Growler Temp

A pretty cool post about testing the temperature of the new double walled stainless steel growlers out now....


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Hops

So my hop trellis I made and used the past couple years got smashed when the tree fell from Sandy. I didn't notice this until I fixed the fence. I was planning on just piecing it back together but when I pulled it out it was in more pieces than I thought. I decided to scrap it and build something new.

I wanted to rig something with all twine so they could climb it better than the chicken wire. I went to Home Depot and just got a couple 8' pieces of the cheapest wood I could find, figuring I'd come up with something. Here it is...

It looked like it might work, assuming the hops follow the twine even though it's a slightly different direction and faces the Sun differently. After it rain though, the taught twine sagged and actually touched the roof. I did my best to elevate them so that wouldn't happen but it wasn't enough. I'm probably going to have to try to tighten them. I'll do it when they are wet so hopefully that will keep them tight and off the roof.

Depending how this works, next year I could rig something to the side of the garage going straight up from the ground and have the bines just travel up. That could be ideal as long as I design it so it's easy to take down for harvest.

Until then, they are currently around 8' tall or so and doing well. I'm expecting a better yield than last year: 2 oz dried.

Bitter

I brewed an English Ordinary Bitter last Friday. I'd been planning on it for a while so had all the stuff for it and a Best Bitter to be brewed in a couple weeks. Both will be based on the last time I brewed them back to back a couple years ago. The BB took a ribbon but the B might have been infected in the bottle. The recipes this time around are different but hopefully close or improved upon.

For the Bitter I used 4# Maris Otter, 2# Pale and .25# Aromatic. The malt smelled wonderful once it was milled. A lot more life to it than the North American stuff I've been using as a base. It was bittered and flavored with 1 oz of both UK Fuggle and East Kent Goldings; Fermented with Whitbread Yeast. The pack of yeast was manufactured back in December and only swelled a little when smacked, but I didn't bother making a starter since the OG was 1.032. It was eventually showing activity after 48 hours.

This continues my brewing to get away from Hops for a bit. Though I do have some set aside for a 4-Hop IPA sometime this Summer. Until then we'll have the Kolsch, Bitter, Best Bitter, and a couple Lagers. I visited 'Wrence over the weekend and took back some malt from the Brewery. Some more Pilsner and some Vienna. I'm thinking a German Pils and a Vienna Lager will have to happen back to back. I picked up some Pilsen yeast and Saaz hops at the Homebrew store recently. I was there dropping off the Kolsch for the Merrimack Valley Comp in two weeks. I'm not sure it's ready or medal worthy but it seems pretty good so we'll see how it does. I don't have a lot experience with the Style so I'll be curious what they say about it either way.

That's all for now....

For the Birds

This Spring we were lucky to have a bird make a nest on a column on our front porch. We saw no problem with it and were excited to watch some young birds grow. It took the Mom a few days to build the nest and we followed her progress from when we first noticed it forming. She then sat up there often but sometimes left for food during the day.

We kept waiting to hear little chirps, knowing she was sitting on eggs, but never heard any. Then all of sudden we saw three little beaks sticking up out of the nest. That was only about a week ago, last Friday. They seemed to get noticeably larger every day this week. Today I saw one almost full size, standing up on their own. It chirped real quick and then flew away. According to this growth chart for birds I guess this is normal. They never made any noise so they must have been a little over a week old when we finally noticed them. Then they grew more this week and now have already left the nest. I'm not sure if it's for good or not but we'll keep an eye on it.

Here's a picture I took this morning of the last bird before it took flight. The second picture is one I took a few days ago but farther away so tough to see...

Overnight French Toast

I made this once before but this past weekend rocked out some Overnight French Toast. Basically it's just letting the bread soak in the egg/milk mixture overnight so it sucks it all up like a sponge. Then in the morning you just pop it in the oven and you're good to go. Challah is the winner when it come to bread for French Toast, and here is no exception.

For added goodness a little "caramel like" sauce was mixed up using butter and brown sugar. It was added to the pan first and then you plate it upside down. You really don't need anything else added as it's sweet and moist enough as is.

I think the recipe was a dozen eggs with 3-4 cups milk and a little cinnamon. The topping was 1 stick of butter with 1.5 cups of brown sugar.

I forgot to take a picture of the final product, and I'm also having trouble getting pictures to rotate the right way, but you get the gist of it.

8 Seconds of Froth

The beers I sent did not place this year. This is the fourth year I've entered and the first time I've come away empty handed. One category had 35 entries so I don't feel too bad about that. The Specialty category had 20 something I think, but another Black IPA took second...ggrrrr. I guess mine wasn't up to snuff this year. I'll have to wait and see what they said about it on the score sheets. Overall I just wanted to win something from the four entries this Spring and since I took two ribbons in the South Shore Brewoff I'm happy. I did notice a couple tables had only 2-7 entries. I'll have to remember that for next year as it would mean a better chance of placing. Light, Amber and Dark lagers may be a go late next Winter....

There is a new competition coming up by the Merrimack Valley Homebrew Club. Last year was their first year. It looks cool but I'm not sure I can enter anything new. They need it by the 18th, this Saturday. My Pale Ale kicked so I plan on getting the Kolsch kegged and carbed this week but I'm not sure if it'll be ready for competition yet...or if it's even good enough to bother to send. I'll see how it is when I get it on tap and figure it out.

Stairs

Back when we did our "stair rehab" we always thought of adding a carpet runner, but they can be pricey. With our aging dog having trouble with the slippery hard wood on her paws and our son now mobile we decided to revisit this and find something more affordable: carpet stair treads.

After some trouble finding the right size, we found a place in NH that made them all for us and promised to cut them to exactly 9" in depth so they would work. We learned the hard way that 9" to some companies means 9 3/4". We had them make rugs for the landings too while we were at it. It was surprisingly not that expensive all considered. We put them down using carpet tape. This way we didn't put any nail holes in the wood in case we want to remove them someday. The tape will take the finish off but they needed to be refinished anyway, so... It was pretty easy, looks good and does the job and making our stairs a little less dangerous.