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What's This Giant Box? Dead Hooker?
No... not a dead hooker... that should ship in a refrigerated container for
freshness!
No, it's my new
Brewmation Electric HLT. EdWort and I bought a custom size, and since we
ordered at the same time, Brewmation was super-cool enough to give both of us a
little cut off our bill!
18 gals of pure water-heatin' fury!
Now I just need to have an outlet run into the new brew room. In the meantime,
I'll set the HLT up in the laundry room, and just move the hot water by
bucketful... It's only about 15' away.
Also took the opportunity to buy a CO Detector this weekend .. $50 at Home
Schlepo... I remembered that I have a spare garden-hose outlet in the basement
shower, and I have two 50' hoses... so I think we're going to give Indoor
Brewing a good ol' college try this weekend.
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Things, stuff, and the universe.
Zomgz. I'm exhausted. Mentally speaking. I've been working on creating and
assembling a new website for my local homebrew club, the Lincoln Lagers, for the
past week. I haven't done "real" web design since perhaps '03 at the latest, so
my skills are beyond rusty.
The new site is graciously hosted for free by Vebra (thanks dude!) and is
running WordPress 2.6.2 and phpBB 3.0.2. I've never coded in PHP before, so all
of the backbone in both of these apps are completely new to me.
Likewise, I never really used CSS for anything (beyond a really basic
LiveJournal layout) and so that's all pretty foreign too.
I'm really, really tired of working on it now. And the worst part is that
because I don't have write access to the old server, I can't put up a
redirector. So, visitors get HTTP/1.1 New Session Failed when they go to
our domain name. The server is physically running, and reachable. All the data
is still there. It just won't process ASP pages. So. I have this great new beta
site, working, and pretty much close to release ready (or at least USABLE), and
... only people to whom I email the link can see it.
http://www.lethalandyoung.net/ if you want to check out what I've put together.
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A new direction...
I sold my keggle last night... and I just placed my order for a 60qt Aluminum
kettle from Sams' Club. I'll be putting in my order for an electric Brewmation
HLT in the next couple of days.
I still need to examine running 220V outlets to my new brew room in the
basement. It shouldn't be a hard task, as it's only about 12-14 feet between the
service panel and the room I'm running the circuit into. The hardest part will
be drilling the concrete block basement wall.
I need to start shopping around for a Craigslist stove to do my full boils on,
OR, I need to keep looking for a industrial-duty hot plate to boil on. I plan to
do electric 10gal batches, so this will be tricky, but I have faith that I can
rig something up.
I still need to tackle the great Grain Mill project. I cleaned up the lint out
of the motor, but I've still got no clue about the posts on the electric switch,
and how to wire it. Also, I've been meaning to go to the farm supply store to
look for pulley sheaves. Might put the Barleywine off another week - both for
the sake of my grain milling, and also for waiting for the new kettle to
arrive.
I think this weekend will be a 10-day mild, to get ready for the OktoBEERfest
charity event, which I'll be serving some beer at.... It'll be good practice for
the 10der and Mild swap.
The next weekend will be either the 2nd Mild for 10der and Mild, or the 09'
Barleywine.
The following weekend will be whichever isn't done by then.
After that, I'm dying to brew a Dry Stout or a Roggenbier, either one.
Otherwise, I still want to do a Pacific Gem SMaSH IPA.
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Full Disclosure & Endorsements
olllllo did a similar list, and I like the idea, so I stole the concept and
replaced the contents (or most of them, anyways)
Chriso....
