Smartie's Bar & Grill #73

Just for the mashing and lautering. Everything else (heating the water, boiling the wort, the cold break) was done outside.

 

No More Kenny.
The Legend { Kenny Rogers } has left us.A truly nice guy
and welcome performer.Who swooned the gals and made
gents feel more like gentlemen of the Country persuation.

 

Corona thought for the day "Be kind and if you can't be kind at least be rude 12 feet away."

 

Remember when the news of the day was what President Trump tweeted that PO'd the media. That was the good old days.

 

Before I forget "Good morning all and stay safely isolated."

 

Not to be confused or conflated with the Brits and their :
- Carry on Cleo - { 1964 } and Carry On serious of flicks.
- Carry on Cruising -
- Carry on Cabby -
- Carry on Cowboy -
Howz about Not Carry on Coronavirus.
I think we just about done over did it.
Like a Nice Steak ruined by poking to many times on the
Barby and charring it to death.

 

I've about had it with the news. I think I'm going to place myself into isolation from the media...

 

I am certainly sick of corona and I don't have it. I don't want to read about it, think about it..I am sick of it.

 

Good morning fellow isolationists. If only I could figure out how to make my laptop DING DING DING when an email comes in, I could take a nap.

 

The painted bunting has migrated on and now the Indigo bunting season is almost here. The most interesting thing about the Indigo Bunting and the Painted Bunting they fly at night and use the stars to navigate.

 

Are you on an email watch for your job? Are the emailers in isolation too?

 

Yes, they've closed our bldg as of today so everybody is teleworking now.

 

Some of the offices here are closed too. Other than being boring and distracting is working from home ok for you? I tried working from home once and I found myself sitting up all night trying to get deadlines done...because I had too many do-me's at home

 

It's rather boring because I don't really have anything to do. Checking out online training.. I can sleep thru. Lol

Was pretty busy last week and enjoyed it. Now with everybody working from home, just have to wait til I'm assigned something.

 

System wide crash of our network. Good time for lunch.

 

Is the Stainless pot the Fermenter.? Is that a pop off valve in the
middle.Outside makes for Bacteria.That's why a Brewery has to be
spotless.Most homes harbor bacteria and that is an enemy of a homebrewer.
I know a lot of Homebrewers like to craft beer in their basement.
More because it's probably cooler.Fermenting beer using an ale
yeast requires a temp around 70 degree.
A pilsner or lager using a Lager yeast requires a temp around
20 degree cooler.A Lager yeast will not activate at the same temp
as an Ale yeast.

 

We have people coming from the big city to hide.

It's hard to blame them, but they're buying up our food and maybe bringing the black death with them.

 

Or just do more Homebrewing.It used to take me like a full day to
brew up a batch and then another day to sanitize every bottle and
prime and cap for aging.Plus ya gotta find a store that carries the right
brewing stuff like packs of refrigerated liquid yeast and fresh hops and
maybe little stuff like new pop off valves and stirring utensils or
what nots.I used to figger how much I saved by Homebrewing.
Considering what a sic pack of mere premium beer costs.
Get that Craft microbrewery stuff and yer lookin' at like
14-16$ for a 4 pack.Granted it's a lot stronger.
I never liked that Founder's Breakfast stout.I bough a 4 pack
and gave 2 bottles away.I just went downstairs and found an old
unopened bottle of Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout.
I must have forgot about it.Been down in the corner goin' on
10 years or more.No way I'll open it.Vintage beer is a dangerous
pastime.Yer drinking poison { if like 20-30 years or older }.

 

Very frustrating day of computer problems.

 

Gin has got to be about The Only booze I won't touch.
Gin is not at all like Vodka.Gin is mostly all the same.
Very one-dimentional as far as making.
Bourbon is becoming Way too complicated.
Vodka is in it's prime but also getting costly.
Scotch has been expensive and getting more so by the year.
I notice that now Rye is the New Great booze.Commanding
almost unheard of pricetags.In the Movie - The Lost Weekend - { 1945 }
best Picture,Don Birman { Ray Miland ,Best Actor } made a big deal
about pouring his favorite ... Rye.None a that fancy stuff for me.
Just plain old Rye.

Don Birman : " Just give me another drink."
Nat : " Mr.Birman this is the morning. "
Don Birman : " That's when you need it most -- in the morning { weak voice }
Haven't you learned that yet ? At night this stuffs a drink.In the morning,
it's medicine."

 

A manager at an Aldi told me that every Aldi receives 24 pallets of TP every night. The population in Waxahachie is small enough that you should be able to find some for an hour or two every morning. I found some in Aldi in Carrollton this morning. FYI.

 

Ok, which one of you guys is this? Fess up now!

 

The big stainless steel pot is my 10 gallon brew kettle:



As you can see there's a thermometer and a spigot on the front for draining the wort into the fermenter after the boil and cold break. The picture I took was before all that when I was lautering the water in the mash tun into the brew kettle before the boil.

This is what my fermenter looks like:



There's a hole on the top of the fermenter where you can stick an airlock or a blow-off hose to let the CO2 escape during fermentation. I've got two of those and a 6.5 gallon glass carboy, and all three are full of ale right now.

I've got the Irish Red Ale in one SS fermenter going through primary fermentation, a batch of Maibock in another undergoing secondary fermentation and a batch of Märzenbier (aka "Oktoberfest") doing secondary in the carboy. The Märzenbier is ready to bottle so the next time it rains over a weekend I'll bottle that and let it carbonate and condition for another 3 months. I like to give a Märzenbier at least 6 months before we drink it.

Several years ago my lovely wife bought all that equipment along with this beast (Blichmann Hellfire Burner) for Christmas:



I must've been a good boy that year.

Last year I bought the Igloo coolers and accessories for all-grain brewing.

I've also got a few hop plants growing in my back yard (three Cascades and a Mt. Hood - I'm not sure if my Williamette survived last Fall's drought yet) and I'll be buying a few more American varieties of German noble hops from Great Lakes Hops:

https://www.greatlakeshops.com/retail---shop-now.html

I like GLH because they sell hop plants for the same price others charge for rhizomes. Hops are invasive as hell so they're easy to propagate, so once you've got a good female plant you can make other plants from cuttings. The difficult part is that hops tend to be cool weather plants so a lot of them don't like our hot and humid climates in the South. The Cascade hops I grow tolerate those conditions best out of all the hop varieties. I think Chinook is the second best hop for Southern climes.