent part of just about every game that comes out these days.

So that brings me back to the ultimate question. Is the current PC the last one I will build just to be a gaming rig? Right now I don’t know, there is a certain simplicty about just dropping $500 every 5 years for a new console instead of a $1000 ever two to three years (depending on new technology and what games your buying) and that is not including the new video card that is pretty much a standard upgrade every 18 months at this point. I think that I will always be a multi platform house. I like games and I like them in their natural enviroment. Right now the console ecosystem seems to be the more robust ecosystem for the single player or limited multi player experince. If you want to do a MMO the PC is really your only choice, well until Sony and Microsoft get their respective acts together and allow for cross platform play on a third party back end.

OH wait that’s a when hell freezes over kind of thing.

Batch #3… Dead Rouge Honey Ale

The Dead Rouge Ale kit is in the carboy and fermentation is under way. I did a adjunct of 7 or 8 ounces of Mesquite honey from Flagstaff. I added the hone in the last 10 minutes of the boil at the same time as the aroma hops.

I’m interested to see how the beer turns out, I didn’t pull back on any of the malt or candy I don’t think it will be a overly sweet beer. You never know with home brew though that’s part of the joy.

Also brewing in the backyard worked much better then brewing in the garage, more space and less cleanup after a boil over.

15 days in the carboy, and then the keg.

Tapping happens on the first monday night football game of the season.

And before I forget….

I did finally resolve my carbonation issues with my last batch of beer. I need to remember it’s ok to super saturate it the beer for a couple of days not the whole time it’s conditioning in the keg.

So good to know. Also good to note is that conditioning should take place under gentle pressure (like the first beer).

Ok that is all.

Aren’t you glad you get to read all of this Eve?

A little bit of this and a little bit of that….

Went to the Homebrew depot today and picked up a new kit. It’s a licensed kit from the Rouge brewery in Oregon. I also got a nice validation from the owner of Homebrew depot when we were talking about kits and what people have done with them.

Turns out that kits in Homebrew are much more forgiving then the cake and cookie mixes you get from Safeway (lets not talk about my experience with cake and cookie mixes). Actually it was just nice to chat with such a experienced person about brewing in general.

So tonight when the sun goes down I light up the 60,000 btu burner and do up a batch of beer. I’m starting a little early on the teach a friend to homebrew, hey you never know what will come out of it.

Oh and as for the project for the cooler… that is on hold for that moment since I can’t seem to get my stuff together to try pull it off. It’s not like I don’t have a ton of free time 🙂

Viva La Revolucion!!!

Apply little tilde like marks where appropriate in the above title.

Also the revolucion will not be telvised due to wide spread piracy.

6 Days and no iPhone… I know one of you has to be proud. You know if I didn’t have 5 fucking bars where ever I went with the blackberry I would still be standing in line for a iPhone.

Other random droppings from the brain this evening….

The 2.6 upgrade to wordpress wasn’t nearly as traumatic as I remember the 2.5.1 upgrade being. So either I’m good with the whole self upgrade thing or I just don’t care.

While on the subject of wordpress blogs… if you haven’t already go ahead and subscribe to the XML feed for this puppy. I don’t consider it my main blog…. yet. But with the way I’ve been rolling the last couple of weeks I would say the bets are pretty good.

Also far fewer people know about this one which appeals to the recluse in me.

Also I seem to have completely fucked up the email MX records between godaddy and google… ah yes the whole reason I didn’t want to give up the blogger blog. So the lack of comment publishing will continue (mainly because there are no comments to publish)

Also with the semi-official transition to the new somewhat official blog I’m also transferring the “we don’t talk about work rule” the rules about politics and religion will also stay in place. Pizza is now a acceptable subject.

In the on going saga of….

My quest to post by email on the damn godaddy blog.

There is actually a forum thread out there about this little “problem” and I’m not the only having a issue with it. So that’s good right?

Well it would be better if the fine folks at Godaddy didn’t offer WordPress as a installable application on their hosting sites.

Drum roll please…. even if I didn’t install this myself and used the GoDaddy install option “Post By Email” probally would not work.

Damit Jim… I’m a blogger not a doctor.

5 fucking bars….

Little known fact… I’m a cell phone whore…

I upgrade cell phones on the order of every 12 to 18 months. Sometimes way less (6 months for a LG slider several years ago) and very rarely ever more (There was a samsung flip phone that I had for damn near 20 months and I finally just got sick of) So yes I’m a bit of a cell phone whore. I’m almost to 8 months on the current phone (a Silver Blackberry 8130) which works really really really well. The calls are always clear, it’s easy to txt message on, and I always have coverage with my wireless provider (Verizon, it’s the network don’t you know).

2nd little known fact… I’m a Apple whore…

I’m like all things Apple, Steve Jobs could shit diaherra call it the iShit and I would probally still think about buying it. And if it the “iShit” came in colors I would probally buy one, but it would just be the plain brown one because I’m too cool for a colored “iShit”

So as you can imagine I’m in a bit of a quandry since my two whorish tendancies are about about to come together again at a new lower price, bigger capacity, 3G, and a two year contract.

Did I mention I’m no longer under contract to Verizon?

As you can guess it’s been a rough couple of days… Really the only thing keeping me from getting a iPhone is the AT&T network in Phoenix. Which depending on who you talk to is either really good or really shitty.

Other factors?

The cell repeaters at work don’t do AT&T, you know thats kind of important when you spend a portion of your day in a led lined room.

Not 32GB, I will be honest if they come out with a 32GB version I will probally not be able to stop myself… unless it’s $400 in which case I will go buy a new blackberry not under contract and call it good.

I don’t want to be under contract again… yes it’s a little more expensive for the phones. I do like having the option to leave at any time merely because I feel like it.

Everyone at work uses Verizon… this shouldn’t matter but it does I use just as many in calling minutes as I do anytime minutes. If I switched I would have to doubly my minutes at a minimum

And so the iShit whore stays put for the time being and hopes that the black berry touch screen thing turns out to be a good phone and email machine… because lets be honest the only thing I care about it phone call quality and txt messaging.

Houses in motion…

I’m still undecide what I’m going to do with this little space of the intertubes.

The good news is it’s paid through the end of the year…. the bad news is I have to pay for it.

While I do enjoy the fact that I can have total and complete control of my blog, I don’t want to spend the weekends working on it because I borked some upgrade (which lets face it if I bork a upgrade it’s my own damn fault for not backing up the database before I bork the bolg)(hmmm that much “bork” that close together is kind of dirty… I guess “bork” and “3 thrusts” have something in common)

So there is that, the other side to the coin is that there isn’t much traffic here which I do like. Basically read that as unless your really looking for it your not likely to find this piece of drivel. To me that is a plus in my own weird way.

So I clicked off “Secure Empty Trash” 10 minutes ago on the Macbook Pro and it just now finshed deleting 5.7k items. I guess we know it’s thorough.

I guess my biggest damage with the whole blogger thing is I can’t post photo’s here via phone because of the way that godaddy has their hosting. And I don’t want to move my blog to another host because I have alot files other then the blog I keep out on this webspace (nothing cool just pictures if you know where to look).

So in other news I applied for a PACS job in Denver. Mainly just for the hell of it, and to see how I truly feel about my current employer. I guess when I put down “fishing for a lunker” as a reason for wanting to work someplace I know I’m pretty happy where I’m at.