1. uses foil to cover his starters;
2. prefers Starsan, period;
3. uses a 3-piece airlock for most applications;
5. doesn't own any BBs or carboys, just Ale Pails;
6. is a spigot kind of guy, and only uses his racking cane for BMBFing;
7. uses BeerSmith;
8. uses only Perlick F/S faucets, and recommends everyone do the same;
9. rarely remembers to use Irish Moss;
10. enjoys sour beers and vows to make some someday;
11. wants at least 20 kegs, but only has 10 right now;
12. does not buy arguments against aluminum;
13. wishes he had a Banjo, but instead has a Bayou SQ14;
14. recommends "How to Brew", by John Palmer;
15. also recommends "Complete Joy of Homebrewing" by Charlie Papazian;
16. has never been to a Beer Festival;
17. is an avid batch sparger;
18. rarely uses his hydrometer;
19. doesn't even use his hydrometer correctly IF he remembers to use it;
20. has a crap setup for both fermentation temp control, and wort cooling;
21. drinks way too much Hobgoblin;
22. doesn't aerate his wort;
23. loves dry yeast, especially US-05;
24. doesn't like Apfelwein very much, but makes it for his friends and
wife;
25. is an avid fan of both Miller High Life and Pabst Blue Ribbon - the former
in bottles, the latter on tap;
26. doesn't like his keggle brewpot, and wishes he had a flat bottom
kettle.
27. doesn't like doppelbocks or barleywines very much;
28. isn't much of an IPA guy;
29. probably drinks too much, but will gladly drink with you.
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Things that annoy me! #2
Lack of "ownership!"
I'm a big stickler on "pride". If I belong to an organization, it's because I
really BELIEVE in that sucker, and will do anything within my power to further
that organization's mission and its well-being.
Some days, I wish that Tx would put up a generic "Donate!" button. Not instead
of the supporting memberships, just in addition to it. That way, once I've
bought my grains and hops for the next month, I can look at my checkbook, and
say "Yeah. I've got an extra $20 that, if I kept it, would just go to making
my lard-ass fatter with another 18 double cheeseburgers. I'm gonna give it to
Tx!" Because, honestly, HomeBrewTalk is like my extended family. And you
can't belong to a bunch of families, just a couple families.
In fact, the local homebrew club is kinda like my birth family - a bunch of
great, motivated people, but not very social. We meet once a month because,
well, that's what we do. We share brews and stories and have a lot of fun
together. But we don't help each other very much because, well, we're a stubborn
lot, and we like fixing things on our own.
And then HBT is kind of like my in-laws' family. WAY, WAY involved. Everyone
knows everything about each others' life. And you either spend the majority of
your time and energy staying up-to-date on this monstrously large closely-knit
super-active group of socialites, or you fade into the background and the others
lose respect for you.
The difference here is that SWMBO doesn't make me hang out at HBT. Her family...
more so.
Then, there's a third family. A certain other site that shall not be named. To
quote Star Wars, "You'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villiany".
The mere existence of that place makes me anxious. I consider their "work" to be
a direct insult to everything we work to accomplish here, with our dedicated and
hard working mods and TxBrew (ad-min is a banned word). But, from the sheer
number of users who have registered on both sites, I am clearly in the minority.
So I will shut up about that before I anger the gods of beer. But know that I am
seething below the surface. And know that if you are one of the flip-floppers,
that I am a little sad at you. Because I expect my comrades to have strong,
fierce loyalty too. And by enabling those who are unable to follow simple rules
and common courtesy, in the process common courtesy itself is undermined.
So that being said, HBT for futha muckin' life. Bros befo' hoes.
And if you ARE loyal, be proud of it. Work yo'self to the bone for the things
you care about.
For example, I think I wanna start filling in the Wiki. Doesn't matter if it's a
subject I haven't learned much of yet - that's just a reason to learn it, and to
learn it damn well. I want to make this place the definitive and most
comprehensive resource on the net. And I WILL do my best to get it there.
Peace out, homiez. And stay tuned for another Things That Annoy Me.
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Things that annoy me!
This hot weather is annoying me. Makes my ferment temps all wacky. And I don't
have central A/C so it gets mighty warm up in here.
My kettle is annoying me. I need a thinner-metal kettle so that I can boil in
somewhere under 90 minutes.
Grain prices are annoying me. I've scoured the web, and I can't find ANYTHING
better than $64/50# bag of 2-row. At that price, I might as well start buying
Maris Otter for every recipe I brew. And there isn't anyone within 8 hours of me
that bulk-buys (or at least publicizes it) ... my closest bet are the awesome
dudes in STL. (I love you guys and want to come visit, it's just so far, and so
expensive in gas!)
That's it for this afternoon. Stay tuned for another episode of things that are
annoying me. 
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