Phriendly Phil’s Velociraptor Pharm n’ Pettin’ Zoo

Since the early 90s, the major brewers have made feints in the direction of the craft brewing movement — does anybody remember the all-malt Miller Reserve line, including their Velvet Stout? These excursions, while definitely in the right direction, have never really gone far enough, and have usually been short-lived to boot.

Still, they’ve done nothing to disabuse me of my idea that the brewmasters at AB, Miller (okay, SABMiller) and Coors (okay, Molson Coors) are real pros, and if the marketing and accounting let them off the leash, they could make a world class Bud (Coors, Miller) Stout.

Apparently Anheuser-Busch has filed for label approval of Bud Ale, due out in October. The label mentions Cascade hops and that it’s brewed “with barley from America’s Heartland,” although it’s not clear whether this will be an all-malt beer.

I’ll probably pick up a sixer when it rolls around in October, to see how it turns out. I’m not expecting too much, but maybe, just maybe, this time the brewmasters are getting to run a little freer.

Thanks to Seen Through a Glass.

EDIT: Read the last paragraph of this.  Like I say, these guys are good — it’s just that making insipid beer is their job.

Last weekend I cut down some old yews that were becoming overgrown near our deck.

Today I dragged the carcasses to the burn pile. My 4-year-old son is going through a particularly helpful phase, and dragged a lot of this wood to the pile with me.

Later, as naptime approached, I flashed the fingers of both hands at him, telling him that he had “this many minutes” left to play before his nap.

“And then this many?” he said, showing me the fingers of his left hand.

“No, this many,” I said, repeating the original offer.

“I helped you lots today,” he said.

“You stinker,” I laughed, “you’re calling in a favor on me!”

I gave him fifteen, and then some.

A masterpiece on Gamers with Jobs:

This is just to say

I’m sorry that I
unloaded a whole clip
of 10mm JHP

Into you
Ian
Dogmeat
and Tycho

Forgive me.
I am not yet used to
How this SMG vibrates
And you guys were in the way

Ezra Klein writes:

As Sarah Arnquist has written, aside from his awful internment in a Vietnamese prison camp, it is hard to find a day in McCain’s life when he was not sheltered by the government-run health care he now claims to loathe. Born the son of a Navy admiral, he was cared for by Navy physicians during his childhood. After graduating from high school, he enrolled in the U.S. Military Academy, and the military’s care continued until he retired from the service in 1981. In 1982, he won a seat in Congress, ushering him into the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program, and in 2001, he qualified for Medicare. When he says, “we have the highest quality of health care in the world in America,” he is speaking as a man who has enjoyed a lifetime of government-run care.

Don’t forget to pull the ladder up after you, McCain!

This brew gets its name because almost 1/3 of the grain bill, and half the hops, were ingredients that I’d had in my fridge or other storage since sometime around 2004. All smelled and tasted fresh (with the exception of one ounce of the Magnum hops, which had an aroma that I could only describe as “silage” and which made me regret not opening the hops beforehand for a sniff. The odor dissipated rather quickly as the wort heated up.)

This is my first all-grain batch since 2004.

The tale of the tape, courtesy of Beersmith:

Brewed 4/20/2008

10.75 gallons

21.00 lb Brewers Malt 2-Row (Briess)
1.00 lb Caramel Malt - 10L (Briess)
1.00 oz Magnum (US) (old 2) [12.24 %] (60 min) (First Wort Hop)
1.00 oz Magnum (US) (old) [11.66 %] (60 min) (First Wort Hop)
2.00 oz Cascade (old) [1.81 %] (15 min)
2.00 oz Amarillo [8.30 %] (2 min)
2.00 oz Cascade (new NB 2) [6.90 %] (2 min)

Fermentis US-05 yeast

Measured Original Gravity: 1.054 SG
Bitterness: 44.8 IBU
Est Color: 4.2 SRM

Odd observation — I pitched the same strain of yeast into both fermenters, but from two different lots and vendors. The yeast I bought from Northern Brewer, lot number 11 2008 OQBC, had a much longer lag than the yeast I bought from MoreBeer, with lot number 05 2009 VWBC. Has anybody else noticed this?

Two of my favorite software bloggers, Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky, have joined forces at stackoverflow.com.

This ought to be good.

Pursuant to a discussion on the Northern Brewer forums, here’s a spreadsheet comparing various hop varieties. Data comes from Brew Your Own.

I drank a couple of pints of the oiled ale last night.

There is a good hop aroma in the nose, and a nice dark copper color. Head formation is pretty good — the oil definitely doesn’t appear to have hurt in this respect.

Tasting, the first impression is of powerful hop bitterness. It is almost too much for this beer, as it’s fairly light-bodied, but it is an acceptable level of bitterness. It’s fairly intensely fruity, which is not surprising given that it was seriously underpitched, and there is a nice spiciness from the Mount Hood finishing hops.

Next time I will probably dial back the bittering hops a bit, and pitch more yeast.

Vital statistics from Beersmith:

Measured Original Gravity: 1.039 SG
Measured Final Gravity: 1.006 SG
Actual Alcohol by Vol: 4.29 %
Bitterness: 37.7 IBU
Est Color: 10.6 SRM

Brewed 2/18/2008
Kegged 3/29/2008

EDIT: Tasting again tonight, I am thinking that I am getting a whiff of diacetyl. Again, not surprising given the underpitching, but I don’t think it ruins the beer.

I have to keep reminding myself of that.

It’s not clear from the previous post how I will get one chest freezer to keep things at two different temperatures. That’s because it’s impossible to do that with just a chest freezer.

What I plan to do is to keep the chest freezer cold enough to maintain the lowest temperature I need held. Anything that needs to be warmer will be heated to the proper temperature, probably with a heating pad.

One of the features planned for this temperature controller is a “master cool” mode, where the master cooling device will not run as long as everything is already cool enough. In my case, this would be the freezer, and the idea is that if the freezer does not run constantly, energy will be saved.

I got a nice bonus at work last month, and decided to get a new toy. After toying with the idea of setting up a ventilation system so I could brew in the basement, I decided to set up a temperature controller so I can keep better control of the fermentation temperature of my beers.

Now, there are some nice controllers available on the market, but they run around $50 for analog or $80 for digital, and only control one device. This would be good for fermentation, but it would be nice to also be able to use the same cooler for serving beers, which would be too cold for ale fermentations.

I had heard a lot about the Arduino and a quick question to Professor Google brought me to an article on uC Hobby describing a project by Sean Coates that did just what I was thinking of.

I decided to run with the Arduino, and at first an LED display, but I quickly decided that I wanted a serial LCD display so as to take up fewer output lines. A brief deliberation led me to stick with the thermistors of Coates’ original design, rather than LM-35 or 1-Wire sensors (Coates has since gone to LM-35s.) I decided on a 4-channel controller, although I may change my mind on that.

I ordered the Bare Bones Board by Modern Device, and also a low-cost serial LCD driver kit and LCD display which they sell. Since the BBB does not have a USB driver as the official Arduino boards do (why have one just for programming the thing) I also bought a USB cable from them for programming.

I bought ten thermistors on eBay for around 60 cents each, shipped. For around 45 dollars, I bought six Opto22 solid state relays (these are $22 new from the manufacturer.) Total costs, including the cable, are $110 so far, and I have extra thermistors and SSRs for another project.

Next post — clipping leads and heading to Radio Shack, or: re-learning soldering.